Meet Rina.
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| Rina! |
She’s a friend I made while still living in the US; she was
a high school exchange student whose host parents were friends of mine, and I
got to know her quite well before her year in an American high school ended. She’s
from Kosovo, in a quaint village outside of the capital where electricity still
goes out occasionally and the house is warmed by wood furnaces in every room. When
I learned I would be studying abroad in Germany for a year we agreed that we
would both have to meet back up in Europe whether on my soil or hers. It ended
up being pretty hard for her to come to Germany from Kosovo, so we arranged
that I go visit Kosovo for an entire week during my Christmas holidays. I
booked all of my flights months in advance and the break couldn't come soon
enough.
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| Flying over Kosovo |
After a few hours in the air, a brief layover in Vienna
which had me running around the airport the entire time (upside: now I have
three extra Vienna stamps in my passport), I finally arrived in Pristina, the
capital of Kosovo, being warmly greeted by Rina, her brother Arber and father
Selim. Germany’s winter prior to my trip to Kosovo was gray and depressing, so
stepping out into the dry air and blue skies of Eastern Europe was warmly welcomed. It was such a weird feeling
walking out of the airport; whether it was the change in climate or reuniting
with a friend from the US, being in Kosovo felt like being home.
We caught up in the car the entire drive back, now equipped
with dozens of stories of new adventures in Europe. There didn’t seem to be
enough time to catch up! The whole way back Selim is pointing out the window,
speaking in Albanian with Arber and Rina translating for me, what the sights
off the highway were. Off in the distance we could see the power grid for the
capital city, with large smokestacks emitting a grayish fog which complemented
the brown mountainside set off in the distance. I asked Rina what the power
source was. The answer: dirty coal, but I was reassured by Rina with a sense of
proud excitement that she was going to be one of the young professionals in her
country ushering in renewable energy to bring Kosovo into modernized times. The
way she said it made it seem like she had a duty to be the change in Kosovo all
of the people wanted: an end to the old ways of corruption and family
appointments. As I would see unfold by the end of my week in Kosovo, everyone I
was put into contact with had this same sense of obligation to the country that
Rina had, this sense of nationalism that is hard to put into words.
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| Blue skies! |
30 minutes after touching down we were all back in Rina’s
village and home, sitting in the simply decorated living room munching on chips
and sipping on Coca-Cola. When we arrived the electricity to the house was out,
but you wouldn’t have been able to tell anything was different. The slow pace
of life based on story-telling and conversation was enhanced by this without the
option of turning on the TV. With the sun pouring through the windows and the
wood furnace going in the corner, we held conversation for an hour while also
waiting for Rina’s mom, Safete, to have all of the ‘welcome meal’ prepared. I
was unaccustomed to the hospitality I was about to be showed, so much so that
Rina gave me an early warning saying “My parents are going to keep offering you
food through the meal—you don’t have to keep eating until you’re sick, just say
you’re full when you’re done. They’ll still want you to eat more anyway, so
just ask me for help if you need it haha.” I was learning so much about their
culture just by sitting in the living room and conversing with the family, that
by the time the meal was ready I knew to expect a lot of bread. Arber told me
they have a saying in Albanian which translates into “The bread is ready” which
means “It’s time to eat” because in Albanian and Kosovo culture the term ‘bread’
doubles as a proxy for ‘a meal’ since it is served in its many forms with every
dish. The spread was incredible and filled with traditional Albanian food. I
can’t stress enough how delicious all of Safete’s cooking was. As I was reading
through my journal to write this blog post, I just kept re-reading the same
line from every meal: “And the food was do delicious!” I just don’t think I
know the right adjectives to describe it, or maybe Albanian food just escapes
characterization! Safete made buke shpie (homemade
bread), as well as rasoj (pickled
cabbage), suxhule shpie (Albanian
sausage), and djath i bardhee (type
of cheese). There was also a cheese pie of sorts (rough translation) which
sopped up the juices of a bell pepper sauce and leftovers of a chicken noodle
soup. Retyping this now makes me kind of hungry because I can remember this
first meal in Kosovo so well….it was so delicious!
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| Welcome to Kosovo! Now here, stuff your face with delicious food until you pass out |
After stuffing my face and washing it down with a few
glasses of cold Coke (might as well be the national drink of Kosovo—Rina told
me everyone drinks it), we all moved
into the living room again for our after-meal black tea. This was new to me,
but the custom of finishing off a meal with conversation over tea was really
cool. I was then introduced to Rina’s cousins, aunts, and uncles who all came
by the house to meet me. That was so cool because everyone was extremely nice
and generous, asking me about my flights and first impressions of Kosovo. I was
taken aback by the amount of family members I was meeting, there were just so
many family members that I had to draw a family tree and map everyone out later
that night. I later joked with Rina that I now knew more of her family tree
than mine! That night after supper Rina, her cousin Ardit, and I went into the
capital to walk around and meet more family members who I hadn’t met. One of
Rina’s cousins bartends at a little hole-in-the-wall bar around the corner from
the National Library which acted as a reunion ground for the cousins. There I
met her cousins Genc and Bardh and some of her friends, filling up the bar, all
talking about our cultures and ways of life. I tried the “drink of the Balkans,”
rakia, and I must say…..I don’t miss it! When in Rome though.
My first real day in Kosovo was spent walking around the
capital Pristina with Rina who was filling me in on all of the national landmarks.
With the country winning independence in 2008, locals take pride in being “Europe’s
newest country” and it seems every person is imbued with a positive attitude
and friendly spirit. Meeting locals for the first time came across as reuniting
with an old friend, oddly enough, but this aspect of the culture was a breath
of fresh air. Walking around the city and taking in all the sights was really
cool, and I can still remember my first impression: why does this city smell
like a giant firework? Seriously, the capital city had this stiff smell like
the fourth of July hanging in the air. When I asked Rina where it came from she
said all of the little kids who don’t go to school run around the streets
popping firecrackers in the streets for fun, hence the sound of “pops” every
minute. Rina and I met up with one of her good friends, Vullnet, and we toured
the National Museum, where I learned all about the history of the country, as
well as the culture of the Albanian people. It was so interesting to be getting
first-hand accounts of the history, of hearing stories of refugee camps and
fleeing during the fighting campaigns. Later I met Anita, one of Rina’s closest
friends, who accompanied us to Kosovo’s Ethnological Museum which highlights
traditional Albanian life and culture. The museum itself was a traditional
Albanian house with a wall around it, and each room was a different exhibit on
the clothing, jewelry, and so forth from old Albanian culture. My first full
day in Kosovo was rightly spent getting caught up to speed!
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| Mhmm I can smell the fireworks just looking at the picture |
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| From the steps of a mosque in central Pristina |
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| Main square of Pristina at sundown |
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| National Library, voted Top 10 Ugliest Buildings in the World (but I quite like it) |
Midnight marked Christmas day and Rina and friends, although
not Christian, were nice enough to go with me to a Catholic mass in the capital
to usher in the holiday. Although the service was in Albanian and I couldn’t
understand any of it, being in a church with new friends on Christmas was a
nice way to replace the traditions of being at home with family. A few hours
after the service ended we all woke up in the family’s house to a small
Christmas tree with presents underneath.
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| Church in Pristina on Christmas Eve |
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| The Fetahu family Christmas tree--very nice! |
I brought a few presents over from Germany, which I had my
parents ship me, for Rina and her family. I asked for some of Rina’s favorite
things from her time spent in Louisiana and had them wrapped and under the tree
in time for Christmas morning. We woke up to a sunny Christmas morning in
Kosovo, unwrapped our gifts, and then headed into the dining room for a Christmas
dinner, Kosovo style. It was absolutely delicious: scrambled eggs, more
homemade bread, chicken noodle soup, cheese and the bell pepper sauce I liked
so much. I ate so much I had to take a nap after the meal! Afterwards we all
crammed into the family car and headed to North Kosovo to a town called
Podujeva to walk around. We stopped off in a café and ordered Kosovo’s true national
drink: (or at least more-so than Coca-Cola is) the macchiato. I’ve read on
several accounts of Kosovo’s macchiato being the best in the world, better than
Italy’s. What’s really nice in Kosovo is that everything is really cheap by
Western European standards, and the macchiatos only cost 50 cents each, so we
all got our fill in, and then some. By the end of the day everything in Kosovo
was being framed by the costs of a 50 cent macchiato. We swung by a local lake
on our way home for Christmas supper, where Rina and I would be cooking the
first gumbo in the country’s history (unconfirmed, but I’m sticking to it)! It
turned out nicely and was also accompanied with Safete’s homemade flia, which is essentially just a giant
layered soft bread which soaks up gumbo nicely. Rina practically inhaled her
bowls of gumbo and we all had to take a nap after supper from being so full.
Christmas day ended quietly but in great company.
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| What is it? What could it possibly be????? |
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| Zapp's Potato Chips! |
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| "Red and black, I dress Eagle on my chest, good to be an Albanian!" |
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| Christmas dinner spread. It was absolutely delicious |
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| Such imagery, much landscape |
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| Chef Rina cooking the country's first gumbo |
The day after Christmas was spent visiting Prizren, a smaller
town in southern Kosovo historically rich in architecture and culture. Rina,
Arber, and two cousins from Safete’s side, Andi and Liza, and I crammed into
the family car for the journey. We arrived and met up with another one of Rina’s
friends, Anila, and walked around the city’s cobblestone streets, across the
bridges of the canals which run through the city, and ducked into coffee bars
for macchiatos and tea and to avoid the flurries of snow and rain. The cafes,
not only in Prizren but all over Kosovo, are really cool. Each café has a
different theme and some are a lot hipper than others, Rina told me. Her
favorite is one called the Pristina Rock Café and it plays blues music like
Muddy Waters and is dimly lit and cozy. One that we went to in Prizren was
nature themed with a tree growing inside. People everywhere in the country hop
from café to café ordering macchiatos and catching up over coffee…it’s a really
cool aspect of the culture. When we left Prizren to head back to Pristina, it
started snowing on the drive back, hard, which made for a slower drive. I was
really excited to see snow finally because up to this point I hadn’t seen any
in Germany yet! Rina and her family told me that snow was usual for winter
time, and that my first few days in Kosovo of blue sky and warm temperatures were
atypical, so now I got to experience the second of two Kosovos: iced over
roads, slippery conditions, and reduced speed limits. We got back to Pristina
ready to set out for a Friday night in the capital.
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| A rainy Prizren, with the fortress of the city off at the top of the hill |
The next day Rina, Vullnet, their friend Monika,
and I set off for Brezovica to go skiing. Brezovica is fast becoming a hot
tourist destination for people from Kosovo, Albania, and Macedonia for its
skiing and outdoors activities, so I felt really lucky to see it. To our
dismay, the day we set off to Brezovica, the area was experiencing a “snow
cyclone;” when we got up to the hills and got let off by the bus we were all
getting tossed around by the wind and snow flurries. Call me a Louisiana
native, but seeing snow drifts and getting pelted by the snow and wind was
super fun! I’m pretty sure my Kosovo friends were ready to get into a café as
soon as possible, but I was happy just being outside in the thick of it, not
being able to see 10 feet in front of me. Walking up the slopes to the ski
rental place was tough but so much fun. Unfortunately when we got up to the top
the rental places were closed due to “bad conditions” so we weren’t even going
to get to ski! We had six hours to kill before the bus departed back to
Pristina, so we spent a lot of that time in a café or restaurant, munching on pizza,
avoiding the snow storm. At one point though we ventured out and rented a sled
for the slopes and I got to sled down a hill for the first time in my life. You
can really gain some speed on those things! I had fun just walking around the
area in the snow, making snow angels, and being a total newbie to the snow. The
six hours melted by, and after taking some memorable pictures we headed back to
the capital. When we got back home Rina and the family and I went over to uncle
Bislim’s house, right down the street in the village for some black tea and
conversation. I got to chat with Rina’s cousin Alban, Ardit, and then Arber
about Kosovo culture and the war. It was a really great, enlightening
conversation, touching on the topic about Serbia with Alban referencing a
particular FIFA match between Albania and Serbia which incited a giant fight
and still leaves a bitter taste in Albanians’ mouths to this day. Here I was
learning so much about something I knew about only through news headlines,
getting the full story. The conversation seemed to stretch on, and it was only
after looking down at my watch did we realize it was time to head home for
sleep.
My last 24 hours in Kosovo were low-key, but they were
great! I walked around Pristina a bit more and accompanied Rina to a Secret
Santa gift swap with some of her exchange friends. I got a necklace and
bracelet with outlines of the country—a very fitting gift for a tourist! At
night we were all back at the village house talking over supper and black tea.
When we moved into the living room for dessert, the electricity went out. My
trip in Kosovo was ending just the way it started! Because it was night, Selim
busted out some candles, lit the oil lamp, and added more wood to the wood
furnace in the corner of the living room and we passed the time just talking
about old family stories, my time in Kosovo, and more. Selim wanted to know if
we in the US ever used candle lights and oil lamps and I said in fact yes, when
hurricanes come through and wipe out power, my family gets together over an oil
lamp and plays board games and cards to pass the time. Rina translated between
the two of us for a good while that night and later on was translating Selim’s
stories about growing up, which I learned happened in the same village, in the
same house that we were in currently. They told me about the stories during the
war and the evacuations of family members to different parts of Europe. When
they got back after being refugees, they were happy to find that the house was
still there. The small 3 bedroom 1 bath was preserved, as well as the family
land behind the house, used for veggies and fruits. The electricity came back
on a few hours later, and I remember feeling really disappointed to now have
the lights and TV back on. But in the end, I couldn’t have asked for a better
way to wrap up my week in Kosovo.
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| Brezovica!....in a snow cyclone! |
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| Capturing Vullnet in his finest hour: walking into flurries of snow and taking gusts of wind to the face |
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| We're going a 'sleddin! |
I am so indebted to the entire Fetahu family for their
hospitality and love during my week in Kosovo. They truly helped me see things
from the perspective of a local and went far out of their way to make it
happen, and I felt like the trip was once-in-a-lifetime because of it. All of
Rina’s cousins, aunts, uncles, and friends also made my trip so much fun, even
in the smallest of ways. I never thought I would have the opportunity to visit
the Balkan peninsula during my time abroad, but now after just one week there I
want to go back as soon as possible (although maybe when it’s warmer) because
the food, the people, the way of life is so indescribably amazing that one blog
post just doesn’t even come close to describing it. Faleminderit!
