By BOBBY LA GESSE
Pellumb Halili is an interesting kid with an interesting story.
The Woodstock senior linebacker grew up in Albania. He immigrated to the United States when he was 6.
When Halili moved from Albania to America in the early 1990s, it was like he fast-forwarded from the first half of the 20th century to modern times.
Halili didn’t see a lot of cars growing up. The roads weren’t really paved. Albania in the early 1990s was more like America in the 1940s or 1950s.
That shocked me.
Now you have to know, I was a little kid when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. I never really lived during the Cold War.
I never visited a country that fell under Communist control as a kid. I figured once communism fell, the good guys won. The bad guys lost. And the kids there would be watching “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” the next day just like I would.
You don’t know better in elementary school. Over the years I learned that wasn’t the case.
But it still floored me when I found out someone younger than me grew up in a European country where cars weren’t an everyday part of life.
Cars are a huge part of modern life. Cars were a huge part of European life in 1990.
Imagine being a small child moving to a new country and going from seeing a car once in a while to seeing one every second.
Talk about culture shock.
And now Halili experiences culture shock when returning to Albania every spring break. The country is more ”Americanized,” as he puts it. Cars and roads are so turn of the 21st century. The Internet is the new rage.
Which is good. Because if Halili’s dad Ahmatt, who still lives in Albania, wants to check out how his son is doing playing the American version of football, he can.
And naturally The Independent would be the best spot to look (no shameless plug needed).
For more information, see the Sept. 12 issue of The Independent for a feature on Halili’s trek from Albania to America.
