By Paul Demers
Summer 2024 Newsletter
[Ed. note: Paul Demers, one of our collection volunteers from Vermont, wrote a blog, Biking the Balkans. This post is from one of his blog entries.]
Touring Tirana: The fast lane of a small country
Tuesday April 30, 2024
Today was a day off from cycling.
For 25 years Joanne (my spouse) and I have part of team of people collecting bikes and sewing machines for developing countries with Pedals for Progress. We have collected about 5,000 bikes and more than 1,000 sewing machines in that time. Today I got to visit where some of those bikes have been sent. Last year some bikes collected in Burlington went to Absolute Bikes in Tirana. We had marked the Vermont bikes with an orange ribbon, so I could tell where they came from. This certainly created a positive connection.
Tirana’s center displays an affluence that would be familiar in any capital city in Europe. Bright and modern storefronts, bike paths, spacious parks, and an attention to what attracts tourists. I walked perhaps a 3 mile radius near the center. There are not a lot of very old buildings, but there are some very modern, edgy architecture that has been constructed in recent years.
I spent the rest of the day walking in Tirana with my brother-in-law Thomas who will be joining me for an organized bike tour to UNESCO cities in Albania during the next 10 days.
Our main visit was to Bunk’Art, an underground bunker in central Tirana that was a very thorough history of police/security forces in Albania, with an emphasis on the security forces of the Hoxha era. The museum was chilling.
My writings in this blog have been very personal. I will try to maintain that tone in the coming days. I personally am not interested in reading about the dynamics between people on a tour.
Follow up email correspondence from second shorter visit:
Conversation with Nina
Nina and Valjon were concerned about the climate and environment. In 2003 they worked with a student group and the Tirana mayor (now prime minister) to do volunteer based clean up. Under communism, ‘volunteer’ work was mandatory, so much of her work was teaching people a new attitude.
They first started working with p4p in 2006. The thinking was that getting children on bikes would help change parents while creating conscious kids. Much of the work supports getting bikes to kids and the poor.
Recent efforts have been getting bikes to women to expand their mobility and view of the world.
The bikes they can use the most are children’s bikes, hybrids and mountain bikes. While there are bike lanes in Tirana, much of Albania still has some pretty rough roads. They liked seeing the bikes collected in Barre and hope they will receive some.
Nina does not work for Absolute Bikes, but has stayed connected. Valjon works here full time.