Paradiselostintranslation
(Tirana)
322 Visits
Tales of a lonely exile. A mother's move firstly from ordinary Oxford to extraordinary Asia. Then to anarchic Albania. Sri Lanka was described as a paradise island by Marco Polo; Albania declared a paradise by Enver Hoxa, its dictator. Perhaps it's all semantics, but, for me, something got lost in translation.......
tags: children, ex pat life, mum abroad, observations of life, travel
Author
We moved from the UK to Sri Lanka at the start of 2006 to work in Emergency Response, a tsunami relief programme with aninternational NGO. After 2 yrs we moved to Albania where my husband works in microfinance for the same NGO. I was a secondary school teacher, now I'm largely a trailing spouse & mobile mother. My children were 5 & 21 mths when we moved abroad, now they're 5 & 9, makes it seem like we've been away for ages..
Latest posts on Paradiselostintranslation
One Down, Three to Go
Posted on 22/09/2012
Woohoo, I have my Albanian police check! One down, three to go. My former director (of the school I taught in) took my scanned passport & parents full names (that's all he...
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A Fine Upstanding Citizen in Search of Work
Posted on 12/09/2012
Just how hard can it be to work in this country? Clearly the answer is quite hard, if you work with children & need a CRB check.First of all I discovered you can't apply for one as...
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A Year and a Day
Posted on 25/06/2012
A year and a day ago we returned to England from 5 1/2 years living abroad.So how do we feel a year on? Well, firstly I can't believe it's a year already. I am still at that stage...
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Town or Country Living?
Posted on 20/06/2012
We're going to see a house today. Together. This is the first house my husband has got really excited about or been to view with me. He has even been doing a few sums to work out if we...
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Diamond Jubilee
Posted on 31/05/2012
Today is my daughter's school's Diamond Jubilee celebration. They re-enacted the Coronation, had a trestle table lunch outside & a crown competition (which my daughter won)...
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The Flip Side of the NHS Coin
Posted on 10/02/2012
I think I will draw a veil over the day after the operation, when my daughter was hobbling around with her catheter & bag, like a little old lady with a bad dose of piles. It was quite...
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A Day with the NHS
Posted on 07/02/2012
Today was the day of our 7 y-o daughter's 4th surgical procedure in her short life. She was having a minor operation to cure her reflux, which she should have grown out of by now. She...
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In the name of....
Posted on 24/11/2011
Do you know, Iota mentioning about Daniel the Spaniel reminded me I had completely forgotten to tell you my choice of name for our dog.I wanted to name him after the famous self-appointed...
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Puppy Power
Posted on 23/11/2011
Sorry for the lack of posts recently. I have been rather preoccupied....This little 7 wk old thing came into our lives 11 days ago. As I expect some readers may remember, I rashly promised...
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Shopping Errands
Posted on 15/10/2011
My husband went to the supermarket this morning. First time this century I believe. To buy bread & milk.What did he buy?Wine, port, pate, a size 4 rugby ball, an All Blacks rugby shirt...
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Comments
I love you blog so much. My husband is an Albanian, we together with two little boys (twins) live in the UK. My husband however loves his homeland and always wants to go back to his country to live there. His explanations are simple: life is short, enjoy it while you can - he loves his country, as if only there he could find his happiness! To him, life is less stressful in Albania, and the living atmosphere is so friendly and lively! The most important thing is that in his country, he is not a foreigner anymore - he feels proud of himself as a native!
I have been to his country many times on holiday, to me, although the country is still developing, it has loads to offer - the life style there is superb - everyone is so relaxed compared with the people here in the UK. Of course, money is little there, yet, people are still enjoying their lives - it strikes me if you can make sure you have the source of income to cover the cost of living, life would be wonderful there!
I don't know how you feel about this country, it all seems you miss the country a little bit?
Best,
Yan
Maybe the moving around, will make your children more mature adults
Do visit my blog at
http://prashantnepayments.blogspot.com/
feedback welcome,
hope to see more interesting posts in your blog
nprashant, Hyderabad, India