Strasbourg Europe
https://www.strasbourg-europe.eu/images/2020/02/favicon2021-100x100.png
“ By blood and origin I am Albanian. My citizenship is Indian. I am a Catholic nun. As to my calling, I belong to the whole world. As to my heart, I belong entirely to the heart of Jesus.”

Mother Teresa, Oslo, ceremony of the Nobel Peace Prize.

Nicknamed the “Saint of the Lower Depths,” Mother Teresa is one of the leading figures of the twentieth century.

Born Agnes Gonxha Bejaxhiu in Skopje on the eve of World War I, she is the last of a family of three Albanian children. Fatherless at age 9, her mother started a small business to support the family. At 18, she expresses the wish to become a missionary. She left her parental home in Skopje and joined the Sisters of Loreto, an Irish community of nuns, and was sent to India in 1929, where she developped a particular affinity for the country. Thus she became Indian in 1947. In Darjeeling, she took her initial vows and chose the name Teresa. From 1929 to 1946, she taught at St. Mary’s College in Calcutta, before becoming director. Struck by the abject poverty of the inhabitants of “slums”, she received permission from her superiors to leave the convent school and she decided devote herself to the poorest in the slums. In 1947, she founded the first school in the neighborhoods of Calcutta. In 1948, she received the Pope’s permission to leave her convent to serve the “poorest of the poor.” She began to wear a white sari with blue borders in 1950, and founded the Congregation of Missionaries of Charity. She never stopped caring for abandoned children, and is especially remembered for finding adoptive parents and establishing schools.

© http://nobelprize.org

Culinary traditions

The tasty food is certainly one of the main draws of Albania. Albanian cuisine is varied, often described as being a cross between the savors of the Orient and the Occident. The cuisine of this region is characterized by notably fresh produce and grilled meats (mish zgare). Popular dishes include: byrek (a sort of puff pastry) with spinach and cheese, the fërgesë Tiranian (a mix of yogurt and grilled meat), the qofte of Korça (diced meat covered in a savory spice sauce), and the gliko of Përmet and of Korça (a jam of either apples or pears).

Imposters

In 1913, a circus duo pulled off one of the biggest scams in history. The German crook Otto Witte took the identity of a clown, and decided to pretend to be the nephew of the Sultan, Prince Halim Eddine. He was helped in his task by his compagon Schlepsig Max, whom he met in a prison in Barcelona where he was serving a sentence for fraud. He was crowned king, claiming to be Otto I, and then declared war in Montenegro. Exposed three days later, he fled with some of the treasure.

© ansichtskarten-pankow.de