Women's Day...

It's not easy being a woman in Albania.  Literally the announcement of your gender at birth can be cause for great disappointment and sadness in a culture that celebrates and idolizes its sons.

Then you grow and reach adolescence and your freedoms get stripped away.  No freedom to roam the neighborhood with your friends.  That bicycle you enjoyed riding?  Taken away.  Want to just run for the exercise or the fun of it?  Forget it.  Folks will talk and your parents will be shamed into keeping you home because they don't want to be blamed for for giving you too much freedom.  Then you marry and move into your husband's family's home and his family becomes YOUR family and you are asked to forget about where you came from.  You work for them and are so busy, you have no control over your schedule.  No time to let down and be with friends.  You care for your in laws.  You are under pressure to have a son.  All the while your appearance, your work ethic, and your lifestyle choices are under constant criticism of your family and neighbors. And the cycle continues.

Yes, it's tough being a woman in this culture.  

But one day per year you get a reprieve.  One day you get a break from the cooking.  One day you can forget your responsibilities, dress up, and laugh and dine with your girlfiends and for once enjoy being feminine.

Saturday in Albania was Women's Day.  We celebrated with some friends at a local country restaurant outside of Vlashaj.  It was all about food, friendship, and lots of fun!

There's a traditional dance that all women here know.  It's surprisingly difficult for as simple as it looks.  Or that could just be me...
I settled for documenting the dancing rather than participating in it. :-)

)

Throughout lunch women would leave their food for a moment and join others on the dance floor.  Periodically, Shpresa would lean over and say, "That dance is from the south of Albania," or, "That dance is from Tropoje," (more high knees and hopping -- think Irish river dance minus the clogs) and I could envision the women in their beautiful traditional costumes.

I included the video above so you could hear a snippet of the melody and cadence.

Interestingly, we learned that Women's Day in Albania (it's also considered "Mother's Day" here too) is believed to have roots in communist days.  Intersting...