Story: Running for Peace in Albania

In this humorous and touching story, told to a gathering of Sri Chinmoy’s students in Croatia at the beginning of the year, Amur describes one experience while organising the Peace Run where the car broke down in the middle of nowhere and the kindness of the Albanian people came to his rescue.

Amur (far right) and the Peace Run team with one of the many schools they visited in Albania

A personal note
by Nirbhasa Magee

I first heard this story from Amur a few days before this recording. Our group of Sri Chinmoy’s students were on our year-end retreat, which we call our Christmas Trip, and which moves between 2 or 3 locations over the course of the trip; on this particular day, we were travelling from Budva in Montenegro to the next section of the trip in Dubrovnik, Croatia, a drive of approximately three hours plus a short ferry crossing. To be frank, it was not a trip I was relishing. I work as a care assistant to Snatak, my friend and fellow student of Sri Chinmoy, and he had been quite ill in recent days; I was a little worried about how the trip would affect him.

Amur kindly offered to drive us both in his spacious car; shortly after we set off, we passed by a beatiful seaside inlet, which Amur informed us was the venue for a particular Madonna concert that took place some years ago. As you will hear if you listen to Amur’s story, this concert has some peripheral connection to the tale, and reminded Amur of his Albanian experience, which he then related to us. This was just the beginning of a long series of tales; Amur is a natural storyteller, he had us laughing all the way to the destination, and we were there before we knew it. Perhaps when next he is inspired to tell a story, we can also get him to tell us about when his brother (who is also a student of Sri Chinmoy) received a police officer’s costume for his seventh birthday, and promptly proceeded to put it on and go out and stop all the approaching traffic, demanding fines from the startled drivers.