The World From Below

Place

Albania · Mat

Derjan

A Mat-country village on Albania’s Tower Trail, where 91-year-old Hajrija Qerimi described the kulla hospitality she was taught — never fewer than ten at the table — as surrounding villages empty to one or two families.

Illustrative landscape of the Mat mountains in northern Albania (Wikimedia Commons / Albinfo). Editorial place card for Derjan / Mat — NOT Hajrija Qerimi or Luli Hupi, not from The Guardian.

Illustrative place identifier: Mat mountains, northern Albania (Wikimedia Commons / Albinfo). Used to identify the Derjan / Mat place card — NOT the Field Note subjects, NOT a scene from their houses, not from The Guardian. · Credit: Albinfo / Wikimedia Commons · Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mat_mountains_(WPWTR17).jpg

Related forces

Kept Welcome

Stories

The Welcome She Was Taught to Keep

In Derjan, northern Albania, 91-year-old Hajrija Qerimi still describes the kulla hospitality her father taught her — never fewer than ten at the table, and nobody leaving without the best the house could offer — as villages thin and a new trail tries to reopen those doors.