Peqin is behind us and as we think about our stay there, we are surprised at how comfortable it had become. Through our community project, we had planning and work sessions which were held at the local coffee bars. As a result, we visited nearly all the coffee bars, which was no small feat, and were an accepted part of the scene by the time we left.

It is hard to describe Peqin, but imagine a town with one long block running east to west. Starting on the east end on one side of the street, you have 2 coffee bars and a small restaurant, then next to the restaurant, another coffee bar, then the mosque and plaza with 5 coffee bars behind the plaza. Now across the street, starting at the eastern corner again, you have 3 coffee bars, a couple of mini-marts which are very small convenience stores, another coffee bar, city hall, a taxi stop and finally a corner with a couple more coffee bars. Now this does not address the coffee bars on the side streets nor is it possible to identify all the mini-marts in the residential areas.

For our community project, we had worked with the city and schools to try and get some improvements to the library. Through this process, we met the mayor and vice-prefect, several staff members in city government and teachers. As a result of our work, the community had 2 meetings. One to let the community express their interest in making the library a community resource and the second was a response of the city administration. The second meeting also resulted in the business community pledging $1,050 US to buy books, which is huge. Also, a remodeling of the building was in progress and some adjustments were made to make the library more functional.

While we do not get to see the final results of all this, we hope that just having the people see the city government respond to a request will give them the encouragement to continue with the process. On the downside, the Friday of our swearing-in, the mayor was removed from office on corruption charges. The politics here are just like in the States, where one party just accuses the other party of various charges until something sticks with no real effort to work together to solve problems.