So..... Let me fill you all in for the last few days.....

Some of you may know, that I have since departed the lands of Albania.... Temporarily..... Last Thursday, I spent the 8-hour bus journey from Sarande to the capital of Albania - Tirana. Yes, it was exactly as bad as everyone had told me. My first mistake was to drink a coffee before leaving. Half an hour later - I was busting for the loo, and unable to translate the words "stop", "can we pull over" or "I need a wee". I managed to hang on for two hours until we stopped for a break, but trust me - it wasn't easy!!

In Tirana, I sampled my first curry in 6 weeks, thanks to Magdalena. That was a definate highlight. I also spent the whole of Friday drinking coffee with friends and looking around the town. I then secretly sneeked off back to the UK on Saturday.

Due to the fog situation, I arrive in London far too late to catch the last train to Reading. Thankfully, Tim offered me a couch for the night, which was awesome of him. Thanks dude - very much appreciated, as Clapham Junction gets a tad chilly at night!!

Anna was totally unaware of all of this, thanks to everyone who was in on the secret, and who kept it that way. On Christmas day - I drove down to Taunton, and shocked her!! I then gave her a ring and asked her to marry me. She said 'Get down on one knee and ask me again!!' So - I did, and she said 'Yes!!'. So my big news everybody.... I'm engaged!!

I will be returning to Albania on the 2nd of January, so I will continue with all updates on my return.

On the eve of the Sarande all-churches concert.... I've developed a cold. My throat really hurts, and I'm meant to sing tomorrow. Its a concert which all the churches of Sarande are contributing to. It was aranged at slightly short notice, so I hope people turn up!! I'll tell you how it goes tomorrow.

On a happy note.... We've got rain - lots of it. Ive soaked through 2 pairs of shoes today. I was being sarcastic about it being a happy note. I hate having damp feet :o(

Today I went to the Cuke gypsy camp once again. But the weather today was so good, I took my camera for the first time since arriving here. I wanted to give you guys a feel of life there. There are some great characters there. Some of them young and some slightly older...





There are also some really cute babies!!!



This is where they live..... There are a couple of houses (well.... shacks really) either side of this road.


This is their church. It was fairly packed today.... It also doubles as their school during the week.



I'll leave you with a picture I took later on today, when we had our usual 6 o clock power cut. Apparently theres only enough water left to create (using hydroelectricty) another 10 days of power. Then the country is in trouble. We need rain!!! The town being so dark, brought the stars out in such an amazing way. Unfortunately - this picture REALLY doesn't do it any justice. But I thought I'd put it on here anyway. Naten e mir. :o)

Ouch.

I'm in total agony today. Wednesday I played my first game of football in over two years. And its this morning that I am feeling the after effects. My joints are stiff and my entire lower half just generally hurts :o( On the plus side.... we won, and I scored a cracking volley, beating a defender and my Diti (who was on my side) to the ball, and put it past the keeper in the bottom corner. Beautiful.

I think I'm getting old though.

Thank goodness for an internet connection!!! :o) No more smokey atmosphere of the Internet Cafe! Hooray!!

I've not quite managed to get one for the house yet... That is apparently on its way. However - today I spent all day working at the Lidia Foundation headquaters in Sarande, organising their network. This is so that they now have a little room of 6 computers, all hooked up to the internet. This is in preperation for the lessons that I am to be giving after Christmas. It took all day... I've never seen things happen so fast. Normally in the UK, if you need a hole in the wall, you have to wait months for the builders to come round!! These guys took half-an-hour!!! The guys who came, also just drilled a hole. Now keep in mind that there was an electricity socket about 30cms away from the hole.... This didn't seem to worry them. They just drilled. They also found that the wall was thicker than their drill bit, so they seemed to guess at where the first incision was made, from the opposite side, resulting in what can only be described as 'one and a half holes in the wall'. It made me chuckle!!

Cable problems aside (these were handmade cables, and they were a little troublesome) the network was succesfully installed. I was proud of myself for remembering my University training on using hubs in networks and the fact that you need a crossover cable hooked to the router. Sorry - teccy stuff I know, but I was pleased :o)

Not much news apart from that. Weather has been a little overcast, but thats nothing to the rain that the UK has apparently been suffering. Ha ha ha... Sorry - I have to laugh!!

The other day I took a walk around town with my camera. The weather, as you can see was superb. Just thought I'd put the best ones on here, so you can see. Hope you enjoy.

As Christmas comes near, plans for Christmas here are hotting up. Christmas is celebrated here, but apparently its nowhere near as popular as new year. From what I gather, the church here is going to celebrate by having a big all-day party, with a large sheep or goat on a spit roast, a drama of the nativity (which I’ve had to write) presents for each other and a lot of singing!!

New year here is a much celebrated event, and it involves fireworks – lots of them!! Apparently its like a war zone here on new years, so I’ll be with camera at the ready, and I’ll try and get some pictures. The best fireworks display I’ve been to was for the July 6th Independence day celebrations at San Francisco harbour, with the Golden Gate bridge as a backdrop… These fireworks had better be good to beat them!! :o)

I preached on Sunday… It was a sermon on sex before marriage! It was quite a difficult topic to raise with the younger generation, especially when a lot of their parents were there too! My translator did very well too, as I said some very rude words in church, which she translated, despite originally refusing to translate them!! Next Sunday, I am going to preach another one on sex within marriage, and how that is a blessing which is blessed by God.

Cuke on Saturday was rather entertaining. I was the only older guy there, and the women asked me to look after the children just outside the room where they were sitting, so that they could have a bit of a ‘womans chat’ with some of the cuke women. So I took the guitar outside and sang some songs. Most of the kids songs here have actions. One in particular has evolved into pushing and shoving during one part of the song…. This could only result in injuries! Thankfully they’re tough kids, but they were practically jumping on top of each other during the song…. I’ve now banned the song. Until next week.

Yesterday, I visited the local High School. On arriving, we walked into one of the worst smells in the world!! Someone had let off a stink bomb, and it was dee-sgusting. It reminded me of my school in Cardiff though!! I have been told that they do not have Internet there, and they have asked me to install the internet, and distribute the connection around the 20 or so computers (HP I might add – thought it could be worth a publicity shot perhaps?) in the computer room. The cables are all plumbed in, and all I will need to do is configure the ADSL, configure the network and most importantly – restrict the website access!! Its probably the first thing these cheeky kids would do!!

Keep your messages coming in. Its really good to hear from you all. I will try and write some more before Christmas, but its going to be hectic here up until then.

Those of you who know me know that me and early mornings do not mix. This morning I was awoken at 6.15am to go to Greece, and was ushered out of the house before I took even one sip of the coffee I had managed to put together in a doze. Therefore, a happy Siôn this does not make.

The reason for this impromptu trip across the border was that today was exactly one month since I arrived here in Albania (only two more months to go before I return home!!) and therefore according to Albanian visa laws, my visa had now expired. Its strange though, as none of the policemen we have talked to seem to know about this law, and I would probably have no trouble staying here longer. But at the end of the day – its not worth the risk.

So Bimi and I started off at around 6:30 this morning to head for Greece. The road started off ok – many twists and turns, but not too bad. However – as we got to more open countryside, the roads also got a little bit more rural. I think I hit my head on the roof at least 3 times!! Bimi’s car isn’t in the best of shapes either. Bimi has frequently recalled the numerous accidents this car has been involved in. He calls it a ‘lucky’ car. I would hesitate that it is no more than a ‘death trap’, but I’m not sure of the Albanian for this, so we’ll leave it at that. Anyway – thank God – I’m back home in one piece.

On our travels, we met two policemen – one on the way there, and one on the way back, and we gave them lifts to their destinations. We also came across some sheep and some goats. In the middle of the road. Kind of reminded me of back home in Wales really :o)

As you can see from the photos too – the road was incredibly picturesque. The views at Butrint were amazing, and the pictures we took in the summer of this castle pale into comparison with the ones I took this morning.

My apologies for not writing for a while. I’ve been busy doing mostly church related things – encouraging and teaching Diti and Kiko – the band at church. I’ve also started writing a sermon on marriage. Its not from an ‘experience’ perpective, of course, but as most of you know – I’m going to ask Anna to marry me sometime soon, and so am just checking out all the small print ? My favourite quote is from Proverbs 27:15 – “A quarrelsome wife is like a constant dripping on a rainy day”. I didn’t know my mother featured in the Bible :o) Just kidding mum!!

Things are going well, but I miss you all very much at home. Keep your comments and emails coming in. Thanks to the two of you who offered some help with the Buggy for Iliar. I haven’t got a reply from the company I wrote to yet, so am trying again today.

This is Iliar. Iliar is the same age as me – 27. He was born in a remote village in the Permet region of Southern Albania. He was one of twins, but complications at birth meant that Iliar's twin brother only lived for a few days. As for Iliar - he spent the first three months of his life in an incubator. Conditions were grim in the ill-equipped hospital and an operation to straighten his twisted feet (a straight forward operation in any western country) was not possible. This has left him with a strong upper body, but he has no other option but to get about by shuffling around on his knees. As you can see – Iliar’s house is very small, and they are a very poor family, with only one bread-winner in the family.


Richard (a missionary here for 11 years) found a very good looking buggy that was in an aid warehouse in Albania's capital, Tirana. After transporting it for 7 hours in the back of his vehicle directly to Iliar's home, he was extremely disappointed to discover that there was a fault. Despite being told at the warehouse that it had been tested and was in good working order, we cannot repair it. A new part is needed and parts are not available in Albania. As you can see from the photo – the buggy would be amazing with Iliar’s road being such a rough terrain.

I am making enquiries from this end for a replacement part, but any assistance from the UK (or anywhere else for that matter) would be much appreciated. I can send details to anyone who would like to help.

After taking a bit of a break from learning verbs – my head couldn’t any more!! I am back in the books, studying more words than you can shake a stick at. Tomorrow I will tackle the 3rd group of verbs – the most difficult of them all, as they do not follow any pattern.
As a taster – here’s the verb ‘to hurry’

English HURRY
Unë Shpejtoj
Ti Shpejton
Aj / Ajo Shpejton
Ne Spejtojmë
Ju Shpejtoni
Ata / Ato Shpejtojnë
Past Unë kam Shpejtuar
Fut –Unë do të Shpejtoj
Order Shpejto

Now try learning 40 of them! :o)

I’ll leave you with more pics from the beach – there was some waves yesterday (which was a rarity, as normally the sea is like a sheet of glass). Enjoy.

Happy Albanian Independence day!!!!

Today I was meant to get up at 4:30am to go to a town called Vlora. The festivities there apparently are very good, and therefore I was very prepared to get up and go at stupid o’clock on the bus on a 4 hour journey through mountain territory. But unfortunately, I had a very restless night, probably due to the fact that I was due to get up at such an unearthly hour, and therefore in turn, couldn’t sleep. I instead caught up on my sleep and slept till 9, and had a very chilled morning. Nice. :o)

You may think I’m writing this in a dingy internet café, somewhere in southern Albania. Well – I’m actually writing this in warm sunshine on the roof of the house where I’m staying. I’m overlooking the mountains, the bay where Sarande is set, and therefore an all-round beautiful view. The only downside is that I can’t see my laptop screen as well, due to the amount of sunshine!! I think I can live with that though!!

Sorry once again for the lack of writing – let me recap of the events of the weekend…There wasn’t much to tell I’m afraid. But I’ll try and make it as interesting as possible.

Saturday, we didn’t go to the gypsy camp, as we usually would, as Richard (the missionary who normally takes us) was in Tirana (the capital) on a conference. I therefore spent the day catching up with Diti, watching Liverpool and Man City play in a bar in town. It was good to catch up, and since Liverpool is his favourite team – he was pleased too.

Sunday was spent with an early morning for church. And unfortunately I have no idea what sermon was about!! Its not that it was difficult to understand – it was just in Albanian, and I’m still not getting the hang of it. My verbs aren’t coming along all that well, and every day that passes, I realise that I just don’t know that many words :o( I have to remind myself that I’ve only been here two weeks though, and I have learnt so much already that I just have to be patient.

Evening church (at 4) was er… empty. It seemed different to last week. There were 6 of us, but 4 of us were in the band, so that was kind of strange. We had a very good time of prayer though, and I think we were all encouraged, despite the low turnout!

In contrast, the second half of the Manchester United vs Chelsea match was dire. Chelsea were all over United, and probably deserved more than a point. Skender and I went to see the match in a bar round the corner, and it was nice to spend some time with him. I will make sure that I try and do this more often.

I have honestly done a lot more than watch football. HONEST!! I went to the beach again the other day. Once again - I was appauled at the state of the beach - someone has left a MASSIVE amount of needles on the beach (probably thieves, apparently), and so I had to be careful to keep the kids away. Here's some pics... As you can see - the weather was beautiful. The youngster in the photo is Arifi - he lives accross the road with his mum and his two sisters.


In honour of the fact that I watched the film 'High Fidelity' last night on my ipod, I thought it would be fitting to do some top 5’s. (If you haven’t seen the film, you’re missing out).

Top 5 things I miss about home
1. Anna-Faith Gainsford (she has to be top, or she’d kill me!!) – but no – really I miss her like crazy.
2. My car – although I wouldn’t drive it here – it would be scrap metal by now!
3. HP – ha ha ha – only kidding. Although I do miss my colleagues. Russ – I miss your stories!! Lynne… The CCM support team…. Hope you boys are doing ok without me!
4. Electrical things like my big TV (and English programs on said TV) and a permanent internet connection.
5. Not having to worry so much about money - I have to count every penny here!

Top 5 things I love about Albania
1. The sunshine and the views
2. The family I’m living with – they’re fantastic
3. Tirana beer
4. The fact you can find any football match (apart from Cardiff city matches) at the bars here
5. Kinder chocolate. One of the few western things here at the moment, but my goodness – its good :o)

Top 5 songs played on my ipod while im here
1. The happy song – Delirious (from the Access D album)
2. When we were young - The Killers (Sam’s Town)
3. Maneater – Nelly Furtado (Loose)
4. You’re all I have – Snow Patrol (Eyes open)
5. All we need – Charlie Hall (Flying into daybreak)

Top 5 things most needed over here
1 Blank acetates for songs at church (and some permanent marker pens)
2 A new laptop for Magdalena – a ZX spectrum would Windows XP quicker than the one she has at the moment
3 Plectrums – lots of them – mainly cos Diti has lost all of his!
4 A pirate’s compass – to stop Joni mentioning it so much, and save my sanity!! :o)
5 Money… There are so many good causes here to support… the gypsy education program, building new amenities for the gypsy people, supporting the work of the churches here, support for the missionaries who are out here…. Tons of things!!

I will close today by showing some of the pics I took the other evening of Sarande by night.

Well – I haven’t written for a while. My apologies for that. I’ve been busy, and hiding from the rain!!

To those of you who are thinking that I’ve probably got a tan by now, and that the weather is always wonderful here (and i wouldn’t blame you for thinking that – i have been praising the weather a lot) I can definitely refute that rumour. For the past two evenings, we have had horrendous storms!! We’ve had wind, rain and thunder!! Its been atrocious weather. Definitely doesn’t help your sleeping patterns either.

Life in Sarande has been plodding along really. I went to church on Sunday twice, and both times had English sermons… The first was preached by Jeff, who spoke about the consequences of sin, and the urgency to commit your life to God. The second was by Richard, who spoke about his recent trip to Tirana, when he attended a day conference on ‘trafficking’. He told of horrific examples of women and children who have been taken from their homes all over eastern Europe for sexual exploitation in western Europe, including the UK. He challenged us by asking what would we do if someone who had been trafficked came to us for help. Would you be a Good Samaritan?

I have been very busy learning Albanian over the last few days, but the last two lessons have totally blown my mind…. Did you know that Albanian has 9 past tenses? Two of which doesn’t even exist in English!! It’s driving me crazy!! And they’re only verbs. The nouns all change their ending, depending on who’s article they are, and whether they are plural or not. And don’t get me started on the male female… Depending on whether the article is male or female, the endings change again!! Its nuts!!

I went to have dinner with Richard (a missionary here) and his wife on Tuesday. Food was delicious, especially the bread and butter pudding we had for desert. I couldn’t help having seconds! Richard and I then went to a very nice bar showing the champions league footy. Once again, I can’t believe that Manchester United lost!! Rubbish. We kind of watched two games….. There was a huge thunder storm happening at the time, so each time the tv signal got a bit dodgy, they changed the channel. I found this quite annoying, but no-one else seemed to care. Part of the life here, I guess.

A group of us came together yesterday to translate some church songs into Albanian. An easy task, you would think. Hmmm…. Try fitting the words buzëqeshur or pandryshueshëm into a song… Its not easy!!

I was going to go to Tirana for the weekend, but I won’t be going any longer – there’s no room in the makina(car, but car is a rude word here!!). So, it’s a huge shame that I will be missing out on another 7 hour journey!! Ha ha…. Not!!

I will leave you with my trip to the seaside the other day with the kids. Top left are Elda and Joni showing me what they won in a packet of crisps (with Sarah in the background). Top right are Elda and Alma, having a right laugh, although I'm not quite sure what they were laughing at!! :o)Bottom left is a banana plan we came across on the beach. Finally, I've included a photo of the storm clouds which were over Corfu island at the time, but eventually arrived early that evening.

This morning, I have finally received my first case of a dodgy tummy. Sorry readers for telling you this, but I thought it was a historic event worth noting. To be honest, I don’t think it will be the last time I will have dodgy tummy while I’m here, but I promise from now on I will spare you any details :o)

Today I was awoken early (again)… There’s only so much pokemon in italian you can take before I got *very* fed-up and decided that it was time to get up.

I sorted out my washing this morning. This was because I’d left my clothes to dry on the roof for about 3 days. Yes – my pants were out for all to see for 3 whole days. Oops!!

Kids church was at 10. This involved me generally making a total idiot of myself, not knowing all the words to the songs, and doing all the gestures in a… well…. idiotic fashion. It’s a great laugh, but more importantly – the church was much fuller than last week, and I felt that the kids enjoyed it far far more (probably cos they didn’t have to put up with me on guitar!!!) During the talk bit, one of the leaders took the younger kids to a little side room to give them an easier lesson. Having tried to listen for about 10 minutes to the big kids talk, I was fed up of totally not understanding a word, that I went to play with hand puppets and try and understand the little kids talk. Now these kids are 4 or 5, but I didn’t really understand their talk either, so I was completely at a loss. I felt as though I was making headway yesterday (by learning a whole heap of new verbs), but today felt a step backwards.

We visited Cukë (the gypsy camp) at 3pm. Well – we picked up some food parcels for them, which consisted of bread, flour, oil, a frozen chicken and some biscuits. I believe this is a contribution from the church for every family there. This must be a costly operation. I would hazard a guess that each pack would cost around 1000 lek (about 5 pounds) and there was about 20 in the back of the jeep, which for each family I would estimate a monthly cost of around 100 pounds. I’m sure the church here would love some contributions, and if you’d like the details – please email me.

Before leaving the shop, we all took timeout for a quick drink of Fanta. Hmmm – this was probably a bad move. A whole can of fizzy fanta, my dodgy belly, a back seat in the jeep and the state of the roads on the way to cuka don’t make for a happy Sion!!! Man – I felt ill when we arrived!!! :o)
The Cukë people were on good form when we arrived. They thought for a second we weren’t coming, and some were on their way back to the second camp, so we turned them around. I can honestly say that i have never had so much fun when I’ve visited these guys in church. There was a bigger congregation than last week, but the heart of some of the ladies truly is astonishing. One of the women gave a testimony of how she prays every day, and really encouraged the others to do the same. Another told of how her knee was healed after she had prayed for it. It was fantastic, and that coupled with more crazy singing….

The only problem with visiting Cukë is that you never know what else you come home with. I’ve had the warmest shower in the world, but I’m still not feeling clean. Ah well – S’ka problem.




Busy day tomorrow, so I probably won’t post, but please do keep your comments and thoughts coming in – its good to hear from you.