A “Live” Community of Expats

by Nov 28, 2021Living in Albania, Public Health, Tirana

Our lives have definitely changed gradually but drastically since smartphones made their flashy appearance. Do you remember how beautiful your first iPhone seemed and how pretty all those colorful buttons called apps looked? What the heck is an app? We all had this question back then, and we all know now what they are, but that doesn’t change the fact that most of us never have the time to learn how to properly use them. If a friend did know a little more the rest of us felt completely dumb.  However, the main purpose was and remains to connect, right? Wrong!

 

While online life expands and takes over slowly all facets of our lives, it can never replace the human presence, a warm smile, and the touching hand of a dear friend or family member. I consider myself lucky, that I got to experience the true human connection, communication and fully have enjoyed it most of my life till today. Growing up in Albania, as a child in the 70s, my world consisted of my parents, grandparents, siblings, close relatives, neighbors, and friends. We used to play outside after school, all year round. We had the freedom and safety to play till we were exhausted and some. You know what it takes to exhaust a kid, sadly most parents today don’t know and most kids don’t experience it either.

 

Back to today and why I am writing this short blog post. As you all know, I’ve opened this FB group in early 2014 and have been managing it since. The community of expats has been growing and a lot of information gets exchanged daily. So far this group has completely served its purpose. The only thing, is, that since I and a good part of you belong to the generation that got to know and enjoy true human connection, my other purpose for this group remains to build a “live” community of expats living in Albania, just as interactive as the online one.  This I believe will improve our communication and add the human connection that the online world misses.

 

We need your help with this of course. Nothing great can be achieved alone, so please participate in our events that our team, Jen, Bledi, Sonila & I, organize weekly and put so much effort into. A monthly calendar of events is available on our website HERE. We recently gathered to discuss how we can best facilitate the community and came up with the idea of creating a survey where all your input is very much appreciated. Please find this survey HERE and give us your valuable feedback. If by any chance there is a technical issue please find the survey pinned on our FB page HERE

We look forward to growing together & maintaining our human connection alive! Yours Truely, “EIA” Team & Denisa

The photo was taken at a rest time during an organized family hike at Rodony Cape