Albania where?

One of our local subcontractors here is an Albanian firm that works a lot with US companies and the Director travels there quite often. He was recently in South Carolina. Of course when he is there, people hear an accent and ask him, "Where you from, boy?" He responds, "From Albania". The typical response is then, "oh, upstate NY then".

The Impact of Dictatorship

As I was waiting for the elevator in the morning to come down to breakfast, another hotel guest came up and said good morning. When he heard my American accent, he demanded to know where I was from and what I was doing here. This is an awkward question as I often run into competitors looking at the same project, so I gave a vague answer and demanded of him the same. From his answer I realized that he actually wasn’t at all interested in what I do, but just wanted to tell me what he was here for. It turns out that he works for the Washington Group and he is here for chemical weapons. That was all he said as he exited the elevator, but I know that in 2005 they discovered a large stockpile of chemical weapons from Hoxha’s time somewhere in Tirana. Not exactly the most pleasant thing to be reminded of while here.

Hoxha was probably one of the most brutal dictators, and it is fascinating to see how that still impacts the country today. Building farmer associations is almost impossible because of the lack of trust among farmers. In Hoxha’s day, neighbours could turn each other in for the slightest infraction in the strict rules with dire consequences, so trust was dangerous. When freedom finally came, people were so angry at the former regime that they destroyed everything associated with the regime, including all pictures and statues of Hoxha, but more costly was the destruction of all productive machinery owned and operated by the former regime across the country. They destroyed all agricultural processing centers and I believe the absence of large agribusinesses in the country is one of the major disadvantages of Albanian agriculture. The neighboring countries, which were all part of Yugoslavia, have big factories that have been privatized and now drive the agricultural sector. In Albania people refer to “when thing started” or “in the new economy” and it was only 15 years ago that this rebirth took place. Under the circumstance its amazing that the situation here is not even worse.

The Good the Bad and the Ugly

Today I broke my own record...for the most meetings in one day. The new number to beat is 9 and each meeting was at least an hour long and I even cancelling one meeting so I could have a working lunch to talk to the project partner that was doing my translating. Some low- and high-lights (although I can’t mention many of those in case a competitor is reading this):
· A Japanese grants program that consults with farmers on their needs (supposedly), then buys machinery internationally and gives it to farmers at below market value and with no interest loans. With one program they are managing to distort the Albanian market for machinery and the finance market. At least they stopped doing the same with fertilizer when the dealers complained.
· One officially in the Ministry of Agriculture (who shall remain nameless) actually pulled up a generic power point presentation on her computer on the general state of agriculture in Albania. My repeated efforts to get her back to the topic of extension failed miserably and I eventually just started editing other notes while my poor translator had to listen to her.
· I met with a vegetable processor that is doing excellent work and is actually buying local produce for his production. A very high percentage of produce is imported into Albnia.
· I got to meet with the minister himself. Always an interesting meeting in the sense that it is highly political and not much is achieved in the meeting

48 Hour Day

All day I've been confused about whether it is Tuesday or Wednesday. My day started at 6 am in Washington, DC, in the office at 8am. In a meeting from 11-2pm. Leaving for the airport at 3pm from the office. Flying until 2am my time, napping on the plane. In Vienna, but could have been anywhere. Back on the plane dead asleep for a one hour flight. Waking up as the plane bumps down even more disoriented. A driver that doesn't speak English picks me up. I think I am going to the hotel to freshen up. No such luck. Straight into four back to back meetings with my greasy hair, sweated and slept in clothes and muddled brain.

By the way, I'm in Albania.

I'm here for a one week recon writing a proposal (this is the first time that I am the lead writer on a proposal). Of course, the assignment was made at the last minute, so I had little time to prepare and the 15 page technical proposal is due 24 hours after I get home from this seven days of back to back meetings. Have they succeeded in cloning humans yet?