Tirana takes a shower

Over the weekend we got a good dose of thunder and rain, and I am not talking about a bit of lightning here and there accompanied by a rainy night. No, I am talking about lightning causing blackouts, thunder shaking the windows, and rain causing flash floods in my flat!

We had the whole drama in our flat on Saturday, which was hot and very humid, so I went to sleep with the windows open, next thing I know there is a massive bang and I can hear the rain pounding on the roof and coming in through the open window. So I got up and closed the window, went out and saw my flat mate checking to see if there are any other open windows. Once we were satisfied all windows were closed we were going to go back to sleep, or so we thought. At that point the roof began leaking in five different locations in three different rooms. Three leaks were basically water pouring from the wholes in the ceiling where the electrical light bulb cables come out from, when I say pouring I mean it was like an open tap. The other ones were just drips coming down through the plasterboard in the ceiling. This lasted more than an hour by which time half of the flat was flooded. I would just like to add that we moved into this flat 4 months ago and the building itself is no more than 3 years old (typical shoddy job in I have to say).

After the drama came the calm by which time the sun was out, I went on to the balcony to assess the damage and all around I could see people shifting water from balconies or on roofs trying to patch up damaged areas. Looking around I noticed how clean the air was, I could see buildings in the far distance that only yesterday I could not see due to the dust in the air. The Dajti looked so clean and so close, and the whole of Tirana’s skyline looked clean. All the dusty buildings had been thoroughly washed and hey stood their clean and proud showing off their bright colours.

This kind of rain occurs four or five times a year in Tirana and I usually welcome it,  in my previous flat there were no roof leaks.

The next night was kind of the same but we had the buckets ready, and I ventured out to the balcony and took a few shots and clips of the lightning, notice how in a split second night turns into day and the whole of Tirana is lit up.

These are two squences of lightning shown frame by frame:

The sky lights up

In the next one try and spot the car driving down the road

I have to tell you that standing their and filming this is quite scary.

The car drives along in the night, notice how from the first photo till the last the car has not travelled.

Darkness takes over again