Personal Narrative Essay: My Childhood Growing Up In Albania

My childhood growing up in Albania involved the disruption of war and the failing of the Albanian government. I was born during the fall of communism in Albania in 1991. I grow up in a country surrounded by the neighboring war and genocide in Kosovo and the former Yugoslavia. I grow up listening to the news of the genocide that was taking place in the neighboring country of Kosovo. I remember seeing images of men, women, and children being killed daily. Thousands of Albanians from Kosovo were displaced during this time and my family took in one of the many displaced families. I saw first hand what it looks like to lose everything, however horrible their situation was they were full of life and happy to be alive. I didn’t know it at the time …show more content…
After the government fell they made the decision to ally themselves with a different party that the new government didn 't favor, soon after my grandfather died in an electrical accident, which was not truly an accident. He was an electrician who was called to fix a fall and power line, he called the power station and told them to turn off the power because he would need to repair the line but halfway through the process the power was turned on and my grandfather was electrocuted. We have never been able to find out who turn the power back on. This was a time of grief and panic for my family, we fled the country in fear for our lives. One of my aunts and her family went to Greece and was later followed by my uncle and the other aunt when to Germany. It took months of hiding in the mountains and surrounding villages of Macedonia before we can make our way to the US, unaware of the fact that the worst part is yet to …show more content…
While my parents work sixteen-hour days I started school. During elementary and the first year of middle school I still did not know how to read in English, I was just passed along from grade to grade without even knowing how to read a children’s book. In sixth grade I decided to teach myself to read, and so with the help of a friend I taught my self to read. As the years went on my parents bought a restaurant and I started my high school years working not just only on my academic and many afterschool organizations and clubs but as a dishwasher and bus girl every weeknight and weekend. When I started college I was very thankful for those years I had working through high school because not only did it instill a good work ethic in me but it also instilled the value of money. I continue to work as much as I could while in college and manage to earn my BA with no