Kosovo

*Disclaimer: I could write a novel on this past week but lets be real, no one would read it. I am going to try to simply highlight a few things that I found interesting. Just know that I am OBSESSED with this country now and could go on for pages.

Prishtina

This past week, I went to Prishtina, Kosovo with my class War Crimes and Human Rights. I was somewhat dreading the trip because my other friends were going to destinations such as Milan, London, Scotland, Prague, etc. and had fabulous trips planned. Call me crazy, but on the outside, the war torn, former- Yugoslavia country was not high on my list and I was simply jealous of everyone else.

We arrived in Prishtina and drove down Bill Clinton Blvd. to get to our hotel. There was barbed wire, run down houses, construction, trash, and graffiti everywhere. (Along with a Bill Clinton statue. They LOVE him.)

Bill Clinton

That afternoon, we took a tour of Prishtina. I quickly fell in love with the city. Despite the fact that many of the buildings were damaged or torn down, you could tell that the people took great pride in their country and there was something endearing about that. In the beginning of the tour, we passed a gate covered in pictures. We learned that these were missing persons. After the war ended in 1999, there were 5000 missing persons and currently there are 1800. These people looked just like our fathers, our brothers, our friends, and even our mothers or sisters or grandmothers. Heart wrenching.

 After this, I had a conversation with our tour guide to get a sense of his life. He was Albanian but from Serbia. As a teenager, he was recruited to the Serbian army but fled the country. He obtained an illegal passport for 2000 euro, went through Slovenia, and then bounced around through 7 countries before ending up in Switzerland for a year and a half. When he was forced to come back home to Kosovo, he arrived and his house was gone. It had been burned down in the war so he and his family moved into an abandoned house. Until the owners of that house came back. After living in four different abandoned houses, his brother finally helped him buy a house of his own, where he lives now. He was one of the lucky ones who were fortunate enough to flee the country during the war. Many people were not so lucky.

Which makes me think, how did I end up so lucky? How am I privileged enough to have only known peace my entire life. To have only known democracy my entire life? To live in a country with rule of law? Police I can trust? Government I can trust (for the most part)? To have only known family and stability my entire life? To be able to walk around with no fear? To be able to worship where I want to worship, learn where I want to learn, and travel where I want to travel? I have done nothing to deserve such grace.

The next day, we awoke and went to our first academic study. We spoke with the President of Kosovo. Through a translator, he told us how far his country had come and his hopes for the future. I could not stop thinking about where these people had come from and wondering if I would be so hopeful if all I had ever known was war. My favorite quote from President Jakup Krasniq was that their goal was to “sacrifice history for the sake of the future.” This is the attitude that I perceived from the vast majority of the Albanians living in Kosovo (we were not privileged enough to meet and talk to many Serbs and I am sure if we had, we might not have gotten quite the same impression.)

Precious Friends

After speaking to the President, we went to Parliament’s chambers and spoke to a member of the Assembly. He was one of the men who had an integral role in starting the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) and was subsequently imprisoned and tortured by Serbian armies for seven years. His response to this: “That’s life. You have to move on.”

That was simply one day in Kosovo. Life changing. There was so much more and so many more encounters and adventures like this. We spoke to students in Kosovo, EULEX, the leader of KFOR, went to the city of Prizren (absolutely beautiful), the US Embassy, ICO, OSCE, the list goes on and on.

View from our restaurant in Prizren

It was amazing seeing a state truly building (not even Rebuilding. Simply building). Seventy countries in the UN currently recognize Kosovo as an independent state. Only 5 EU countries remain to recognize the country. They are in the process of building a legal system. There is a high international presence in the country but it is evident that the international community (UN, Nato, EU, etc) has great hopes in transitioning their roles to the government of Kosovo. It will be fascinating to follow this budding country for the next years. I suggest you join me as well.