This summer, Ros, Paul, James and Peter Woodin set off for Albania to embark on a summer teaching programme of Music and English in collaboration with the Balkan Peace Park Charity. Thanks to the incredibly generous support of friends and family, we had raised over £2,000 for the project.

We were housed with a local family deep in the Thethi valley surrounded by stunning mountains.

The valley was a 3-hour dirt track road from the nearest town of Shkoder. On our arrival, it was assumed by our host that we must be doctors as well as teachers and we were immediately asked in Albanian to administer an injection of antibiotics into the daughter's posterior! We, of course, refused upon which she headed up into the mountains to find someone who would! That was Day one!

Our programme of teaching took place from 9am-1pm every day. We had 4 classes with children aged from 5-18 years. The childrens' poverty levels varied enormously. Some lived in 2 room shacks with dirt floor, no running water, bathroom or kitchen, just an outside stove. Others had houses which had been upgraded with the help of the charity and income from teachers or tourists staying with them.

The charity are hoping that all the houses will eventually be able to take in visitors to enable those families also to improve their lifestyle. Some children walked for over an hour to get to school, but were quite often queuing up outside the school for half an hour before we blew the whistle!

Electricity was sporadic and head torches were a necessity everywhere. We gave one to our host who was quite often trying to cook in the pitch dark and she never took it off again!! She worked tirelessly in the kitchen until 2am making bread, cheese, butter, jam, cordial, biscuits etc and was up again at 6am to milk the cow, feed the chickens, and pick vegetables amongst many other chores.

Our classes combined English language skills, most of which we taught through music. They are not a nation of singers and we very quickly had to downscale our expectations of “tuneful” singing, concentrating rather on singing and rhythm games.

But we did manage to put together an hour and half's music concert for the final celebration day of the summer school to which the whole village turned out to see their children performing. This was followed by a big party in which everyone danced for several hours (in 30 degree heat) really enjoying the social occasion which is so rare in the village. This is due to the fact that families are normally too busy working to meet socially with others.

James and Peter threw themselves into the job of teaching and engaging with the local children, with whom they got on very well and they all learnt a lot from each other. It was a fantastic opportunity for us as a family to be able to give something special to the Albanians who really appreciated us being there and I would recommend the experience to anyone.

Thanks once again to everyone who donated to the project. http://www.balkanspeacepark.org/