By Roland Qafoku
In a prominent resort of Lalzi Bay, news just came in that the corncobs had arrived. You’re at your lounger and as soon as you hear it, whether you want it or not, you’re connected to this summer news. The news is announced by a man who is exhausted by the long hours and endless miles that he walks under the sun. But in the lounger next to yours, your discontent gives pleasure to someone else. A number of people put their hands into their pockets, take out their money, buy five or six corncobs and start to eat them. You’re condemned to listen to the symphony of their chewing for 10 whole minutes. Their teeth which penetrate so deep in the corncob and the scene with the sun which burns you, the burning sand under your feet and the dirty sea water, turn you into a very strange holidaymaker. The last part of the overture consists of the corncobs leftover which are left on the sand by the whole group.
Then, your attention is attracted by several holidaymakers, migrant workers who live in England. To the three year old boy they speak loudly and in English. A sort of speech which varies from a mixture of vocabulary which doesn’t go any further than the vocabulary used in the subway station, with an Albanian syntax, but when there’s something important to say, their Albanian remains irreplaceable. The tone is raised and the screeching voice hurts your ears: Don’t gooooo! Then, as if by magic, the tone is lowered when you hear the words “Come on my baby”!
The “English woman” of this umbrella feels bad when her son poops in his diapers and she does the rudest thing in front of the other holiday makers, an act which she has not learned in London. Without any shame whatsoever, she removes her son’s diapers in front of everyone and washes him at sea, scolding him and telling not to do it again. Those who see this scene remain speechless.
A big family is stationed under another umbrella. These are the “Italians” from the villages of the South of Albania. They run on the sand as if it’s the first time in their life that they do this, while you must stand the dust that they raise with their feet. They only speak Italian. But at one point, you hear them going “who was talking to you!?” and you realize that they are about to fight. They look as if they haven’t come from London or Rome, but rather, from the mountains. And to think that the state considers them as tourists. But everything about them is refuted by the latest models of cars that they have parked nearby. En route to the resort, cars with GB, I and FR license plates were the ones that did acrobatics on the road. Scary overtaking, extreme speeding and each one of them looked like a dog which had just released from the chains. These people can move on the road with a ML Benz, an Audi or a Hyundai, but the type of their car has nothing to do with what they represent. Then we see the main character of the day. The boy who takes care of the umbrellas, but who is unable to cope with the rubbish of those who lay on the sand. He must also cope with the strange customers who speak to him in Albanian and who pretend they do not understand him. But the boy is more intelligent than them. When he tells them that the price for the umbrella is 10 euros, they “sober up”, get angry and speak in Albanian. “This is what I wanted”, replies the boy with his bag on the shoulder, while this time, he tells the Albanian speaking holidaymakers that the price for an umbrella is 500 lek. But the umbrella boy has his limitations too. He comes near our tent for the second time and once again, asks us to pay. We remind him that we have already paid. But he doesn’t believe. I show him the ticket that he gave us. This time he assumes a serious look. He checks his personal book that he carries in his bag and apologizes us. “I haven’t been well today”, he says sincerely. “I was dizzy”. Alright, but he cannot imagine how dizzy he made us feel when he asked us to pay for a second time.
And the beach scenes continue a little further. Some MPs appear near the water. They seemed thoughtful. Were they perhaps thinking about their constituents? We meet one of them. He was sad about the fact that these holidays were not the best he had ever spent. “One can no longer spend holidays here”, the angry MP says, blaming the opposing party for this. In the past, when he was in power, the beach was clean, prices were lower and people were happier. While now…
But the battle in the beach continues. In front of us appear three young holidaymakers, who were no more than 25 years old and looked like Sumo wrestlers. When they get into the water, it seems as if the sea has more waves. They look more like a massive of meat rather than a human body.
The scene with Albanian tourism continues at 10 am when a tractor approaches to clean the beach, by immediately creating piles of plastic bottles, cans and beer bottles, while the bins that are nearby, are empty. This is the best time to understand what kind of society we are. We can’t blame Edi Rama or Lulzim Basha for this. We only have ourselves to blame.
But this day continues with other scenes. A businessman, who it’s clear that he has lots of debts, makes endless phone calls while he lays in his lounger. He likes to show off and he turns on the speaker. We hear every word that he and the other person say. There are many businessmen like this one in Tirana and Albania, but even for him, we’re to blame.
This is what I call tourism. Albania is really the last unexplored paradise.
Note: The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Albanian Free Press’ editorial policy.
