When I first came to Bagëtia in June 2004, I felt like I was entering a ghost-village. Klodian and I had accompanied two friends from Kodra who were visiting relatives in Kumbull, the village next to Bagëtia. On the way to Bagëtia, we had passed extensive mountain pastures and a few, fenced-off hayfields. Except for one or two shepherds in the distance, we had not seen any people along the way. When we reached Bagëtia, we found the village practically empty. Many of the picturesque, natural stone houses with their slate-shingled roofs lay abandoned in the sun. The village's cultural center (vatra e kulturës), which had been built under socialism, was a crumbling ruin. There were no shops or bars in sight. The few children of the village were in school, and the men had taken their sheep and goats to graze on the alpine slopes. Only an occasional old lady carrying a bucket of water home or spinning wool in the shadows of a dilapidated cooperative building reminded us that there were still people living here.

The contrast between Bagëtia and Kodra, where we were living at that time, could not have been any starker. Kodra was a bustling agricultural village in the lowlands where Klodian and I spent most of our time talking to full or parttime farmers. Kodra had a functioning irrigation system, a farmers' and a credit association, a garage to repair cars and agricultural implements, and even a small agricultural pharmacy, where one could buy pesticides and chemical fertilizer.