"Are you a ghost?"

Thirty years ago, in the middle of her own European adventure, my mum found herself in Lake Ohrid, Yugoslavia. There she was introduced to the Zhutas, an Albanian Muslim family that welcomed her and her friend Dorothy into their home for a week, touring them around the ruins of the old city, feeding them pans of baklava, and making them feel that they had a home, thousands of miles away from their real homes in Alberta.

My mum kept in touch with the Zhutas and in the early 80s, just as tensions in Yugoslavia were on the rise, she received a letter from Mixharet, one of the daughters Zhuta, asking my family to sponsor them to come to Canada. My parents did everything they could, even extending an invitation to the Zhutas to attend their wedding, in the hopes that such an offer would help the Zhutas to get visas. They never heard back...

To this day my mum still speaks of the hospitality and generosity of the Zhutas, so when she found out that I was going to be stopping in Lake Ohrid on my way to Croatia she immediately asked that I try to locate them. Last Friday Elissa and I set out for Lake Ohrid on mission and armed with a thirty year old address, a few names, two pages of scanned photos, and the understanding that we may not find the Zhutas, or worse, we may find out the reason that they haven't been heard from in twenty-five years.

I have to admit, I sort of thought my mum was a little crazy when she asked me to find the Zhutas. I mean, first of all, I don't speak Macedonian, or Albanian or any of the other languages spoken in the Republic of Macedonia. And what would be the chance that the family still had the same address or phone number, or that anyone in Lake Ohrid would be able to identify any of the Zhutas out of pictures from thirty years ago?

You'll imagine my shock then when, 30 minutes into our stay in Lake Ohrid, I was chatting on the phone to Ekuran, the Zhutas only son.

I had told the owners of the house we were staying in about our mission to find the Zhutas, and after seeing the name and address, they pulled out the phone book and immediately found a listing for the family.

"I will come by in one hour," Ekuran said.

And that was it. We had found them.

Ekuran and his son, Ilber arrived at 7:30pm, just as Elissa and I were hanging up our laundry on the balcony outside our room.

"Are you a ghost?" Ekuran called up to me.

After tea at a cafe on the lake, Ekuran and Ilber took us to their home, the same home they lived in thirty years ago, and introduced us to the entire family, all the while filling us up with food and drink, laughing over the old pictures, and recounting stories of what my mum was like thirty years ago.

"Your madre," started Mazee, Ekuran's wife. She pointed to her face in imitation, a huge smile from ear to ear. Then she stared giggling. "Happy," she said.

For the next day and a half Ekuran's family took Elissa and I under their wing. His son Ilber helped to arrange our bus to Montenegro. His daughter-in-law, Arijeta,told us the difficulties of being an Albanian Muslim in Macedonia, toured us around the old city and took us to her home, where her mother made us a traditional Albanian lunch. His mother-in-law peeled and cracked fresh walnuts for us from the tree in their backyard. His daughter, Amide, translated during visits with the whole family and chatted to us about her favorite singers, Rihanna and Amy Winehouse. And his little five year old grandson, Johnny, gave us big hugs and kisses when we finally had to say goodbye. We look many, many pictures to commemorate our visit.

"You have a picture of your family?" Ekuran asked before I left.

"I do," I said, showing him a picture of the four of us that had been taken a couple of years ago at my grandparents 50th wedding anniversary (it's my favorite picture of us- that's why I brought it.)

Ekuran looked the the picture carefully. "Can I keep?"

"Absolutely," I said, turning the card over to write our names and address on the back.

Who knows, maybe thirty years from now one his grandkids will arrive at my door with a crumpled photo of Elissa and I, surrounded by the Zhutas, smiling and happy.