I grappled with the problem of converting my daily earnings into cigarettes, guessing at 100 packets, which made him gasp in disbelief. When tips were in order, no one would take lek, but would take small items like chewing gum. The official rate was recently devalued to give 20 lek to the dollar, but on the black market a dollar exchanges for about 100 lek. There is also very little to be bought with lek. There are few goods, and those on sale are shoddy.
Many Albanian men look identical because they wear the same state-issue brown trousers and jackets.
There appear to be only three or four different styles of men's shoes. The house I visited was cramped, kept as homey as it could be, but obviously lacking in material comforts. The only modem item, and what seemed to be the most prized possession, was a cassette player sent by the brother of one man who had escaped to Italy through the embassy. I offered to send a rock music magazine, but they told me it would be stolen by the bureaucrats who open the mail. Education and health care are ostensibly free, but in reality bribes ensure that some are more equal than others.