 |
 |
 |
« There were festivals and there also was a -, how can I say it, a place, let’s say, where all the young people would gather together and we would decide on things to do. For example, to clean the square that day. We did that kind of thing…for free. For example, we would decide to pick up the trash from the park, to water it, to hoe it. To make the village look nice. We would just gather together to have a nice time. We also played jokes on each other while working. We chatted away, we sang and we joked a lot. We used to tell jokes for fun and when we came home we all felt very happy. We read about Marx, about Lenin. Yes, we were reading about Marxism. We used to talk about and discuss such issues. We had some rules which at the moment I don’t remember very well. There were some rules that in any case you had to follow. »
« The best thing about the communist system was that Hoxha didn’t leave even a single village up in the mountains without electricity. Not a single girl or boy was without schooling. You wouldn’t find a single child who hadn’t attended gymnasium, whether this child was in the city or in the village. Even if the child lived in the most remote village up in the mountains! They went to school on foot. Every village had its physician. And it even had a small hospital, a dental clinic, and everything. Everywhere there was a hospital. That was the best thing. And as far as jobs were concerned, there were so many jobs that you could go wherever you wanted and do as many jobs as you liked. There were jobs. Because when Hoxha came to rule Albania, we had a different system. Hoxha turned Albania at that time into a garden full of flowers. There wasn’t any litter or such things! Wherever you would go you would see flowers on both sides of the street. Everything was neat and clean. Because he [Hoxha] wanted to make Albania a nicer place. That was the best thing. »
Commuist nostalgia
