Walking up pyramid in Tirana

23 December 2011

Boys in the middle of pyramid.  Broken glass and graffiti are typical of the entire monstrosity. 

Boys at the top

A dramatic picture of protesters running around on the pyramid last Januray 21.  Three people died, were shot.  They were protesting the national election.  The emotions quickly simmered down and a week later, protests were muted; a month later, you would have been amazed to think that something like this could have happened.

Shadow pictures while walking down the slope

All these pictures were taken moments before the camera was stolen.  In preparation to film us running up the slope, I changed the SD card in the camera. How fortunate.  To begin with, using a 7" tripod, all three of us ran up with the camera doing its job at the bottom.  Then Maxim filmed me only running up the slope.  It was difficult to keep the subject in focus.  Using the tripod, I trained the camera on my run up the slope.  By the time I got to the top, I was invisible. 

Then I pushed our luck once too far.  I set the camera up right next to the bottom of the slope while the boys were going to adjust the zoom, and try to make it all work out.  I took off and got about halfway when they boys started yelling.  I thought they were telling me that the camera had run out of battery or the card was full.  I was not worried and figured I'd have to redo the exercise sometime when my legs didn't feel like rubber.  As I came down, though, I didn't see the camera and than I understood that they were telling me that someone had stolen the camera.  By the time I got to the bottom, in 30 seconds, and ran in the direction the boys pointed, the thief was gone.