Euro-Buzz: My Albanian Waiter

International schools are sprouting up all over the place, including this backwater of southern Europe. Albania.

Ah. My hosts would be appalled! Let me insert the word "former" before backwater. There we go - including this former backwater of southern Europe.

In case you've forgotten, dear Reader, Albanian suffered a double plague: one of communism and then - total isolation. This was brought on by its xenophobic leader Enver Hohxa. So paranoid was he that Hohxa built, at vast expense to the state's already meager coffers, 750,000 concrete bunkers to ... keep out the hordes (who was trying to get in - anyway)? As a monument to this colossal folly, there is a string of these ugly things out by the new airport.

Many cities in relatively properous eastern Europe (Budapest, Prague, Warsaw) sustain several international schools given the high level of foreign investment, trade and commerce. Now the trickle-down effect is being felt here in Tirana and other Balkan capitals such as Belgrade and Sofia where schools are prospering. Even Pristina and Skopje - arguably places off the beaten path - have schools.

Albania is receiving massive aid from the European Union, the United States and other donor countries. Turkey - long a surrogate father during the Ottoman times - provides fresh vegetables, energy, doctors and teachers. There are several exemplary Turkish sponsored bilingual schools here.

Speaking of languages: Mehmet, my waiter last evening, told me he speaks Albanian (naturally), Italian, Turkish, Greek, some Spanish and a little Russian. Don't you love it? He told me this in perfect English, of course.