Tirana->Pristina 12 July 1999
Mirdita,

Sorry for not writing a long story yesteday, but we had such a busy day preparing the trip to Kosov@, that I couldn't find the time to write. Therefor today a lot of things happened and I think todays diary, allthough it will take a few days before you be able to read it is will be long. The travel to Kosovo@ started by waiting, staying up all night till 3 o`clock, before I am going to travel like this I am always a bit exited and then it isn't so easy to sleep. So I sat there with Rand and Dan waiting till the time that Arta, Tali (her husband) and her 2 years old son would come. I basically promised her two months ago that when this all over and she would still work for us I would bring her home, didn't realize that I had to fullfill this promise so fast. Arta, came almost precisely on time, 10 minutes to late, she brought all things she and her small family has brought with them in a few bags when they went out 3 months ago and what they collected in that period. Basically all fitted in 6 big bags. We were five people, from which two Janine and I will leave already in two days back to Tirana. Two from the others will stay here longer, Flo will fly at the end of the week via Skopje back to the states. So those three brought also their big backpacks with them. And we also brought food for a month and water for a few days with us as well as kitchen gear and blankets and matresses. In the end there was not enough place for the matresses and the kitchen gear. But the rest fitted in the small minibus. Just at the moment that we wanted to leave the driver told that he was asked for five persons and not for 7 plus a child. He also wanted to bring a part of his family with him to see Pristina, namely his father, who owns the bus and his doughter. The discussion want on for about 15 minutes and then he said we could leave, what has been said in this 15 minutes I don't know because the discussion took place between the husband of Arta and the driver. With an hour delay we finally left Tirana. Allready in the first 10 kilometer we noticed that we were luckly with our driver. He was taking very good care about his new bus and didn't wanted him to break down on this broken roads. Good for us, since I remember very well how the last busdriver nearly killed my nerves. Just outside of Tirana he held on the road side, telling that he had to collect his father. We expected as normally to have a big discussion about money, in the since that we wanted to bus for 5 persons and came with 7 and that is not agreed, so we have to pay more for the two more. Even when you rent the whole bus and you agreed a price for the bus, rather than the amount of people and you make a mistake saying too less, what George without us knowing probably did, you will end up in this discussion, it is nerving, but seems to be part of the new albanian structure. Anyway the father made a lot of noise telling that his son promised him for weeks that he could come to Kukes and Pristina and that he wanted to go there, and that it was his car, so he had the right to go on it. We agreed so in the back we just sit a bit more close to each other and the old man and his son sat in the front, putting on loudly there music. Cassetes with songs from the north of Albania, mostly the played on this two-string guitars and sounds of some old men who more shout than sing. Which can be rather nice for some songs, but not if you have to listen to it for almost 12 hours (thats what the drive took us). You either filter it out of your hearing or you just go with it or it will be straight forward torture after a while. It was early in the morning, not so much traffic on the road, and most of the big traffic northwards anyway has stopped already. All the farmers with tractors are back in Kosov@ already. And most of the others also went back. We really didn't see much of them anymore. Over 400.000 left Albania in three weeks. It is estimated that about 60.000 are still in the country, basically in host families. At Lac it was already full day light and I showed Janine the chemical plant there when we drove by she really was surprised that something like that was possible. At Millot we took the bridge which NATO forbids their vehicles to take and also advises refugee to take the other bridge, which means a d-tour of 10 kilomter, since the direct bridge looks and feels like collopsing any moment. Most of the concret disappeared and you can look straight throug the bridge into the river below. But all Albanian drivers will take it since it since the other bridge is about half a hour more through the mountains. We passed by all the waystations on the way up, except from Puke, which is laying on the road from Shkodar to Kukes. In Rreshen the place were they stood on the road side to help the bypassers with water and food (and toys of course) was empty. 32 Km through the mountains road further was Gojan, where up to Thursday Flo and Dan were working. Thursday evening they left the place. Friday the first shooting took place at that station and one of the Italian AFOR people was wounded. Saturday they decided to evacuated the place, leave the food and other things back in the containers. And now Sunday morning there where only 5 empty containers standing and children were playing in the waste of broken plastic bottle and empty boxes. Nothing was there anymore that could show that this was a very good operating waystation. Flo and Dan were rather surprised, when they left the station the place was still full. About two hours later we arrived in Shemri waystation. Next to the station lays a truck from world food programme, which turned over last week and from which the Sunflower volunteers could save a few tones of high-protein biscuits, which are they now giving out to the by-passing returning refugees (those cookies by the way may look very nice, but after eating 5 or 6 you really got the feeling that there must be better tasting cookies in the world). We joked why the truck turn-over, probably nobody wanted to have those biscuits and this way the waystation couldn't refuse them. Anyway in the village of Shemri, 3 km before the waystation, people were already having stands selling them. In front of the waystation the last days there was shooting, on saturday even three refugees were wounded when somebody just shot at it. But the waystation leader told that everything is solved now, CARE offered the village to build a waterpurification system for the village, when nothing negative would take place and now everything is calm again. He also asked me if the Balkan Sunflowers please would stay there, the salvation army and some other NGO already left and when the Balkan Sunflowers also would left he could close down the station allthough it is still very important. That was new - not more than a week ago we were nearly thrown out of this station since we cost a security problem, too many people without transport. Now he told that CARE could take care about our safety and would immediatly evacuate our volunteers when something would happen. But when we would decide to withdraw our people CARE had no other option then to close it. We took decision that we, Balkan Sunflowers will stay on the station until Wednesday, and that we will leave at Thursday, but if CARE would give the certainty that the way station will be open for one more week we could send new volunteers. Since that decision had to be made by CARE in Tirana we have to wait a few days before they will give us an answer. Nevertheless it is nice to know that we played such an important role in Shemri. >From there it was another hour to Kukes, we went over the most known market place in this region, for three weeks almost 30.000 people were staying here, now it turned back into a normal market again. Everywhere around it you could still see how many people have been taking shelter here. The place was full of waste and left-overs. With trucks they just where transporting out all the mobile toilets and stuff, whcih was there. A few kilometers outside of Kukes we passed by the other former big refugee camps. Only in Kukes 2, where now about 6 Balkan Sunflowers are working there were still about 5000 people. We didn't stop, since our driver want to return home from Pristina, before 20.30 he has to be back in Albania. Just a few kilometers more we found out why his father wanted to come alone, there is a drive in waystation from CRS and some other NGO's were all returning refugees can get things for free. Bread, conserves, sanitarian boxes, plastic bags with water, containers with oil, bananas, plastic sheets and what ever. We had our bus full and didn't want anything, but the old man let his son stop in front of every container and ordered what ever was given out. We in the back looked at eachother and started to laugh at every container where he wanted more and more, seeing how the pile of things in front of him and on his lap was growing almost so big that he couldn't look over it. Even his son got a bit angry by the greadyness of his father. It was obvious that he didn't made this trip for the first time. And that the basic reason to do it was collecting things for free. After this waystation we passed at least 5 more where food and water was given out, before we reached Morina border. There we more or less caused some incorrectness in the statistics of UNHCR, since we were recorded as 8 refugees leaving the country and it were not more than 3. About 100 meters further was the looted border post from the Jugoslav border, now controlled by the german KFOR soldeers. The Germans just looked in the car, the driver said that we were all journalist and they waved us through. Immediatly after the border station the road got better. Straight and with good asfalt on it, allthough some holes in it were still there, but nothing if you compare it with the roads in Albania. Just a few kilometers further we saw some german soldeers planting mine signs, we are in Kosov@ and Arta and her husband, which was sick the whole trip up to now, were full of energy, the first time back after 3 months. What has happened to the country. Honestly I must say that up the Prizen we only could see some places were people has been shooting some round on the buildings, glasses were broken, but that was all. No big diestruction and also driving through Prizen made us clear that when somebody said that this town is practically undamaged that means practically undamaged. The town was full life again, all the shops were full and you had the feeling that we left a country who was in war and were entering a place were war hadn't been. Many kilometers further we show the first totally burned out houses, with tents in the garden. Some times we drove through little village from which almost all the houses has been burned, but in no way comparable with Bosna or even parts of Slavonia in Croatia. Almost one hour later we drive into Pristina, beside the burned out houses and the enourmous presents of KFOR troops, first mostly German and later when we come in the area of Pristina British. Which flag us down to control our minibus, look into it and let us drive on again. The first thing we see from Pristina is streets full of people, shops full of things, and every where cars. When we finally at an almost 12 hours drive come to the appartment in Sunny Hill, which will become our base in Pristina, we are even more surprised. The appartment is undamaged, every thing, except from the VCR is still there, Arta says after controlling every corner of the house. A Jugoslavian Army official wanted to live here, he broke open the door, but for the rest nothing has been changed in the house. Arta and even her son find immediatly back all the things they know. Flo and Rand are getting a bit nervous when Arta opens all the doors and cupboards, but Arta's brother who is already a week here, and who goes back to Turkey tomorrow, says that they don't have to be afraid, he controlled everything, opened already every door and there are no boobytraps. I feel a bit stupid when I see that even the television is still there and working, we can look at any satelite chancel we want, rather suprising if you expect a place we there is nothing anymore. We look at eachother and think about all the things we bought yesterday and all the food we brought. Everything is there. I open the bottle of Champagne and we have a short ceremony that we are now in Pristina, that Arta and her family is back at home. Than we carry all her stuff to her own house which is about 500 meters from ours. There the situation is a bit different. Here they really did their best to steal everything which was of any value, but not some of the dresses of her grandmother she find out very soon. In one room they tried to set it on fire, but beside the door and a few meters of the wooden floor it didn't catch. The family from her husband already has started to clean up the house and even started to repaint it. Never the less the appartment is not really looking the way you want to come home too. We decide to have one coffee, actually we wanted to leave without the coffee, but they really did their best to convince us to take the coffee, and go for a long stroll through the town. How does it look, are our first impressions true or do we just see the good and undamaged parts of the town. When we walk into the town center this impression is not very much changed, maybe it is hard after some months in Albania to see destruction. Ok I recognise some serbian grafities, the 4 s's (which are in cyrilic c's), some slogans about big serbia, and I am surprised that they are still there. But for the rest the shops are full, only some shops are empty and closed (and the windows are broken). Untill we see the PTT (telecommunications) building in the middle of the town and the buildings around it. This one looks familiar, all the windows in the area broken, the in and out side burned and a big hole in the side. Probably a pershing had been doing this. We walk around the block and find the KFOR HQ, UN, UNHCR and all other UN bodies having their offices here. Suddenly we see in front of the sport palace a big concentration of NGO cars, a lot of 4 wheel drives with stickers from many different organisations on it. Somewhere here there must be a meeting. I see some people from Medicines Du Monde coming out of building so we decided to go in there and have a look. Inside we found a big room with a few hunderd obvious NGO's members and a table on a kind of stage in the front. Behind the table 5 of the UN officials. At this moment a person is talking english with a very french accent. We sit down, but the night without sleep and the travel in the hot sun has made all of us so tired that we have a big problem to stay awake. After a while, allthough I am half sleeping and the hardly can understand him (there is no amplifier), I start to understand that it is the new representative of UN for Kosov@. The guy who started Medicines sans Frontier and later after a fight Medicines du Monde. And is now choosen as the most important person in Kosov@, although most countries had rather somebody else in that position. But the french government push him through. He is giving answer on the posible legal institutions here in Kosov@, but I must be honest it all sounds a bit vague, at least that what I can understand. Allthough the other are as sleepy as I and want to leave I asked them to stay a bit longer, since I have seen some people I know and they may be of help. One of them is Lynette, who just was in Tirana and went away about 2 weeks ago, at the same evening as BJ. Both being old Pakrac volunteers. Nearly at the end of the meeting it became clear that she is having an important post here now. Rather than working for CRS she is now working as liason officer between NGO's and UN bodies. I am very glad for her. After the meeting I meet up with some friends from other NGO's and with Lynette, we make an appointment for tomorrow. The meeting not really woke us, but still we are awake and hungry enough to have something to eat in the town. The stories in Tirana that in the whole of Pristina there is just one restaurant and that the police hour starts at 20.30 are clearly from some weeks ago. There are restaurant almost every where and there is no question that you have to be in before 20.30. The city is alive and when we walk back home is it already past 22.00 o´clock and thousands of persons are on the streets. Everywhere little bars and restaurants are working, it don't look at all if this town has been in war. Tirana for that matter is much more dangerous. Here in Pristina is it quiet on the streets.

wam :-)