beach in saranda

The so called "Monastery Beach". According to legend, this is the place where monks used to wash their clothes and so on during the ruling of Ali Pashe Tepelena...

great place....amazing

This is a typical village of South Albania...with small grey colour houses and a lot of olive trees sorrounding houses...this village is caclled 'Kardhiq' and it is very beautiful place with nice and hospitable people...

The second picture is the village of 'Mashkullore' famous for the resistance against Greece occupation between World Wars...

While the third photo I dont remember the name of the village but it was very beautiful to see it...

photos from Albania

This is a small monastery in central Albania. I ve never been inside...but i have heared that it has amazing icons...

A place of ethnic, religious and racial tolerance !!

Come and see and make sure !!

Trip to Albania

Veni, Vidi, Vici, is an old latin proverb that would be appropriate to tell in these moments after a long trip throughout Albanian mountaines and seaside sneaky roads. Starting from Central Kosova to the west, in the border with Albania, an old man with moustache western movie cowboy looking asked us..."where are you guys going?".

In the so called border station, we were asked for some king of document with photo to show the identity. No passports needed. Two same flags were waving in two border stations between Kosovo and Albania. You can speak the same language also...with a little dialect. You can also smoke cigarettes in the Albania albanian side since the border police were doing so...with his cigarette but in his lips and yellowed teeth, he gave a fake smile saying 'welcome to albania brother'.

The ongling road constructions were cutting the old sneaky road that was used for hundreds of years. One of the guys in the car was so afraid of brooks and walleys along the road..."what a bad road!" he indicated several times.

I was astonished with the progress on the road reconstruction. The road was not bad, except for the fact that was not very comfortable.

There was no machiatto, no cappucino and no expresso. Hmmm how can they live without it? The closest solution was to have either Turkish or Greek coffee, but the problem was that both greek and turkish coffee were cooked in the same place. The cups were dividing them.

After few hundred kilometers of drive throughout beautiful landscape, hills and mountains of Central Albania, we entered in a different living style, quiet influenced by the Greek. The South Albania is mostly orthodox religion and with a strong diaspora in Greece.

Beautiful mediterranian villages with small gardens for each house, these villages look like they were designed only for modeling for photos. Small but functional houses with flat roofs and grey coloured are strangly located next to each other creating a mediterranian abstract mosaic that attracts every tourists eye. Very warm and hospital people...

Saranda was the destination achieved only after 630 kilometers of drive throughout albanian lands...a place located in the south of Albania in the Ionian (alb: Jon) seacoast. Mediterranian vegetation like black peper, bananas and huge olive tree fields are the first image that comes up in this beautiful panorama. Then comes the sea...deep, blue, clean, and highly salty.

more stories and photos comming soon...

Kosova Independent - At Last

Celebrations taking place throughout Kosova. 2 milion people celebrated the great day. The sky got lighted and fireworks sparkled and flashed mesmerizing the viewers.

The day of hope, the day of a new beginning and new opportunities.

" We fought so we could live in peace "

Viva Kosova !!

Photos

Guys,

Speaking of photography, let me tell you couple of words...I think that Photoblogging is becoming more and more attractive therefore we should be able to know more about that. This has a lot to do with the concept of citizen journalism and media.

for example; photos and videos from your cell phones...we all have good cellphones nowadays and for example I can do very good videos and photos with my cell phone...therefore we should do citizen reporting with photos and videos.

I have seen also many media now include 'citizen jounalism' in their programmes and it is very interesting how they impact the situation.

Big media like BBC and CNN have these kind of upgraded way of reporting the news...

Lets do something in this regard...shall we?

This is a pic published in a daily newspaper in Kosova also. I have done this for a special feature story on the 'Jashari Family', and celebrations of the national days...2 yrs ago...

Photos

Well, I have to tell you guys that I am a professional photographer also. I have done a course on photography and worked couple of months as photographer. Some photos that I like are already published in daily newspapers in Kosovo. But the three that I published couple of months ago are in the following web site...http://dardamedia.com/art/main.php?g2_itemId=4430

Please feel free to comment and ask...

A.

Intro...

Dear Everobody,

I think I wrote this long time ago but i published in my own blog...and now here we are...

By way of intro...I am Abit and I was born in 1982 in Central Kosova. I have a BA in Political Science and an MA in Journalism and Communication.

Currently I am working for UNDP Kosova and until now I holded some positions with the National Assembly of Kosova, Office on Missing Persons and Forensics, Danish Refugee Council, UNDP, Ministry of Justice, and Ministry of Internal Affairs in Kosova.

I also participated in many seminars on 'transitional justice', 'european integration' etc. As part of my academic background, I participated in several researches in KOsova through international Universities such as: University of Oslo, University of Canberra, University of Vaxjo, etc.

So far, I have participated in three different PhD programmes as professional researcher to help with guidlines for the cultural context of Kosova.

I hope that sharing experiences in this forum will increase my knowledge about different experiences around the globe about different problems.

Kindest Regards. A.

information

guys shall we start rolling this blog??? C mon lets rock and roll....who likes more bob dylan and who likes more the beatles? this is a conflictuos discussion and we shall agree on somethign...at least for a table tennis game...as they say...A.