Off to the hills around Albanian Lake Prespa today, we got to see something of the tough life of a farmer here. Though the sight this morning of a shepherd with his small flock – fewer than 40 animals – of sheep and goats and three sheepdogs wandering slowly along as they grazed seemed idyllic, I’m sure the reality of this subsistence-level existence is rather different. We spotted several other such flocks throughout the day. Do take the time to look and listen to the grazing sheep with their melodious bells in the video I link to below. It all seems to be from a very different world.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/MMPJTU9VDUUet97aA
Throughout the day, we saw solitary elderly women working alone in their narrow fields, weeding and wielding heavy mattocks. We spotted distant farmers working with ancient tractors. The thin rectangular fields set in regular grid formation in the picture below are a throw-back to communist days, but have been retained because they work.
From Pyrenees to Pennines 
It certainly shows a poverty that we sometimes forget still exists over so much of the world. The idyllic scenes belie the hardship!
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I know. It’s so picture-postcard lovely, but … such hard work for so little reward.
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What a backdrop! But as Peter says, The idyllic scenes belie the hardship
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It’s hard to know how their lives appear to them. It’s what they’ve known since Day One.
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Absolutely, they’ve never known anything different
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Yes, it might appear reasonably benign in May, but I can’t imagine a subsistence-level existence in the middle of winter. Truly tough especially if you’re old or sick.
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Indeed. No wonder many of them leave to try their luck elsewhere.
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The landscape is much more rugged than we have here but we have wandering flocks and shepherds too. I doubt they would want to work in an office.
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I’m sure they wouldn’t. But I wonder what they earn, and how they earn it.
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I suspect that not much more than food changes hands.
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I was struck by the primitive ways of farming in Yugoslavia when I was there in the 70s. Ox drawn ploughs, hand sowing of seeds. It seemed so very different to the modern farming methods being used in the west and such a hard way of living. We tend not to realise that such ways of live still exist.
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I know. I doubt if things have changed greatly since you were there.
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Striking pictures of another way of life, however not all Albanians live under such conditions, they have cities and a middle class.
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You’re right of course, and we have spent a little time in Korçë, a university town with much to offer. I’ll write more about that from home, as it’s more than the subject of a postcard!
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There is perhaps peace amid the hardship of life in the area. Simplicity. Freedom from many of the unnecessary things we fill our own lives with. Maybe I’m being naive. Wishful thinking…
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I’d like to think so. But next door in Greece, young people are rejecting such a life, and look to Albania and similar to plug the gaps. I think it’s complicated!
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Lovely photos. Thanks for including us on your trip!
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Thanks for coming!
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The patchwork of the fields is very pretty, especially with that rugged mountain hulking over them to the background. Slightly sad that design comes from darker times. Beautiful part of the world.
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Things are politically complicated there, and it’s hard for us to get a real window on things. But the beauty is undeniable.
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