The Burden of the Past and Dreaming Democracy

Abstract

It was my strong desire to return to Albania for a visit. I wanted to see the village where I was born and raised for the first fifteen years of my life. Some would call this nostalgia, but I find that term too abstract to really explain my reasons for wanting to go back. In reality, it was what I left behind, and the experiences I took with me, that pushed me to return. My home was a two-room corner of a large two-storey house built by my father’s uncle during the early part of the last century with money he earned in Egypt. It was the Kaltsounis House, or the Kaltsounatiko, as the locals used to call it. The people lived upstairs and used the ground floor mainly for storage. The animals, a couple of horses and a donkey, also lived inside the ground floor during the winter. The goats lived outside in a shed built by the men. Our corner was not much of a home, but I loved it and wanted to see it, touch it, and walk in it again.