The other day, as I was walking back to my apartment, I could not help but notice this guy passing me on the street carrying this large bag full of cans. The load did not seem extremely heavy, though enough for him to strain somewhat under it.
It just reminded me of the constant hardship of so many people struggling to make a living every day in Tirana and all over Albania.
Collecting cans may not be a mentally strenuous thing to do, but it does have its many health and injury risks. I’ve seen many of these poor people jump in half-way into a dumpster to collect their “precious” cans, which they then send to collection centers for recycling.
Hije e rende – (c) Mira
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Elvis Plaku was born and raised in Tirana and has lived in Albania his whole life. He has been blogging about Albanian culture, travel and everyday life since 2004 — one of the country's longest-running English-language blogs. By day he runs the web agency Sfida.PRO; here he writes as a local, sharing the Albania he actually knows.
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