Postcard from Kosovo
Kosovo, 1 June 2008: Wing Commander Dave Green took this photo of a child at the National Children and Family Festival. WN 08-0043-44
04 June 2008
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 also a place full of contradictions. Many of the people are poor, but there are more BMWs, Audis and Mercedes on the road than I have ever seen before. Unemployment is high but the clothes are haute couture. People are fiercely proud of their new state, but the streets are full of rubbish.
I live in a roomy, warm, clean bedsitter, with a small kitchenette and bathroom. I’m lucky, because my landlord has a huge generator that kicks in when the mains power goes off – which is 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 1950s vintage coal-fired power station on the outskirts of Pristina covers everything in a fine layer of brown soot on a daily basis.
I eat well, with a choice of anything from trout to t-Bone, filet mignon to fried rice. 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 and 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 – proper, big fireworks, not just your store-bought Guy Fawkes $20 value box – add to a family celebration.
The drivers here are helpful and patient – when I’m inevitably in the wrong lane, they let me in. Then let me back out when I realise I’m not in the wrong lane at all, but actually on the wrong road and possibly in the wrong village! Plus they’re happy to tell me where to go....politely, of course. I think my wife would like it here because you don't park, you just get out. Turn the engine off if you like.
There’s apparently a high crime rate here, but shops leave their glass-fronted fridges full of beer and soft drinks outside on the street overnight with a chain around them, and they’re still there, intact, in the morning. 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.
It’s time for the UN to leave, but politics is making that difficult and it might be some time before things are settled here. But as I prepare to leave, I hope that Kosovo and its people are given the opportunity and support to positively build – or rebuild – their society, their culture and ultimately, their home.
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