Invited to the show “Rudina” this Tuesday, on TV Klan, is the well-known and beloved journalist, Blendi Fevziu.
He has published his latest book “Takimet e mia me…”, which reflects the portraits of 39 characters who have dominated not only in Albania, but also in other countries.
During the show, Fevziu talks about one of the characters he has included in the book, who stands out for her charity, Mother Teresa.
The journalist tells the story of how he first encountered the famous philanthropist and we suggest you all read it, as it is really interesting.
Today Fevziu manages to laugh at this story, but for what Mother Teresa did, he has held his grudge for 2 years.
Blendi Fevziu: There are characters that I had when I was little or there are characters that you met in strange circumstances. I don’t know, I told the story with Mother Teresa, which is one of the ways I got to know her, and the first few moments I was nervous with her.
Rudina Magjistari: No, I don’t remember that.
Rudina Magjistari: No, I don’t remember that.
Rudina Magjistari: It is confessed here or not?
Blendi Fevziu: It is narrated in the book. I have met Mother Teresa twice. Once I have not met him, we have met. The second time I went to him for an interview, when Pope John Paul, in April 1993, came to Tirana and lived in a house next to Gramoz Pashko’s house at that time, on Budi street. I went there, with a lot of insistence, I entered. I told him that I was looking for an interview, he didn’t speak Albanian. He told me, no he said, I don’t give interviews about this. What is coming is a miracle, but it was speaking to me with all anticipation. But I had a previous story, the one where I still didn’t get angry even after 2 years. That is, in 1991 Armand Shkullaku and I made our first trip outside Albania. We have to consider it, we have to put it in the context for a young person to understand today. It was the first time we left Albania, we left a country almost starving. And the plane we got on was an Avianova, the old plane that operated for Alitalia, once a week on Saturdays. They gave us the food. The food was a plastic package, where it was very nicely put in a plastic, like the ones you get in any kiosk. A sandwich, a small bar of chocolate and a mini orange juice, with its entire pipe in the packaging. And they were all in one box. We took them and consumed them. That my pleasure to see white bread, mortadella, that is, external things. Now on the way back I say to Shkullak, look I say to him: ‘Well we ate outside things for 2 weeks and we were satisfied, now let’s take something for me and my father, so they can see how the food is outside. So I’m not eating the food on the plane, but I’m taking it with me.’ Says Shkullaku: ‘Meanwhile, I saw there was someone there when we arrived, who ate a meal and asked the flight attendant for another. He gave him 2.’ Well, I told him, I’m hiding one and I’m asking for a second one. We calculated that we would receive from two. We boarded the plane, Shkullaku and I were among the 5, I remember it now, Mother Teresa was sitting in the 2nd, she was also coming from Rome to Tirana.
Rudina Magjistari: Look, look.
Blendi Fevziu: Look, Mother Teresa was so present in Albania that now it seems like something rare.
Rudina Magjistari: Now it’s holy, not rare, now it’s holy.
Blendi Fevziu: Even Mother Teresa was sitting in the 2nd. When the stewardess came to distribute the packages, Mother Teresa went, opened a brown bag of the kind we have today for the garbage, yes, quite big, approached and said: ‘Dio ti benedica, questi sono per i poveri’ (God bless you , these are for the poor!).
He took them from us and put them in the bag. Not only did he take me and Shkullak and everyone else, but he went to the flight attendant and took them and what they had left for her were 8 more rations. He took them in the sack. I said to Shkullak: ‘Poor me (poor) because we are both not here’. He took our food, so I ran home and did not bring anything to the family, as I had told them that I would bring them white bread. Mine didn’t get angry for about 2 years. That man has some projections in his head, when he thinks that I would go home with those two plastics, a mom and a dad and I couldn’t take anything. I don’t know who ate my food at that time in Albania.
