Over the past year, Criss has worked with two organizations in assisting in the writing of a grant proposal to develop a tourist site in an area outside of Fushë-Kruja (also know as Bush-Kruja in honor of the presidents recent visit). At the moment, this site which is know as Albanopoli, is only a ruin on the side of the hill
The overall project has several objectives in the areas of environmental awareness, economic development and community enablement, that is getting the community to act on its own. Remember, in this post communistic setting, people still look to the government and outsiders to do everything. In fact the best outcomes of this project are three NGOs are working together and the community is discovering it has resources within itself that can be drawn on to make these changes happen.
There are a couple of clean-up days, tree-planting days and other activities where Peace Corp volunteers will be involved. The first activity was a trash pickup at a school. It was really quite easy; you walk out on the schoolyard, stop and start picking up trash – anywhere you went was fine and after 2 hours, you can still pick up more. For this activity, we had about 20 students from another school arrive who came to meet the Americans and practice their English.
After the clean up activity, there was the obligatory photo-opt with all the dignitaries – mayor, school principals, local business owners and the furgon drivers.
After the photos, the students left and we got our first trip to Albanopoli. As we piled into the van, the neighborhood kids asked where we were going, we told them and they disappeared. A 10-minute drive up the mountain took us the site of Albanopoli and waiting for us were our peeps, about a dozen of the neighborhood kids. We could have walked with them, but for respect we are driven everywhere.
Haxhi (pronounced Ha-jee) is the force behind this project. He is from the small community next to the site and though he lives in Durrës, he wants to bring part of the tourism economic development to his hometown. Under communism, he was the ambassador to France and so he is very effective at getting community leaders to support this project. This has been his dream for 4 years and it is a real pleasure to work with him on it. He was our tour guide today, even in his suit and tie, assisted by our peeps.
Not a lot of information is available about this location. The facts are brief: Albanopoli was referenced in a 2nd century document by the ancient geographer and cartographer, Claud Ptoleme; in the1860’s an Austrian archaeologist suggested this site should be excavated as an important Illyrian site; in 1969 and 1973 the Institute of Culture and Monuments sponsored excavations which did not reach any conclusive findings, but without any other known ancient center bigger than this site at Zgerdhesh, the hypothesis that this is Albanopoli is still viable. See posting from Haxhi.
On the way back, we walked through a formation that was rich with marine fossils and Carol picked up a few items for a closer look and our assistant tour guides took this as a opportunity to see who could find the best seashell from Kruja.
During the distraction of finding shells and general talk, some of our party missed the turn in the trail and ended up coming up a secondary route. The consequences of not paying attention while out hiking are gross!
Back to where our tour began and we took pictures with the park ranger. Yes, the shotgun is loaded and the guard was not too concerned where he pointed the gun, so Criss took his picture and moved on to the van.
At this time it was back to Fushe-Kruja to see the office for Haxhi and Fali (the other person supporting this project) and then we expected to head back to Durrës. But before returning, Haxhi insisted on providing lunch for us. On the way to the restaurant, we had to walk by the open market and of course there was shopping to be done.
