The view from the bar on the 9th floor is virtually a 360 degree panorama of Prishtine (I am now using the Albanian spelling of the name because good luck finding a Serb in this city). At night, with the snow falling and lights twinkling, it looks nice and peaceful. But the paradox of this situation does not escape me: sitting at the highest point in the city, looking down, are westernized Kosovo Albanians and international staff, drinking and living well. We, and I say 'we' because I am just as guilty as them, live better than 90% of the country, we are exempt from many of the rules (which begs a debate on the validity of 'rule of law' when it only applies to some), and we have executive powers here.
As I stuffed salty peanuts into my mouth and drank German beer, I wondered if I was a modern colonist? Sure, I wasn't running slaves, and the work being done by the International Community was technically empowering the local population; in colonial times, the locals would have been used to extract wealth, which would have been sent back to the Father / Mother land. Today the set up is different, but I cannot help think that all roads still lead to Rome.
The international community entered Kosovo on a humanitarian mission, protecting local populations of Albanian nationals from Serbian aggressions. They succeeded, and then set about rebuilding the region, but not as a province of Serbia, rather as an independent state, with its own institutions. Now Prishtine offers many of the comforts of western life: fancy bars, Karaoke and bad cover bands (all singing in English), nice apartment buildings, casinos, prostitution and a thriving drug trade.
As I pondered this, I was being grilled by an ethnically Turkish Kosovar woman. It was twenty questions, but I only really remember telling her that I was listening to a lot of Cake and Clash songs at the moment. I told her to look them up on Youtube, and she told me I would find work in Kosovo, that she never learned German even though she had dated a German guy for a few years. She insisted she loved the language and would still like to learn it. These less-than-subtle comments were not lost on me, and I began to urge D and A, the German contingent, to take me to dinner. They obliged, but not before I at least took the contact info of my new, ethnically Turkish Kosovar friend. It is the polite thing to do, after all.
We ended up at a fancy place with only international customers; no serbs, and Albanians were only featured as staff. Despite the fancy-ness of the place, the Maitre d'Hotel still greeted me with welcome man! Well, I was wearing a baseball hat. We ate well, drank even better, then went to A's apartment and crashed.
I awoke to a German Breakfast setup, and two middle-aged women staring at me: Der ist aber schone wach. Wilst du Kaffee order Tee? Tea, if you have it.
The day was spent walking around Prishtine, in the snow, and sitting in a café called New York Bagel, which did serve bagels, or something resembling bagels. As we sat around, we slowly amalgamated internationals, all German speaking and didn't interact with locals until we needed more coffee, or went to the popular (with internationals) music shop Ginger (where the proprietor is Kosovo Albanian). There is not much more to say about Prishtine. The evening was spent with more internationals in a Japanese restaurant and western style bars. I drank a bit too much, then we went back to A's place and I crashed out.
~The Bridge that Divides~
I stood on the Albanian side of Mitrovica and looked across the Ibar. I felt like a voyeur, staring at a car crash, staring at the misery of other peoples lives from a safe distance. But my conception of what the bridge looked like was wrong. I guess I had only seen a few pictures from the height of the tensions, when the there was a military presence. Now the bridge is open, with only a few shifty Kosovo police keeping order. Despite the bridge being open, no-one uses it. Serbs don't want to be seen crossing to the Albanian part of town, and vise versa. So now it is just an empty bridge, symbolic of division rather than unity. It could come to mean something else, but as long as the society here is allowed to slowly segregate itself, then it will remain empty and divisive. A tragic reminder of a more peaceful time, and the failure of the international community to forge something sustainable, based on mutual respect between the ethnicities. But maybe that is as it should be, yet I cannot accept that segregation is any kind of a solution. Separate, after all, is never equal.
The remainder of the trip was un-eventful and the Mini, sans catalytic converter, held its own, no problem. But I did make a mental note of how ironic it was that D was responsible for monitoring the recycling program in her building at work, yet she was driving round without her catalytic converter.
As we passed into Mitrovica North, the villages took on a Serbian feeling, both in architecture and construction. We passed no more burnt homes nor any more monuments to the KLA martyrs. There were also no more flags, at least no more Albanian or Kosovo ones. I couldn't help but think that one day, Mitrovica north would one day be part of Serbia again. As we passed into Serbia again and began the final stretch home, we were both tired. Conversation dropped off, we listened to the Clash and Moondog, and I began to think about leaving Serbia, leaving the Balkans, and how things were going to turn out. I left Kosovo and all the misery behind me, preoccupied, once again, with my own situation.
Finally, the snow had stopped falling.
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