After the collapse of Enver Hoxha’s totalitarian Communist regime, the factories were looted and deserted, aqueducts destroyed and farm cooperatives abandoned. Mass unemployment and the shimmering mirages glimpsed on satellite TV led to 1 in 6 Albanians leaving the country. Most of these were men in the prime of life, mountain men to whom crossing the Adriatic was as easy as striding over a mountain stream. Back in their villages, whether they liked it or not, the women were simply left to watch over the land.