Rare story of African children arriving in Albania in the '60s

It was the 1960s when some African children came to Albania.

Uvil Zajmi brings to a special published in the newspaper “Panorama” the rare story of children from Kinshasa who survived the coup and found shelter in our country.

In the midway of the '60-70s, a bunch of African children, busy using them with eyes enlarged by fear and curiosity, set foot at Rinas Airport. They were children, boys and girls 7, 8, 8, and 10-year-olds who had secretly abandoned their country and short pants landed in Rinas, without knowing the language and no recognition of their place of stay for many years. They didn't know.

They were too young to understand and believed that they would be isolated in that distant and unknown land. They would be arranged, educated, grown, had fun in places banned “for Albanians, one would be called agents, many would leave, but there was one who stayed, got married and continued working in Albania.

The only one who has stayed in Albania, who lives in Tirana and works as a rheumatologist in Vora Ambulanca, is Urbain Massena. The son of a senior official in the Congo government, who was forced to flee the country to save his life, becoming an unusual resident of Lezha...

FROM KINSHASA IN TIRA

It all starts after 1965 with the coup and the throne of dictator Mubuto, when many opposers and their families, among them many children, leave with the help of the Red Cross and are arranged in other countries, mainly in Europe. There are two groups, 10-12-year-old boys and girls who leave Africa with their destination Albania, who were preferred by Africans as a European country unlike China, Cuba that was proposed to them. In December 1967 they set sail from Brazaville port to Tripoli, Libya, then by plane to Rome, and from there they land at Rinas.

It is winter, cold, and young Africans are still in short trousers, leaving high temperatures in their home countries. While the group from Kenya will be accommodated in Elbasan, the 17-member one from Zare, after spending six months at the House of Children in Tirana, is transferred to Vlora, the boarding school. But after a few months, the latter leaves the first three, as they fail to locate and the group is reduced to 14 young people.

A year later, another division: Only nine remain in Vlora, including Jacques Jambu and his three sisters, Maria, Nicolet and Klodina, as well as Ljiljana and Elizabeth Muqueda as the rest head off to Lezha.

AFRICAn WRITER IN LEZAH

Given the weather conditions, it was thought that Africans would settle in the city of Lezha and first went there, Charl Müng, Charl Davis and Urban Massena. After two years (1973), they will be joined by Izhen Mulle and Fosten Myene. Their arrival was a surprise to the inhabitants, and on the first days of the entire Lezha buzzed.

Numerous citizens stayed on the boulevard, curious to see when they went out for a walk. Meanwhile, the settlers were advised not to take pictures and tell anyone where they are, fearing that they would kill their families. To settle and integrate in everyday life, each of them was taken into custody by a peer in order to learn about the language.

They settled in the city dormitory, located on the hill beneath the fortress, while receiving a monthly payment of 1,000 dollars, as well as clothing and food, all guaranteed by the state.

MUS BLOUE PANTALLONA ZOE JEANS “COWBOY”

Admittedly, the Africans had not realized that the dictatorial system they left in Zaire was even more severe in their chosen place to stay. However, treated differently and cheaper than Albanians, in clothing, taste, preference, had an impact on the youth and lives of legyna citizens. Up in the dorm, along with Albanian dormitories they spent sleepless nights with a “Philips” and a radio “Sondra”, like the only fun tools.

Izhen held a guitar in the room, bought in Tirana and sang beautifully the Beatles, Elvis Preslin, Sanremo's, or heard at Radio Luxemburg. Africans were often a problem at school, as on Friday they left their last class class to hear Italian music's famous Hit Parade.

So passionate was Izhen after music that once, during the month's Zbor, three students were missing in the appeal: Izhen Mulle, Agim Lubonja and Kastriot Kodeli. Disturbed, the command sounded the alarm for their finding, but very soon they were found to have entered a hiding place, singing the famous Rollingstone song “I cant get no”. While first blue jeans “pants Chowboy” has brought them to Lezha, Yrben Massena in 1972.

From an uncle but also with his mother's interest, he often received packages of clothing from Germany. So they arrived in Lezha and a pair of such trousers, tight on the knee and wide down, typical “Chowboy”, with the initials of a famous Italian singer, Don Bucky. Stars like nobody else had a big heart, forgive everything. That's how friends and friends remember him in Lezha.

DAT LELIDDIA, SEKRET

It's been a great puzzle. Coming without any documents from their country, long kept this fact a secret, in particular, some of them, activated and played with the youth football team “Beconnection”, putting the football federation in trouble. Only years later, when they wanted to obtain visas to travel outside Albania, have they been forced or declared the exact date of birth.

In the meantime, their presence not only in Lezha but in any city that went to spend summer vacations created a different atmosphere. Curiosity began on the train as they traveled to come to the hotels where they were located, around which many curious gathered.

E STUDY ARTICLES, GARANT AR FROM STATE

Unlike seniors who had completed high school and applied for high school, Africans located in Albania received fair study and scholarship from ministers of education in their schools.

“You serve as salt in the dish”, so you wish to define the time when you stayed and lived in Lezha, where you were treated very lovingly. He even acquired the right to study differently from other Africans. He's got it from the Executive Committee, Lezha City Education Branch. “la has removed a Japanese family, to give me the right to faculty”, he says gratefully.

Then he came to Tirana, abandoned the sport, devoted himself to studies at the Faculty of Medicine. He was a very good student and finished his studies with very high results.

V A THE SEVIOUS LISTRY WRITER IN TAV SERN OF “D AJTIT”

While at the university in Tirana, all Africans followed fashion and preferred hotel Tavern “Dajt”. They were privileged, no one prevented them from coming in, although they were under surprise. They could have had fun among foreigners every weekend, which was not allowed for Albanians.

But the first allegations of spying connections with foreigners began. The first to suffer was Jacques Mulle, who was held in the investigator for three months. They released him on the condition he had to leave Albania. They called their mother, who came to take her to Tirana, while the sisters let them continue their faculty. Similarly, Charl Momeng was forced to leave the faculty that ended up in Austria and now lives and works as a dentist in Germany.

The third suspect to leave was Vitaly Pacasa, African of the Vlora group, who returned to Congo. After completing the university, everyone left, while Urbain Massena, Yrben, or Dr. Ben, was the only one who stayed in Albania.

YRBENI AND TIJE PAST

His name is Urbain Massena. He came to Albania when he was only 7 years old, just that late December, when he had to celebrate his birthday rather than take the streets.

Urbain was a child of a privileged family, even his father was a member of the governing cabinet until the arrival of the Mabutos regime. Born on a holy day, December 25, 1956, on Christmas Day. He was supposed to be very lucky, but his life wasn't like that.

Labour Minister Xhussen's son (also known as soccer coach), Yrben is the second of the six sons of the Massena family (not a sister). All of the Catholic, French-speaking religion, removed from Zaire at the end of the 60s.

KU R BLINTE WISE BOOKS

She was in high school when she fell in love with a classmate who didn't say it and she didn't understand anything. While playing soccer with young people, he had ascertained that every day the clothes of the game or training found them washed and ironed. She thought it was her classmate, who secretly surprised her when she suddenly discovered that she was not her friend but her best friend.

But she was thinking about what she wanted instead of what helped her. She was smart and she wanted to read and learn”, he relates. And to demonstrate his sympathy, with the money he received, he bought books and gave them to him, but he never expressed his love.

T 97 RAISES, TAKING HUNDAY AND MEDICINE AMANETIA SYA

By the end of high school, Africans had no right to apply and get out of Albania. Everything changed during college and after the '80s. While they were in college, they were given the right to go out once every two years, and since during their student time, they received a monthly payment of 7,000 dollars, it gave them the opportunity to live and something more. “Saving from the money and buying the” ticket, Yrben says.

He has only once considered leaving Albania, during the 1997 riots. But when she first and last met her mother, Alfonso, during her three - month stay in Germany, her dying wish would be unforgettable: “Never deny that people!” He returned to Albania to continue his life, his job, but his mother stopped seeing him.

MANY KUJECTIONS

It has been many years since high school, yet he has kept many memories since then. Many happy moments spent in high school “One of these was Antonette Ristan, a math teacher, for four years a steward teacher, who became a second mother to her.

Because the settlers spoke French and coincidence at school, the second language was French, he nostalgicly remembers his teacher, Antoneta Cola (Kare). And so on, friend Kastriot Koddel, whose house had become second to him, as well as dormitory guardian Ferid Ramadanin, or Petrit Rarapyan in Vlora, Besnik Baren, current MP of the Albanian Parliament. He can't forget ex-trainers, teammates Nicolen Laurence, Vasil Bici, without forgetting Zack currently located in Germany, his three sisters in France, Austria, and Italy, as well as Charl Müng, with whom he maintains a systematic connection.

AFTER FOR SUCH THE MUSICH AND BOOKS

Figurative arts, sculpture is another hobby of him. It could have become a good sculptor, but it is limited in time and opportunities to practice it. I'm an admirer and I work something, but always at amateur levels. I attend open exhibitions, and the artist I like is sculptor Ohio Paskali. His works have art and feelings”, he says.

And there's Elton John left in the music. Although the years pass, the singer remains idol to him. He does not replace it with anyone, for many memories of his time are related to his music. Another idol is Cassius Clay, for in his Cinshasa, the challenge has developed in the boxing of the century, the one between Clay and Foreman in 1974. When he was in Albania, it was impossible to track, but it keeps a video recording of the meeting.

J ETA WRITER IN DOCTOR MASSENIA

He is the only South African to come in the '60s, who did not leave Albania. He grew up, married, educated, and now works as a physician in Albania, who considers his second home country. He says that neither artist nor sportsman nor teacher would have become more than a doctor who has been and remains his primary passion.

A life set up with a desire to become a language teacher, then coming to an unknown country, systeming in Lezha, then a student at the University of Medicine in Tirana, specialization in Hospital and for many years to Vorea in the town's polylic, where he works as a rheumutologist. He has never returned to Congo, while passion, correct to work, is important to him. Relationships with the girl Eden have been and remain very important, even vital, for Dr. Massen.

Born of a co-existence with an Albanian girl after the divorce, the girl and mother have moved to Greece. Here goes the root of endless problems for the long - standing Massen court processes in search of a return of opportunity to embrace the girl, as she has not met her for many years.

Every morning it's one of the first citizens of Vora to find at 7 o'clock at a bar drinking coffee, then at the clinic. You live in Tirana on “Bahrill”, there's a simple and modest life, you don't use a car, and if you look at the photos of years when you were a student, you hear his story, you get into mind the expression “Cʹest la vie”, Dr. Ben always says.