A Serious Cafe Experience

Sitting in comfy white deck chairs, outside a Corbusier-esque building, with black window linings and Janis Joplin rockin in the background, bullshitting with some hip, well dressed college kids, you would never think that only 11 years before this place, Kosovo, would be suffering from a bloody war.

Yet despite the posh cafe environment, don't for a minute think the conversation is fluffy and as white as the furniture. I'm sitting in a cafe with my friend Gresa, and her friends, Edon, Kaltrina, and Besart. We begin talking about how cool Kaltrina's heart shaped pupils are, and about how Besart goes to school in Pittsburgh at RMU. Yet our conversation falls into something serious and honest: what is it like living in post-war Kosovo? what do you think about it?

Our conversation has trips and turns, coffees and cheesecakes. While some conversations (as we've seen) can get very Nationalistic and political in Kosovo, these level headed, visionary, brave, and extremely well dressed (!! hehe) college kids reveal what they think. They came, interested with my blog, but eager to debate a few points. I told them my frustrations, but after they gave me theirs. The dialog, abridged here, could not better sum up an honest Kosovo experience:

Me: So I told you how the bullshit, the corruption can get to anyone here in the development community. You read the blog. What do you guys think? Tell me what I should know. The table (and cheesecake is yours).

Besart (B): You get used to the Bullshit. After hanging out with the bulls for so long, you get used to it. But for me, once I left Kosovo to Pittsburgh to go to Robert Morris University, the bulls looked like ants from afar, and then once I came back, I was not used to the bull's and their shit. I was depressed for a month, wrote poetry. People just hold a lot in, get used to the bullshit, then explode on things, like the panel. At a certain point, when one thing is done well, you almost don't believe in it because all you hear about is corruption in the papers.

"You might not have seen worse, but for many people, they might not have seen better."

At this point, Edon comes in. He has a great kind New York accent, but is all about Kosovo. He does graphic design, art, and other projects. He is about images and focuses on the significance of the Albanian eagle in his analysis.

Edon: "I think if you wanna understand it, you gotta go WAY back, I mean WAY back."

We then proceed to go into milestones in history of the regions. For those of you who don't know the history, here is a brief overview of what we looked like:

"6th century, we say Serbs and Albanians meet. We, Albanians, lay cultural heritage to the Illyrians, who had been living in the area. From the white pure hats we wear, we get the name, 'Albanoid'. The Balkans have always been the site of conflict between East and West. So the mentality, of 'Protect you own because the enemy is coming' might have developed. Its not even about serbs and Albanians, its just about keeping yourself safe from any intrusion. So time passes, Slav rulers invade. Later still, the Ottomans.

"Now, our national hero, scanderbeg"

Me: "Now, who is this guy? Everyone claims him as his own! Serbs say he's serb, Albanians say he's Albanian."

Edon: "He was Albanian. When the Ottomans came, Albanians fled to the hills and 'stayed with the eagles' hence how we got the Double headed eagle"

Me: "Wasn't that also a Russian, slav symbol too?"

Edon: "I mean, sure, but its very Albanian. Our language, which we call 'Shqiptar' literally means 'Eagle'. Symbols have brought us together and united us in times of adversity. We trace this back to Scanderbeg. Fast forward. Albanians are converted to Islam in the Ottoman empire. The Ottomans are defeated, Austro-Hungary comes from the North. Nationalism is growing anyway, all over the place. Thanks to France, haha. In 1912, the serbs, Bulgarians, and others team up against the Ottomans. But Albania doesn't join the alliance. why? One, we aren't Slavic, our language is completely unrelated to ANY other language, kinda like the Georgians, the Basque people."

Gresa: "Yea, when I worked in Disney World on work-study, we used to make bets on whether or not Brazilian or Albanian was a stranger language. We won."

THE 20th CENTURY

Edon: "But once again, in 1912, Albania got its own country. Once again, this Albanian eagle arises. Once again, war strikes though in WWII, Nazi Italian occupation, you know the drill."

Besart: "Now you know how we have dark hair and aren't pure white Albanoids... haha"

Edon: " Anyways, I mean, once again, later on, Albania fights back. After the creation of Yugoslavia in the 40s, Albania is a separate country. However, a lot of Albanians are living in Kosovo, which is part of Yugoslavia. Kosovo is not a republic, but rather under Serbian control. Under Tito, things were fine, but once he died, it got back for Albanians in a Slavic nation. Everyone wanted their own nationalism. Under Serbian Milosevic in the 80s and 90s, Albanians really suffered in Kosovo.

THE 90s

"Growing up in the 90s Albanians did not have the right to go to school or use public benefits. We were marginalized. It was like Milosevic wanted us out. Cops would walk down the street, we would get scared and run away or else they would beat our parents up for fun. They wanted us to go back to Albania. "

Me: " Why?"

Edon: ....."Because they wanted more territory."

Me: "Okay, but there is more to it...."

Edon: " Of course, but this is generally speaking. Albanians were makin' a lot of kids. No Condoms back then. Only 3 kids?? Anyways, once again, the ALbanian flag comes back to keep us united and strong against others."

ON HISTORY

Me: "But up to this point you gave me landmarks, not really why things happen. You are trying to explain this Albanian unity, but history is not fact. Its the facts you choose."

Edon: " I mean, yea. But you asked about unity. This is the history. This is how we keep together. History."

Conflict

Edon: So 1994, KLA, the Kosovo Liberation Army began to fight back against oppression by Serbs headed up by Hashem Thaci. Things heat up, until 1998-1999. Now it gets bad. You know about the massacres that start international attention. Thats when shit happened.

Gresa: I remember hearing about how NATO was gonna start bombing. The war was starting. We left to Macedonia. We were refugees. I was just a kid. People were even getting killed at the border at the neutral zone. It was hard. You get through to Macedonia and the press attacked! They had not been let inside. I remember being hungry. Were you hungry?

Besart: "Day 6? I felt really shitty. Hundreds of cars were at the border, but Kaltrina's dad let us pass them."

Gresa: "I remember not sleeping for 48 hours."

Me: "Why did you think all of this was happening."

Gresa: "It was hard to say. I was young. It was hard to understand. Kosovo is rich in resources, and a lot of Albanians were actually very well educated. Before, they went abroad, like our fathers and Grandfathers, they went to Sarajevo, Zagreb, Germany, even Belgrad during Tito to learn. it was just our generation that suffered, but our parents made sure we were educated. We weren't all poor!"

Edon: "You are lucky you got out. I was stuck in Kosovo. I remember 3 months, staying in the same apartment. No food, water, electricity. My mom was fluent in serbian. She would go out, dressed up as a beautiful serbian woman and get us food. she would come back with bread. The windows, I remember, were covered so no one would know and no snipers could get us. Sometimes, paramilitaries would come, dressed in masks, cowboy hats, military gear. They would beat up your parents.

"Yet I remember during this time, I would draw a lot. I had a notebook and would draw Albanian Eagles and NATO soldiers. My mom found a drawing once. She was so angry, saying it could kill us. I still have that drawing.... "

Kaltrina: "I remember too, this first and second floor thing. We would all want to stay on the same floor together. The brave people stayed on the second floor. It was harder to get out. Also with airstrikes. It was safer below. The sky was like morning...."

Besart: "You would also never know. Your Serb neighbors would turn out to be paramilitaries. When we left to Macedonia, we were stopped by some. One turned out to be our neighbor. He helped us by telling us a better route to leave so we wouldn't get hurt."

Gresa: "Guys, Danielle and I have a paper. We should get going."

If only you were there to hear this. There is much to learn. Call it raw material for short stories, but here is text for you all in the States to chew on.

More importantly, the calm attitude. These students, sitting in a cafe in Prishtina, listening to Janis Joplin, are the future. They are my anti-bullshit factor. My anti-drug. The composure... like they were telling childhood stories.

I have much to learn from such composure.