The Urchins of Tirana. By Uncle Monty.

The Urchins of Tirana
By Uncle Monty
=
From what I have concluded, the poorest and most marginalized
parents on the streets of Albania’s capital of Tirana, had the most
neglected and deprived children helping them to publicly beg.
When I caught up with one gang that I photographed (caption
photo above) of seven little street kidz all begging on Luigj

Gurakuqi, I soon realized they were blood kith and kin. The

youngest was perhaps no older than age two and the oldest

perhaps age ten at most. Yet, they seemed almost

“programmed” from day one of their oppressed lives

to learn the art and mannerism of begging.
=
When a two years old mutters something about needing food,

one would have to be an utter swine or cad not to respond and

to give to such an unloved child even when you know perhaps

the money is more for the parents then for the particular child

asking for you to help. I just couldn’t say “no” to such a child

and so I then pressed in her little tiny hand 100 Lekë in the

hope it would benefit the child somehow. Less than ten seconds

of giving such, the whole gang then turned to me with their own

special pleas for more Lekë or money. Their parents, oftentimes

more persistent and more skilled. if you will, at getting others

to give, soon joined their kidz in reinforcing their collective

and individual pleas to me. In the end, I simply tossed in

the air a whole bunch of small change from my pocket for

them all to either grab or to run after to pickup the change

now scattered on the sidewalk. It worked beautifully,

I must say. I was freed from the begging
horde after that at least for that day …
=

Here Photographed Are More Urchins of Tirana.

I first tried that at Morocco’s Marrakesh

when I was confronted with constant aggressive
panhandlers. I carried small change around with me

and then I’d toss a coin or two in the air and it was quite

hilarious to watch the reaction of both beggars and tour-

ists to my acts of giving … Invariably, those begging

would scramble to get my “street donation.” While

others would become disoriented in figuring out what

next to do has I then strolled on unhampered until the

next Moroccan beggar came rushing toward me.

I simply repeated the same trick … and

it just worked marvels.
=
Kidz Collecting Scrap at Xhamia Xhura.

On the outskirts of the City of Tirana, I went to
the Xhamia Xhura mosque area and saw young
kidz (shown above) and out of school there at the
housing projects collecting whatever scrap metal
they could to sell. It’s not uncommon to also see
such kidz going thru heaps of garbage trying to find

things they can salvage for money along with gathering

empty aluminium soda cans to sell by weight. Women,

both young and old, I also saw doing the same thing.
=

Myself with more of the Tirana Urchins.

The Urchins of Tirana don't have much of a future
if Albania fails to provide a social safety net for them. And the

parents who should least have any more deprived children,

will probably go ahead and have more brought into this

world that will certainly be rather bleak for those children, too.
=

As for City of Tirana itself, the place is thick with dust, reeks of

refuse, garbage galore, missing drain covers, countless potholes,

piles of rubble that are left at where they first appeared, along

with dead dogs and cats just left on the streets and other starving
creatures destined to cruelly die on the same streets because few

people will feed the wandering dogz and catz. But I did.

I took them slices of cooked ham and milkwith plastic bowls

so that I could randomly feed some of the poor

thingz I bumped intofrom this to that street.

=
I hate to see cruelty to children and animals because of

humanity’s refusal to help them. Thus, The Urchins of

Tirana are simply a manifestation of the overall neglect

I found not only of the overall physical infrastructure

at Tirana, but also more acutely at the socia

l service and housing levels.
=
The Xhamia Xhura Neighbourhood

Yet, on the other hand, the Tirana public school kidz
I saw arriving at two downtown schools were neatly
dressed, diffident, respectiful and their manners seemed
almost quaint against the loud backdrop of the many vile,
rude and common academy school kidz and hoodies of
England today. Tirana isn’t a multi-racial society at all
and thus there’s a sense of secure homogeneity in the air
and unlike London which now suffers from its hysterical
heterogeneity that has been created by the contrived social
and political imposition of its forced multicultural society
upon the now subdued professional classes. The Urchins
of Tirana are, ironically, heterogeneous for being who they
are as a subculture in an otherwise majority homogeneous
society that is deeply etched in the psyche and
drama of what is Albania today.
=
When I asked an American-educated Albanian
university math graduate about the problem of
homelessness in such Balkan countries like Albania,
she pointedly said: “Excuse me, but what problem?
She went on to add that Europeans “invent”
problems that are “manufactured” by them and
don’t really exist only for social engineers who want
to look and “sound humane” and “academically
savvy.” As for the street urchins, she rubbished my
view that they should be helped to get off the streets
and given a proper education, etc. “They get off the
street when it gets very COLD. We don’t need to
get them off the street the weather does it for us.”
She felt education had no practical use for
such kidz and that whatever education they
would be given would only teach them how
to “better beg" and work even less.
=
The Urchins of Tirana are the most visible to
any visitor to the city like me. But I suspect
that thousands of other children of poverty are
hidden from view and never seen by the
visiting public all over today’s Albania, which
has a growing population of around 3½ million
citizens according to the CIA online handbook
about the country. What steps, if any, the central
and local governments are trying to do for such
children and their families I do not know in what
is now being called “an emerging democracy”
out of the once rigidly atheistic, totalitarian
State, of Enver Hoxha. Hopefully, things will
get better and better for all Albanians and
especially for her poor and deprived children.
=
While Tirana is now a rather dirt poor city, there
are clear signs of an emerging free economy and
a rising capitalistic class that hopefully will bring
greater prosperity to the community to enact
social and welfare programs to protect and help
the most vunerable street children in the coming
future. Visiting the Tirana International Hotal at
downtown Skanderberg Square shows evidence
of an improving economy and also the building of
a massive new cathedral, there are still too many
pockets of blighted development and unfinished
edifices and unpaved roads that a focussed
economy will eventually take care of thru such
avenues of open foreign tourism – that brings in
much needed hard currency – and the creation of
new service and manufacturing jobs and start
ups of independent local businesses for the young
Albanians as they graduate from high school and
college.
=
Should I return to Albania in perhaps the next
five to ten years and I then see no more “Urchins of

Tirana” on the streets then I will know Tirana has
made alot more needed progress for her future
betterment. I hope so just for the poor children’s
sake at least …
=
Truly, Uncle Monty.
+The Third Sunday after Easter, 2oo8.
=
PS. On arrival back in London early this
morning, here I see it's SNOWING and even
sticking to the ground on what is supposed to
be a spring day not a winter's one. So from the
low 80's at Tirana and low 70's at Rome,
I am now freezing cold despite my nice
suntan ... Bloody England is always wet
and cold and so dreary ...
=

The New Cathedral (above) being built at Tirana.
Look carefully at the photo I took and notice
at least two of the workers on top of the dome.
I almost feared they'd tumble down with the
gusts of wind and dust swirlling around us all.

=

I'm pleased that google search engine (also

yahoo, etc) now lists and indexes many of my

stories and posts under one heading that one

of my lady fans just sent me the link to such:

http://www.google.com/search?q=thebiggerissueorg&hl=en&filter=0

Finally, perhaps fame at last ...