Some little places

I am currently out of town for a little vacation in Sofia, Bulgaria. More on that when I get back. In the meantime, please enjoy pictures of places that I patronize in Pristina.

Dukagjini Bookstore

ProCredit Bank - one of the bigger banks here

One of 2 Chinese Restaurants in Town (they do massage also)

Blurred View of my Fish Shop

Dily Dally or is it Daly Dilly or DIliDali or ...who gives a *****

Today, I was walking home from lunch when I was cornered by a little kid, who I will refer to as Oliver, asking me for money. This is not too uncommon in Prisitina. Difference this time for me is that I saw the boy with his mum earlier going through trash. One of the things I told myself when getting here was that I would not be giving out alms in form of cash. I do not have much of it and I just feel better giving out something more tangible that can be used. I did that already a couple of times here. So back to my encounter with Oliver... I shook my head at him and said 'Jo'. Did it a couple of times and went around him. As I was walking on thumbing the the two euro in my jacket pocket, I heard a voice telling me to look back. At the same time, another voice was saying to me, "C'mon, you just gave a tip of one euro for lunch and you cannot help this family?" So I looked back and there was Oliver's mum going through garbage again. I almost lost it there and felt like crying. I crossed the street and ran back to Oliver and gave him the 2 Euros and mumbled "God Bless you and guide you into adulthood and a blessed future." I did not feel good about what I just did when I left Oliver behind. In fact I felt crappy about the whole situation. All around us were coffee houses with people drinking lattes and machiatos and there was Oliver and many more like him picking garbage. I felt even worse and guilty as I felt more like an outsider with my own different world from Oliver who is from Kosovo but yet is suffering like mad. We, fools talk and enjoy while the righteous suffer ....

I miss home a bit. It always seems like it's when I leave the country that s*** begins to happen - Possible downfall of Gonzales, congressional democrats finally growing a spine, Chief of Staff of the Military becoming a moralistic military preacher, Britany Spear shaving her head, etc. Pffffff

Me thinks this might be a conspiracy ...

There was another explosion ne Prishtine tonight. Apparently, the grenade toting gang is at it again. The news can be found here. Sad stuff, the restaurant bombed is Samurai :( Only place I have Japanese food and sushi (cooked meat) here. There is supposed to be another place but never been there. Nobody was hurt again except for those who were planning to have lunch there tomorrow and the owners who have to take on the financial burden. I am beginning to get suspicious whether these explosions are being done by pro-independence or anti-independence Kosovans. Both groups dislike most multi-lateral organizations anyway. But, onwards we all march to the future ...

We the People ....gallery

Sometimes, during all the political excitment and wheeling & dealing, it is oft forgotten that there are people on the ground being affected by all that is going on. In the following photos, I attempt, in a rough way, to visualize what Pristina and Kosovo are like from my limited exposure. Hope you see, hear and understand :)

Nightlife

On a recent visit to Skopje in Macedonia (or FYROM), I was asked by several people what what the night life was like in Pristina. I was wary about answering this. Being someone who has been lucky enough to know nightlife in NYC and London, I can be excused if I tend to soak up reviews of other cities' night life like a drainer. I ended up telling the inquiring minds that nightlife in Pristina was okay and growing. There are always cafes open up late (though mot serving coffee by 10 pm). 24 hrs casinos are still up and running. Taxis are always around to take you anywhere. I have heard of many a club but have only been to a couple. SPRAY might be queen amongst knights when it comes to clubs. Always a different vibe there but always full of young and beautiful Kosovan people indulging in all sorts of debauchery. Babuka is a favorite for internationals in Pristina. Better known as the Jazz Club, the live music in Babuka is good. The owner is also a constant drummer in the bands and a cool dude. There is actually an American vibe to this as some who work there used to in the USA. Cubed Club is also a god chillout place, nice eclectic music dj'ed by bartenders; mainly Kosovan patrons. There is always the OSCE happy hour every Friday night but I got a feeling that this is where internationals hook up and break up, the only time I was there. It seemed like a good networking event though. Here is a site talking about a couple more places to go to at night. Also check out article below about clubbing in Kosovo, though it is more about clubbing in Pristina and reads more like PR campaign for Babuka ;)

Clubbing in a new Kosovo

By Patrick Jackson BBC News, Pristina

As Kosovo awaits the UN Security Council's decision on its final status, BBC News asks Pristina's night clubbers if there is a place for Serbs, in a city where inter-ethnic tensions still resonate. Where does Europe's youngest population - 50% under the age of 25, according to the UN - go on a Saturday night? If you have a few euros, and can get past the bouncers, let Pristina's packed clubs entertain you with live rock and jazz. With pizza lining your stomach - or maybe a Bondsteel burger, named after a US military base - the beer bottles are glinting, the music is good and you could think you are in a club in any EU state. What places you in the Kosovan capital, other than the male-female imbalance (which grows as the night wears on), is the Albanian being spoken around you.

I cannot forget [the war] but I try not to think of it because we have to go forward - otherwise there is no chance Besim Gashi Babuka jazz club owner

But don't be discouraged if you don't know it - people here have a command of English to put other nations to shame, the product of schooling and "kitchen-table" private tutoring. And many older Albanians are no strangers to German or other west European languages, learnt from years of labour or exile abroad. Only Serbian, the one second language that just about everyone who grew up before 1999 knows as a citizen of the former Yugoslavia, stands outcast in Pristina. This city of 550,000 is now home to 12,000 Serbs, according to the OSCE, which includes suburban Serb enclaves. Serbs themselves say no more than 50-60 live in the centre of a city where they officially made up 13% of the population in Yugoslav times. Could they come back? This Saturday night some Albanians, at least, genuinely seem to be keeping the door ajar to a life together in Kosovo's capital.

Trying to forget

"We want to have a real good life here like young people have in Europe and everywhere else," says locksmith Jener Lleshi.

[My message to Serbs is] be Kosovans! And come and live in Pristina like you used to Jener Lleshi Pristina clubber

There was a time, he continues, when Serbs should "maybe have been afraid but not anymore". His message to them is that if they embrace Kosovo as a nation, they will be welcomed in and can enjoy the fruits of a euro-fuelled economy. "Accept that this is Kosovo and reject disintegration and separation because nowadays in Pristina you can travel, you can go about freely," he says. "That's my message to you: Be Kosovans! And come and live in Pristina like you used to." Besim Gashi Babuka is the owner of the jazz club where we are trying to talk above the music. Speaking in between sessions with the band, the man everyone knows as Babuka clearly has no illusions about the gulf between the two communities. He himself "lost everything during the war". "We [Albanians] were a million driven out of our homes, we had women and children killed, the anger was very strong," he says. "I cannot forget it but I try not to think of it because we have to go forward - otherwise there is no chance." Serbs, Babuka says, should try to understand that Albanians were hit hard during the war. There is intolerance on both sides and Albanians should also try to understand Serbs, he adds, but that "is much harder". As for the political situation, he argues that Kosovo's statehood will soon be a reality and he looks to the EU for examples of a multi-ethnic society. "I have just come from London and I studied in Amsterdam and I have seen all those millions of people from different places, of different nationalities and different religions, successfully living together." Many Serbs still living in the Pristina area avoid the city, some commuting to the Serb stronghold of Mitrovica on a train specially organised by the UN. Pristina's Serb population fell from an estimated 40,000 to a couple of thousand in the space of a few months in 1999, the UN refugee agency reported at the time. Expulsions by ethnic Albanians, it said, appeared to be "systematic" with entire blocks of flats reportedly emptied by militants using threats or actual violence.

Given the chance...

As the night winds down in Babuka's club, journalist Dukagjin Gorani offers his own view of Kosovo's future.

Kosovo will become a state but not a nation-state Dukagjin Gorani journalist

"It's not much of a country, just a small and extremely modest entity which I believe is very ambitious, ambitious in its idea that it does belong to the wider family of democracies, and it has certainly made up its mind that its road to wellbeing lies to the West," he says. Kosovo, he predicts, will "become a state but not a nation-state" if the Serbs accept democratic values and come aboard. By democracy, he means not just "the will of the majority but... but respect for minorities". And Dukagjin asks for the world to give Kosovo a chance: "Considering the way we have been governing ourselves for the past seven years, I cannot say I am much proud of anything but I sort of expect myself to become proud, hopefully with the serious reforms and changes which Kosovo will inevitably have to undergo." As for Babuka, his club is a symbol of the kind of place Kosovo should be. "Through my jazz club, something which is very European, I like to show that we are normal," he says.

Some more recent pics....

Some people commented to me that my previous pictures were not "too positive" and a little depressing. That is a pity as I was just trying to give images of current happenings. I do hope people do not think that's all Kosovo is about. This is a beautiful 'country', really. Here are some of more recent pictures from Kosovo.

Vala Card Guy by UNMIK (courtesy of MT Cowgirl)

A Busy Road (courtesy of MT Cowgirl)

CoalFired Power Plant - only one in Kosovo (Yikes!!!)

A View of Beginning of Police Avenue Showing Most Expensive Private School in Prisitina (The One That Looks Like An Observatory)

Blurred View Of Youth Sports Center At Night

I intend to give you a run down of precedent events later but for now ....

Kosovo's President Fatmir Sejdiu, left, and Kosovo's Prime Minister Agim Ceku

....

According to news media, the last talks between Kosovan and Serbian negotiators on the proposals by the UN Special Envoy Martti Ahtisaari concerning the future status of Kosovo did not end well at all. C'est la vie. He takes the proposals to the UN Security Council now where Russia might be the only one of the Permanent Five to potentially veto it. Let's wait and see. From Reuters:

"The U.N. Security Council will decide whether to give Kosovo independence from Serbia, after U.N. envoy Martti Ahtisaari on Saturday declared an end to over a year of fruitless Serb-Albanian talks. Ahtisaari said leaders of Serbia and Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority were still deadlocked over the fate of the U.N.-run territory after a meeting in Vienna, the last in a mediation process that began in February 2006. If the U.N. Security Council adopts his blueprint, Kosovo will declare itself Europe's newest independent state and the last to be carved from the former Yugoslavia. "I would have very much preferred that this process would lead to a negotiated solution," the former Finnish president told a news conference. "But it has left my in no doubt that the parties' stands ... do not contain any common ground to reach such an agreement." "It is my intention to finalize the proposal for submission to the U.N. Security Council in the course of this month." The West wants a solution imposed by June, seeing no prospect of forcing 2 million Albanians back into the arms of Serbia and fearing unrest if they are frustrated much longer. Kosovo has been run by the United Nations since 1999, when NATO bombed Serbia to drive Serb forces accused of atrocities in a two-year counter-insurgency war out of the province. Some 10,000 Albanians died and almost a million fled before NATO troops occupied Kosovo. Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica called for the U.N.-mediated talks to continue, saying the present plan was a ''brutal violation of the U.N. charter'' and a bid to amputate land cherished by Serbs as their historic heartland. "This proposal does not meet the conditions to be presented to the U.N. Security Council,'' he told reporters.

LONG TRAIN RIDE

The talks ended as hardliners in Serbia marked the first anniversary of the death in detention of Slobodan Milosevic, the Serb strongman whose repression of Kosovo Albanians in the 1990s led to fighting and NATO's first "humanitarian" air war. "We are putting an end to a dark chapter in our history," said Hashim Thaci, the former leader of the 1990s Kosovo Albanian guerrilla army. Kosovo Albanian politician Veton Surroi said: "The long train ride has arrived at the central station.'' Russia remains the only potential stumbling block. Serbia's fellow Orthodox Christian ally insists time be given for both sides to agree on a solution, but has pointedly avoided threatening the use of its council veto. Asked whether Moscow might veto the plan, Serbian President Boris Tadic replied: "That is going to be up to the Russians to decide what position they will take in the Security Council." Though it avoids the word independence, the U.N. envoy's blueprint sets out the framework for an independent state, under a foreign overseer and European Union police mission. It offers self-government and protection for the 100,000 remaining Serbs. The plan has won a frosty and at times violent reaction from some Albanians, who want clear and full independence. But Kosovo President Fatmir Sejdiu said they had accepted a '"painful compromise.""

Oxford French or Why am I busier?

This week has been tiring for me. I cannot explain it in any way other than that I am not getting enough sleep. I have just been zoning through my classes.

Yesterday, I heard from a sweet, beautiful and incredible colleague from graduate school who lives in Latin America. I was really excited to be in touch with him again; then he told me that he got a divorce which was finalized this year. I was heartbroken upon hear this. He and Filipa were such a great couple. I was really sad for the rest of the day after hearing this. If N and F could not make it work, what hope is there for ordinary folks like me? Yeah, that sounded very self centered but .... N, I love you very much. You are strong, beautiful and intelligent. You will survive this as you have survived many other things in life. Besos.

Talked to Dad yesterday. He is going on a pilgrimage to 'neverlands'. I asked him for some sand and water from there. Talking to him about his travels made me remember my dreams of becoming a mystic in the near future. Safe travels Dad. I love you and will miss you. Be safe!!!

One of the many things I look forward to when I go the office, apart from my beautiful and comedic colleagues, is the full length mirror in the elevators. I have none at home. I always pray no one catches the elevator with me because that is where I get heave and push stuff here and there in attempt to look better than everyone else at work (this is my only vanity here thus, please let me indulge myself). I always wonder how much clothes people at work have. I am already recycling my wears but still look good though. But the way some people dress and never wear the same shirts in my office makes me want to ask, "WTF are you getting the money for all these clothes? Don't we work for the same organization? People, are we working for the United Nations here? Because you gals make it tough for me to be the most stylish here."

And before I forget, Happy Belated International Women's Day (it was yesterday) - you socialists, hehehehe. The women here take it seriously. So seriously that when I was on my way home at 1 am this morning, I still saw guys dragging roses home to their ladies. Figures that such a cool day commemorated more by former and current socialists actually had its origin in the socialist movement in the good ole US of A. I love my country, even if we forget our pioneering roots at times :)

Aftermaths can be oops.

The weekend went by and the protest took place. It went peacefully this time with no violence. I was able to snag a couple of pictures from the protests this past weekend. Many thanks to the NGOers that took these pics and sent them to friends who sent them to friends who sent them to me.

Invitation to Protest (can't remember which protest this one was for)

Protesters In Front of UNMIK Building

International Civilian Police on the Ready

Wait and See