In late August 2004, Klodian and I accompanied our friend Gjergji Hoxha to cut fir stanchions in the Guri Nikes and Qafë Panje forest sector. On Gjergji's mules, we crossed the thick coppice and underbrush surrounding Bagëtia to the north until we reached the vast stretch of deciduous forest that extends from Qafë Panje to far beyond the Shkumbin River. By the time we made it through the coppice, we were all soaking wet from the waist down because the branches had brushed the morning dew into our clothes. We rode like this for several hours through the late summer woods.

Gjergji, who was leading the excursion, made sure to stay on barely visible paths and never left the cover of the forest. Klodian and I had become acquainted with him around a campfire one evening at the ruins of Bagëtia's cultural center. Gjergji was twenty-one, muscle-packed, and, except for his older brother, the only man of his age still living in Bagëtia. He worked in Greece for a few months as a teenager, but his Muslim family name kept him from obtaining the legal status his Vlach neighbors enjoyed. Fed up with making a haphazard living abroad, Gjergji decided to return to his family and try his luck in the illegal timber and firewood trade emerging in the Gorë and Mokra mountains. He quickly learned the rules of the game and became an expert logger.