Baxho - the Dairy

About two months ago, when I was still the “new foreigner” in Leskovik, I went with a neighbor girl to the local dairy, or baxho, to buy cheese. The baxho occupies the bottom floor of a small destroyed factory. Leskovik has several miniature factories like this, some made of stone and others of cement with what used to be tall glass windows. They are remnants from Communism that now lie either in ruins (sometimes because of the 1997 pyramid scheme crisis) or have been partially rehabilitated for private use by whoever is interested and can stake a semi-solid claim on the property.

Quick digression to discuss this curious leftover from Communism - With the fall of Communism, property rights became a major problem. No one really owned any land for fifty-odd years, so, when democracy and capitalism took hold, old disputes revivified and people attempted to stake ownership to houses, gardens, and fields. Things got temporarily ugly and then terribly messy. Today, now that most Leskovikqarians have built new cement houses or moved into raw brick apartment buildings, stone houses are abandoned and the surrounding property is simply cultivated by whoever last occupied the space.

Case in point: the network of communal animal stalls and pens behind our apartment building, mentioned in the previous post. They’re made from repurposed materials—warped planks, corrugated tin, flour sacks, plastic sheeting, stones, barbed wire, etc. It’s like a tiny town without ownership. Everyone is tucked up against everyone else. It’s unclear where one man’s cluster of stalls end and others begin. Post the morning milking session and the arrival of the cowherd to collect the prize milkers and new calves for a day in the pasture, I skirt clouds of flies and hop around manure to get down to the main road.

This sort of impromptu, and yet highly productive, repurposing of available space is exemplified by the dairy operation. Factory space is less ambiguously awarded to entrepreneurs than grazing and garden plots. Half of the three-story factory’s bottom floor has been converted into a dairy, and, behind a heavy blue door, a vast cool chamber hums with activity. The rest of the building is still burned out. The windows lack panes, scorch marks smear their wretched palms across the walls, the floors are covered in shattered glass and tiles, and there is an eerie stillness.

It was my first visit to the dairy, so naturally most activity ceased so everyone could come ask about the American. Once they discovered I could speak Shqip, they also talked to the American. Where are you from? Why are you here? Wait, are you really going to stay here for two years alone?! But you are 23 years old and unmarried! Well, good for you, sweetheart. Really, that’s wonderful. But we will have to find you a nice Albanian boy.

After going through the usual round of questions and exclamations, I had opportunity to observe the assembly line they had developed, the vats of brine and sweating cheese, and picked out a kilo of feta to be weighed on a shuddering scale with brass weights. Only a kilo, but, just because this is Albania, and Albanians are the most hospitable people I have ever met, the entire staff offered to have the kilo delivered to my door by an eight year-old playing outside with a new kitten. I paid 300 leke (3 USD) for my prize and took it away in a blue plastic bag with advice to soak it in the salty yellow whey that you can buy by the giant one-liter Coke bottle.

The first time I bought cheese in Leskovik, no one mentioned to me that I ought to buy the whey. The cheese started to turn in one day. No preservatives, remember? Ah, well. Dairy products here both frighten and impress me.

One of my secret ambitions (perhaps not so secret now) is to learn how to make… my own yogurt. Oh lord.