Bazaars in Tirana

Take a look at the picture bellow. This is the street where we live. Tucked away on its corner is a small time capsule in the form of a local "grocery stall". I write it in quotation marks because it is not a neat, well-lit store, but rather a small niche in a wall whose produce simply spills out onto the sidewalk.

After 30 years as a graphic designer, my eyes instantly capture the color palette, the cluttered crates, and the textures of the fruit in the afternoon sun. It is a sight impossible to miss, especially since there are countless other bazaars in Tirana.

Our local vegetable vendor has never heard of cash registers or barcodes. He takes the bags, weighs them one by one, pulls out a piece of paper and a pencil, and calculates the total in his head. Everything is paid for in cash. Back home, my mobile phone became my exclusive wallet long ago, and I had completely forgotten when I last held physical bills or coins in my hand. Here, cash is the main way to pay. This is how we pay in restaurants, shops, and even for our apartment utility bills (which I promise to elaborate on in a separate post). There is something about this simplicity, about going back to holding physical money and talking to the vendor, that draws me back in time and simply thrills me anew every single morning.

The fruits and vegetables at these stalls probably won't win any beauty contests. There are no shiny, wax-coated apples here or tomatoes that are all identical in size. But the taste makes all the difference. The tomatoes, the less pretty and symmetrical they are, the tastier they get, and the cucumbers are truly crunchy with a scent of earth just like the old days.

In my previous post, I shared a bit about how we got here and asked where Albania is, so here is a bit of geographical order. We are in the Balkans, in southeastern Europe. The country borders Montenegro to the north, Kosovo to the northeast, North Macedonia to the east, and Greece to the south. To the west lies the Adriatic Sea, which separates us from the heel of the Italian boot.

This proximity to Greece is felt here in every single bite. During our two months here, we have eaten at quite a few local restaurants, and salads are always on the menu without exception. You will find Caesar salads that share nothing with the original except for the lettuce, but the rest of the salads are various iterations of a Greek salad. There are always coarsely chopped tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, onions, a bit of lettuce, olives, and white brined cheese. One restaurant omits the pepper, another skips the olives, but the base is always similar. What comes as a surprise is that the salad is always served unseasoned. Olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt, and pepper await you on the table, and you season it yourself.

Amidst all this freshness, fresh herbs are a commodity sold quite sparingly here. As someone born in Mexico, I miss cilantro very much. So in the meantime, I make do with parsley and mint on the days I manage to find them. Despite this small longing for familiar tastes, there is a genuine magic in this new life. I enjoy discovering a simple reality, new scents, and warm people through the eyes of the vendors at every one of those bazaars in Tirana.