SKOPJE, SEPT 3: Mother Teresa as a person is still vividly remembered in her birthplace of Skopje in the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia, which is planning a series of events to mark the first anniversary of her death.But in this city where she was born in 1910 into a family of Albanian origin, less is known about the details of the life of Gonxha Agnes Bojax Hiu, whom the world would go on to know and adore as the Mother, and the charity work for which she won the Nobel Peace in 1979.In particular, it has not been clearly established whether both her parents were Albanian Catholics or whether one was a Slav of the Orthodox faith. The issue is a matter of dispute between ethnic Macedonians and the Albanian community which accounts for a quarter of the population.When questioned on her origins during the four visits she made to Skopje, Mother Teresa simply replied: ``I feel a citizen of Skopje, my place of birth, but I belong to the world.''She would speak in Serbo-Croat punctuated byMacedonian expressions and those who knew her say she could barely speak Albanian.Two of her cousins evoked memories of their childhood in Skopje. ``We were inseparable,'' said Pina Markovska, who was born in 1914, whose grandfather and Mother Teresa's grandmother were brother and sister.``She was always ready to help others. She enjoyed studying and was very pious. One can only say she was a perfect person,'' Markovska said.Toni Josifovski, born in 1917 - Mother Teresa's father was his uncle - remembers. ``a young girl, joyful and full of energy''.``We used to spend a lot of time together,'' he said, adding: ``We lived like one Big family, particularly after the death of her father. I remember one occasion when we were all waiting to go into confession, that she pushed past me saying `I want to go first'.''In 1980, on her third visit to Skopje, Mother Teresa inaugurated a mission of her Sisters of Charity order and was made a Citizen Of Honour of the Macedonian capital.Skopje will markthe first anniversary of her death on September 5, with the unveiling of a scale model of a park to be built in her honour at Kale, the ancient district of Skopje which largely escaped the earthquake which devastated the city in 1963.A five meter (16-foot) bust of Mother Teresa sculpted by the Macedonian artist Tomo Serafimvovsky is to be erected in the park.A memorial plaque is to be added to one which the government has already put on the spot where the house where Mother Teresa was born once stood. Another plaque will be unveiled in the Catholic church of Sacred Heart, built on the foundations of the church where Mother Teresa used to pray as a child and which was destroyed in the earthquake.The English version of a work entitled ``Mother Teresa: Citizen Of Skopje, Citizen Of The World'', is due to be published shortly and the Macedonian language version will go on sale at the end of the year.The work is illustrated with hitherto unpublished photographs of Mother Teresa, dating from herchildhood in Skopje, which she Left in 1918, six years after the end of Ottoman domination.
