Arras Village

One day a friend we had made, Vlad, offered to take me to his village and school where he is an English teacher. Not having any better offers for the day I said sure. The village of Arras is about a 15 km ride from Peshkopi but it took about 45 minutes to get there as most of it was along very rough roads.We could not drive all the way to the village as the road rapidly deteriorated. This road and the one below is the main road through town. Essentially impassable to vehicles.
	The houses of the village, of about 250 people, are to the left and right of the road. As we headed up the road Vlad showed me two houses that were destroyed by landslides. There are two sections of the hill that the village is on that are literally sliding away. It happened last spring when the snow melted quickly and the water over saturated the ground. A way went sections of the hillside and several houses with it. Below are views of where the house was and where much of it went. The village has no money to stabilize the hillside and the regional and national governments are not helping out either. This spring he thinks about 4 other houses will slip away if there is a heavy snow melt or rain.

	As we walked out of the village we had to cross the Drin River via this foot bridge. The closest road across the Drin is about 5 km away. We are looking Northeast and the school is off in the distance on the left hand side.