Rainy Day in Tirana

This is the view from our balcony yesterday (kind of reminds me of our trip to St. Louis, see below). We had to stitch a couple of photos together to get this panaroma of it. Of course this picture doesn't do the real thing justice. It really was an amazing sight! I know that in the Bible God sent the rainbow as a promise not to destroy the earth with flood waters again, but hopefully this is God's promise to SEND some rain to Albania.

Return to Tirana

We arrived to a drought-ridden land facing a major energy crisis. Albania relies on hydro-electric power, many of the plants having been built during the communist era. The government placed restrictions on energy consumption this summer. We've heard that some people in Albania were going for days without water and there have been many reported food related poisonings in the hospitals due to the electricity/water crisis. The heat and drought didn't hit us as hard, but it was still intense. At first we were mainly living in our one room with air conditioning, even pulling our bed in there to sleep. Now, for the last few days, the rain has come, but it will take a lot more of it to get Albania out of it's woes. We're expecting a hard winter.