Postcard from Kosovo
WGCDR Dave Green talks about his experiences as part of the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) in this Postcard from Kosovo.
Kosovo children dress up for the National Children and Family Festival held in Pristina on 1 June. Photo courtesy WGCDR Green. (WN-08-0038-04).
Kosovo. About 140 kms long, 110 kms wide. You can drive around it on a good day in less than nine hours. On a bad day... It’s a region in transition, governed by the United Nations for so long that white Toyota 4 Runners with UN on the side are recognised as normal by an entire generation of children.
It’s a place that just can't help but contradict itself. The people are poor, but there are more BMWs and Audis and Mercedes on the road than I have ever seen. Unemployment is high but the clothes are all Paris and Milan haute couture. People are fiercely proud of their new state, but they throw their rubbish over the balconies and onto the streets. They want to be seen as cosmopolitan, but spitting in the streets and smoking in restaurants is normal.
I live in a roomy, warm, clean bedsitter, with small kitchenette and bathroom. I am lucky, because my landlord has a huge generator that kicks in when the mains power goes off – that’s about 6 hours a day. I don't have water in the mornings, because Kosovo cannot generate enough electricity to run the water purification plant 24 hours a day. The 1950's vintage coal fired power station on the outskirts of Pristina covers everything in a fine layer of brown soot on a daily basis.
A young child at the National Children and Family Festival. Photo courtesy WGCDR Green. (WN-08-0043-44).
I eat well. I can have anything from trout to t-bone, filet mignon to fried rice, sushi to...something beginning with S. A rare to medium fillet steak, with entree costs me about 8 euros ($16.00). I'm tempted to eat out every night because it’s cheaper, better than I could make, and I don't have to do the dishes. No McDonalds, but. I sleep well, except for the nights when fireworks add to a family celebration. Sorry, the Warehouse ‘Mega Boom Box’ would get laughed at here - these are REAL fireworks.
I'm not a great driver, so I fit in quite well here. When I am inevitably in the wrong lane, they let me in. Then they let me go back after I find that I'm not in the wrong lane at all, I'm on the wrong road! And in the wrong village. They tell me where to go...politely, of course. My wife would like it here because you don't park, you just get out. Turn the engine off if you like.
The place has a high crime rate, although shops leave their glass fronted fridges full of beer and soft drinks outside on the street overnight with a chain around them. They are still there in the morning - intact. A small kiosk that I walk past each morning started out in life as a Ford Transit van. It sits out there all night, full of cigarettes and chewing gum. And no-one touches it. Teenagers walk around the town at midnight in small social groups, and I have yet to see a fight. But you can buy drugs, guns and prostitutes as easily as a newspaper.