[ALBSA-Info] FW:[BPT-R-K] Summer Reports from members of the Balkan Peace Team-Kosovo/a

[Mimoza Meholli]

>==============================================================
>This is the mailing list "BPT-Reports-Kosovo-a"
>It is a distribution mailing list for the BPT public reports.
>==============================================================
>Summer Reports from members of the
>Balkan Peace Team-Kosovo/a
>
>Summer 2000
>
>
>Balkan Peace Team in Kosovo/a
>Rruga Nëna Tereze 72-A/9 or Vidovdanska 72-A/9
>Prishtina, Kosovo
>Tel/Fax: ++381-38-42 708
>E-mail: BPT-K at BalkanPeaceTeam.org
>
>*******
>
>International BPT Office
>Ringstr 9a, D-32427 Minden, Germany
>Tel: ++49-571-20776
>Email: BPT at BalkanPeaceTeam.org
>
>*******
>
>If you wish to use or require clarification of any of the information
>included below, please contact the
>Balkan Peace Team at the above address. Please forward this report to
>anyone you think may be
>interested.
>
>*******
>
>
>The following articles were written by BPT-Kosovo/a team members
>for the BPT Newsletters No. 19 and No. 20
>
>
>
>CONTENTS
>Our Idea is Simple  -  the Situation is Complex
>
>Something Special Happened in Dragash/s
>
>Dragash/s Youth Centre Project - Involving the Whole Family, the Whole
>Community
>
>Images, Sounds, Stories: Appreciating Kosovo/a
>
>Dragash/s Summer Program
>
>DRAGASH / DRAGAS
>
>*******
>
>
>Our Idea is Simple  -  the Situation is Complex
>
>Our idea is simple. We want to create a youth centre, a neutral meeting
>space where we can have meaningful and fun activities together with Gorani
>and Albanians.  We believe that this will lead to increased cooperation and
>decreased tension between these two groups living in Dragash / Dragas*.
>
>Compared to the rest of Kosovo/a Dragash/s is a very multiethnic place.
>Both Albanians and Gorani (Slavic Muslims who speak "Goranian,") live in
>Dragash/s town. In the surrounding villages the Albanians live in the
>region of Opoja, north of  Dragsh town and  the Gorani live in Gora, south
>of Dragash/s town.   About one third of the municipal population is Goran.
>
>A local friend of mine once said that, "Dragash is so far out there that it
>is behind the legs of god."  It is located in the southern most tip of
>Kosovo/a. My first visit there was made when there was still a lot of snow
>and ice on the winding road that leads up from Prizren into the mountains
>around Dragash/s.  One of the people that we first came to know is the
>principal of the secondary school.  He spoke proudly about his
>school.  When the Albanians regained control of the school facilities after
>the war and after ten years of running the parallel school system, he also
>opened the school to the Gorani.  He talked about his "responsibility as an
>Albanian intellectual to create a Kosovoa for everybody, including the
>Gorani.  Even if the new circumstances were difficult in the beginning, the
>Goran and Albanian teachers are now drinking coffee together." This is a
>nice first impression for a peaceworker who wants to support existing
>cooperation in a postwar Kosovo/a!
>
>After living in Dragash/s for a several months, it has become obvious
>that  behind the  pretty picture of teachers having coffee together, there
>is a more complex and multi-faceted reality.  The BPT-Kosovo/a Team has
>visited Goran villages where no one wants or dares to go to the secondary
>school, though it is the only one in the region. They are afraid to be hit
>or harassed, either on the street or in the school.  From other Goran
>villages, students do come to school, but leave directly after classes,
>taking taxis back to their villages.
>
>The school recently had it's 30th anniversary  and the team was officially
>invited to take part in the celebrations. There was an outdoor concert in
>the schoolyard and the principal had talked proudly about how this event
>was prepared  by both Goran and Albanian students.  I was standing there in
>the sun watching how the Albanians sang, recited poems and danced. Finally,
>a Goran song was also to be presented. The Albanian announcer could not
>pronounce it correctly in Goranian and the audience started to laugh.  A
>Goran girl who I knew from visiting her village took the microphone and the
>audience started to heckle and boo.  The principle got up and timidly asked
>the audience to be quiet. The audience continued to heckle, which made me
>feel very uncomfortable.  The young girl saw that I was there and waved  at
>me as she started to sing her song.  Afterward  the applause was weak.  I
>looked for the other Goran students and saw them standing, watching from
>open windows behind the stage.
>
>The red Albanian flag with the eagle blows in the wind and the nationalism
>is present even in Dragash/s.  If I were Goran, that flag would scare me.
>But if I were Albanian, that flag would represent my new freedom and
>opportunities, like the chance to go to a real school.  It is hard to be
>part of an ethnic minority in Kosovo/a today, a Kosovo/a that becomes more
>and more nationalistic.  But it has also been hard to be Albanian in the
>last 10 years of Serbian oppression and war. Nationalism is used as a
>bandage or plaster on wounds that no one seems to know how to heal.
>
>The heart of BPT's project is to bring Albanians and Gorani together and
>create a youth centre that is community- owned.  To do so, the team is
>creating a coordination group in which both communities will make decisions
>together about the centre's management.  This is "grass-roots" peace work
>in a society where cooperation exists, but is limited and fragile.
>
>Kajsa Svensson, BPT-Kosovo/a Team
>
>Dragash is the Albanian spelling and Dragas is the Serbian spelling. To
>include both spellings, we will use Dragash/s.
>******************************************************************
>
>
>
>          Something Special Happened in Dragash/s
>
>Dear all,
>
>This is Cristina, writing from Prishtina on this sunny Sunday afternoon.  I
>recently had the most significant experience since I came to Kosovo/a, and
>I would like to share it with you.  Last week I taught English to our
>Albanian and Goran students for the first  time.  Our students (both youth
>and teachers) are really special and they immediately made me feel at ease
>by welcoming me with interested questions about where I am from, how old I
>am, if I am married or not, and if I like swimming.  (They had just learned
>the verb "to like + ing" during the previous lesson!).
>
>The best moment of the week happened on Wednesday when I went to the class
>on my own because my colleague, Kajsa, was confined to bed due to a
>terrible muscular pain in her neck.  I went through the first lesson to our
>Goran students without any major catastrophe happening. I was alone in the
>class, tidying up my papers during the break before the lesson with the
>Albanian students, when four Goran boys came in and shut the door behind
>themselves.  In any other European school I would have probably panicked -
>to be alone with four youngsters I didn't know, who were staring at me in
>an odd way, in a semi-deserted school.  It's not exactly my ideal kind of
>setting.  In this case though, the only feeling I had was sheer
>curiosity.  .I must admit that I have never seen as many non-threatening
>looking, and well-behaved students as I have seen in the Secondary school
>of Dragash.  This is probably the main reason why I didn't feel in danger
>at all.  Anyway, the four guys each take a chair  and they come to sit
>around me, without saying a single word.  I smile at them, they sort of
>smile back in a half shy, half uncertain way.  "Hello!" I say. "Hello!"
>they say - but still their smiles don't tell me much about their
>intentions. "Is there anything I can do for you?" I ask, testing the 
>ground.
>
>They look at me as if I had just spoken Gibberish. Then, they talk in
>Goranian among themselves for a few seconds, and finally ask me something
>in their language which I don't understand.  I have been learning Albanian
>since I came, and there is only so much my brain can take, as far as
>difficult foreign languages go. "I'm sorry, I don't speak Goranian.  Can
>you speak English?" I say. "A littel", says one of them.
>
>I am relieved. At least we are not completely finished. But after a patient
>wait, I realise that our conversation might have come to a very premature
>end.  In the meantime, the boys go on looking at me as if I was a strange
>creature from another planet.  I feel that they would like to ask me things
>and talk to me but they don't know how.  They seem to be looking for
>English words among themselves which might help us out of the ditch. They
>look at me in a way which says: "Hey, you could give us a hand here instead
>of staring at us!"
>
>"What's your name?" I finally ask one of them.  Their faces light
>up...finally something they understand.  "Me nem is A." says one.  "Nice to
>meet you A!" I say shaking his hand.  It takes a couple of seconds for him
>to recover from the surprise of me taking his hand but eventually, he
>enthusiastically returns the handshake.  The others do the same, telling me
>their names and very visibly relaxing. This seems to be the beginning of
>our real conversation.  "How meny jears have you?" asks the most talkative
>of the four.  "I am twenty-nine years old. And how old are you?"  "I am one
>six" he says. One six?  I guess that he means sixteen and  I write it on
>the board for confirmation "Sixteen?", "Da, siixtiin!".
>
>It's at this point that D., one of our Albanian students, opens the door of
>the class and peeps in.  He is about to come in when he realises that I am
>in the company of four Gorans.  He turns and prepares to leave
>again.  "D.!" I call him. "Please come in, come in!" I try to sound as
>welcoming and reassuring as possible. I can see that the last thing he
>wants is to come in and find himself in the same room with four Goran
>students.  But I don't give up: "Yes D., come in and join us, we are
>speaking English together." You should have seen D.'s face: torn between
>the sense of duty to meet the request of one of his teachers, and the wish
>to be ten thousand miles away from there.  He lingers at the door for a few
>seconds and then gives in to the sense of duty, reluctantly coming into the
>room.  He doesn't look at the four Gorans and he comes to position himself
>right beside me.
>
>"Hello D., it's nice to see you a little bit early today.  We were just
>practising our English together here.
>Do you know each other?".  I ask, addressing them all. They must have
>passed each other  in the school corridors hundreds of times before,  but
>they all shake their heads and say: "No".   The atmosphere is quite strange
>now.  The guys keep avoiding looking at each other. (This is the practice:
>Gorans and Albanians mostly ignore each other in Dragash/s.)  I start
>introducing them to one another and then ask them questions.  With the help
>of some silly drawings on the board to make myself understood,  I ask them
>if they have girlfriends.  They laugh and their stiffness seems to go away
>a little.  I ask the same question to each of them,  and they each take
>pride in telling me: "Yes, I hev a giirlfrind". They look at each other
>now, waiting for each to answer.  I feel that they are relaxing.  Even D.
>doesn't look as suspicious as at the beginning.  We go on with other
>questions and they try to ask me the same questions, mimicking my
>English.  We draw, we try to speak English, and we laugh a lot.  They laugh
>together and I think that this is the most beautiful thing that  happened
>to me since I arrived in Kosovo/a.
>
>We stay and talk together for fifteen minutes until the other Albanian
>students arrive for their lesson.  They also look very uncertain about the
>situation at first, but eventually, they enter the room and sit down
>together with D. and the four Goran students.  I confess I was tempted to
>invite the Gorans to stay for the whole lesson but I decided not to push my
>luck at that point.  The Goran students had to leave us but not before
>having said "Goodbye" to everybody and receiving a farewell from all the
>others in a very nice, spontaneous chorus of "Byeeeeeeeee!".
>
>That gave me a very good feeling and confirmation that it's not impossible
>to bring Albanian and Goran students together. They just need to feel that
>it is safe to do so, and that there is no danger in having fun with 'the
>other'.  BPT can  provide them with this safe space because they seem to
>trust and like us.
>
>We had our first, mixed English lesson and believe me, it was priceless.  I
>hope I managed to make you feel a part of it too.
>
>All the best,
>Cristina
>(Cristina Bianchi, BPT-Kosovo/a Team)
>******************************************************************
>
>
>
>
>Dragash/s Youth Centre Project-
>Involving the Whole Family, the Whole Community
>
>A compliment to our work
>Enver (name changed) is the middle child in his family  often an awkward
>position in which to be. He has to live up to his old brother's
>accomplishments and be a role model for his younger brother.
>
>As a nineteen-year-old Goran who just graduated high school, he carries a
>far heavier burden than most. Although his father is employed as a shop
>assistant, he feels a personal and familial responsibility to support his
>family  especially since his older brother is off at medical school.
>
>I met Enver during our first set of English courses. He was shy and quiet
>but seemed to grasp concepts quickly. During my evening walks in Dragash/s,
>I often would see him walking back and forth by the road with his friends
>in a tradition called korzo. Sometimes he would teach me a few words in
>Gora, pointing out the differences from Serbian. Other times he would show
>me a tattered "new" book from which he was learning English.
>
>He was a diligent student and was looking for any and every way to improve
>his English  a skill that would give him a goldmine of opportunities in the
>Kosovo/a's job market.
>
>When Balkan Peace Team began the second round of courses this summer, Enver
>came to every lesson. Looking through the student roster, I began to notice
>the duplication of certain surnames. Enver's last name appeared on a few
>class lists.
>
>After a few inquiries, I realised  that we had many of the younger siblings
>of the students in our first round of courses  including Enver's younger
>brother. And in the course for Flaka, a local multi-ethnic women's
>organisation, we even had Enver's mother.
>
>I was initially a bit resistant to conducting our outreach to members of
>the same families, but I soon realised that it was a compliment to our
>work. The combination of education and entertainment that we could provide
>was a welcome addition to our students' lives  so much so that they wanted
>other members of their family to share the experience.
>
>Although the Dragash/s Youth Centre project is intended for young people,
>the involvement of families is essential for the project to be sustainable
>beyond the period of BPT's presence in Dragash/s. In fact, the young people
>are more likely to eventually move away for school or work. It is their
>parents who will continue to live in the same community who are actually
>the ones to hold a long term interest in the Youth Centre and be able to
>shape it's future.
>
>The family is the core of Kosovo/a culture. The process of building
>relationships with more than just the youth  with their mothers, fathers,
>sisters and brothers as well  will prove invaluable in the long run. When
>families are involved, the community has a far greater sense of ownership.
>People take more steps to ensure the project's success.
>
>Seeing the value of family involvement
>During the summer, we taught the classes at a location donated by community
>members who wanted to see  that the Youth Centre programs continued. We had
>mentioned to our students our need for a place where we could provide more
>programming. One student in the classroom piped up and said, 'I'll talk to
>my father.'
>
>Class sizes are limited, so the involvement of siblings in the courses
>means we are reaching far fewer families. But this arrangement is actually
>encouraging the attendance of young women. With their brothers in the
>classes, the young women are more likely to attend the course. Parents do
>not have to worry for their daughters' safety.  The trust between BPT and
>the community is growing as families perceive the Youth Centre as a safe
>place for their children.
>
>In the past few months, the BPT-Kosovo/a has taken steps that are crucial
>to our future success. The slow process of building trust and long-lasting
>relationships is establishing the groundwork for the project. The Youth
>Centre project is progressing and the involvement of families like Enver's
>are instrumental in shaping the project.
>
>By Liz Abraham, BPT-Kosovo/a Volunteer
>******************************************************************
>
>
>
>
>Images, Sounds, Stories: Appreciating Kosovo/a
>
>Jane Vernon, originally from the US, has been living in Germany for 25
>years and teaching English in the German school. When she heard about
>BPT's  Dragash/s Youth Centre project and the English classes being offered
>to the community, she volunteered her services and skills to Balkan Peace
>Team during her summer vacation. She spent five weeks with
>BPT-Kosovo/a  team this July and August, teaching classes and providing
>team members with support in this aspect of the project. .
>
>I am just a sneeze short of five weeks in Kosovo/a. What does that mean for
>a middle-aged American English teacher, a woman already culturally removed
>from her roots by having lived more than twenty-five years in Germany? My
>purpose was to teach two English classes but at the same time there was the
>personal adjustment to a new environment.
>
>During my stay, here's what I have taken in:
>
>Images
>
>More than likely it is the influence of my life in Germany that determines
>that my first impression is dominated by the unresolved rubbish problem
>here. Wherever you look there are pockets of tidiness - not the other way
>around. And the inadequate and overflowing containers for the deposit of
>rubbish mean that much lands on the streets or along the otherwise
>beautiful mountain roads. Or the rubbish simply lands wherever it occurs to
>people to relieve their immediate personal surroundings of trash by
>throwing it elsewhere. Interestingly, I have felt a seductive pull to
>accept the  situation, to fit in. When unnumbered empty plastic bottles lie
>along the road, it becomes a real effort to remember that it would be
>incorrect behaviour to toss that empty can in one's possession out of the
>car window. Many staircases of apartment buildings are similarly neglected.
>The awareness and flexibility necessary to create a solution have not yet
>been found.
>
>But from the intense activity visible on every side one can reach the
>conclusion that other priorities are of higher ranking. The population is
>up and working at seven in the morning and stalls and businesses in
>Prishtine/a do not close down until very late in the evening. Those who are
>not lucky enough to have a shop or a stall of their own wind their way
>between guests at restaurants, or walk through the aisles of buses just
>before departure, offering cigarettes, CDs, or telephone cards.
>Unfortunately many of them are boys.Traffic is intense. It requires care to
>manoeuvre the intersections. There is a problem with reliable electric
>power which would account for some of the traffic lights not working. There
>are so many that do not function, and so many cars in the middle of the
>crossings negotiating who will be the next to get through. When I did see
>an operable traffic light, with cars actually waiting for a red light to
>turn green, gave me an elated sense of a victory for civilisation.
>
>The other obvious presence on the streets is that of the international
>organisations. The huge white four-wheeled vehicles of UNMIK (United
>Nations Mission in Kosovo/a) and those of the hundreds of relief
>organisations, all with a purpose and intention of stabilising the
>situation here, are a marker of the traumas recently experienced.
>
>There are numerous children. The evening hours are especially precious when
>the temperature has somewhat dropped. This is the time when the little ones
>can play in front of the houses. Or if they are lucky enough to have
>wealthier parents, they can run between the tables set up at the terrace
>cafe of the Grand Hotel. There is a gentle interest and politeness people
>show in their dealings with children,  but also with one another in
>general.  This is a balm to one who is used to the harsh distance that
>often seems to be the preferred method for dealing with the public or
>'strangers' in Germany.
>
>The sounds of Prishtine/a
>
>In the evening, there are great numbers of wonderful circling blackbirds
>with their noisy calls to one another. (The word 'kos' means blackbird in
>Serbian.) One hears the humming sound of generators supplying that elusive
>good: electricity. There are the vibrations from motorised vehicles moving
>at swift speeds and car horns announcing every swing of intention and mood:
>that their drivers are either overtaking, or annoyed, or are just greeting
>friends. Then there is the occasional penetration, through the din of every
>day life, of the call to prayer from a mosque. This is best heard in the
>evening or early morning. During the day, the plaintive music of the
>Balkans is mixed with the latest sounds from Europe and America blasted
>from street vendors who are plying their wares. These copies of CDs sell
>for DM 5 each and are of surprisingly good quality.
>
>Then there is the softer sound of the personal experiences, shared in
>various ways often at unexpected times. In an English lesson the task at
>hand was to describe a room using "There is ..." The students, secondary
>school teachers, were describing their living-rooms. One teacher hesitated,
>puzzled, apparently not knowing what to say, and finally said, "Everything
>was stolen."
>
>To be there when opportunities arrive
>
>This is a place of great activity, great friendliness, and great intensity.
>Unfortunately, it is also a place of great belief in rumour and of great
>clinging to the negative stories told by others or promoted in the press.
>After five weeks' stay and after listening to the sights and sounds of
>Kosovo/a and hearing numerous personal stories, I am beginning to
>understand more clearly the mission of the Balkan Peace Team: To be on the
>spot when opportunities arise, when people are able to let down their
>defences. To facilitate in the growth of the tender plant of a renewed
>tolerance.
>
>by Jane Vernon, short term volunteer with the BPT Kosovo/a Team
>******************************************************************
>
>
>
>Dragash/s Summer Program
>
>During the summer, we offered six courses. Two courses were the
>continuation of the last round of classes for secondary school students,
>and two courses were new classes for young people in the Dragash/s
>community. In these early stages, the classes are still separated for Goran
>and Albanian youth. For our adult students, we have been providing mixed
>courses  with Goran and Albanians together. We offered two intensive
>language courses: one for a mixed class of teachers from the secondary
>school with whom we had previously been working and an introductory course
>for a mixed class of women in the community (offered through Flaka). The
>adult students were taught by a temporary volunteer who worked for BPT
>during the summer.
>
>******************************************************************
>
>
>DRAGASH / DRAGAS
>
>Dragash/s town is the capital of the Dragash/s municipality, a mountainous,
>geographically isolated region in southern Kosovo/a.  Dragash/s town has
>approximately 2.000 inhabitants. It is 30 kilometres south-west of Prizren
>and about 80 kilometres from Prishtina. Dragash is the Albanian spelling of
>the name and Dragas is the name in Serbian/Goranian. In our reports, we use
>the name Dragash/s.
>
>The municipality of Dragash/s includes 36 towns and villages. The
>municipality consists of two regions.  Opoje is populated by ethnic
>Albanians and Gora is inhabited by Gorani. The Gorani are Slavic Muslims
>who identify their language, which is similar to Serbo-Croatian,  as
>"Bosnian" or "Goranian".  March 2000 population surveys found 24.856
>Albanians (72% of municipal population) and 9.706 Gorani (28% of municipal
>population) living in the municipality.  It is estimated that there are
>approximately 4.000 Albanian youth and 2.000 Goran youth. While Opoje and
>Gora are not ethnically mixed, Gorani and Albanians do live among one
>another in Dragash/s town.
>
>Currently, the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo
>(UNMIK) defines Dragash/s municipality as  Dragash/s town and Gora while
>Opoje is officially included in the Prizren municipality.  This separation
>of Gora and Opoje into two different administrative municipalities was
>carried out by the Yugoslav authorities (or Serbian regime) in 1991.  UNMIK
>is expected to adopt the pre-1991 municipal boundaries for Dragash/s (which
>include both Gora and Opoje) in the near future. Dragash/s town has in fact
>continued to serve as the administrative and cultural centre for both Opoje
>and Gora.  For these reasons, this project considers Dragash/s municipality
>to include both areas.
>
>Besides the usual infrastructure of stores, cafes/restaurants, and civic
>administration buildings,  Dragash/s town has a post office, local radio
>station, and bus station. There is also a textile factory and a hotel.  The
>textile factory  previously employed more than 600 people from the region
>but now has only 86 workers.  The hotel is currently used by the Turkish
>KFOR troops and is therefore not functioning.
>
>The Dragash/s post office has not yet been reopened since the NATO bombing,
>although postal service within Kosovo/a has resumed. The NATO bombing also
>destroyed a mountain top microwave link that connected the region's
>telephone system to the rest of the world.  As a result, even though the
>telephones work within Dragash/s town, one cannot ring anyone outside of
>the area.  There are two private businesses which, through a radio link
>between Dragash/s and Prizren, are able to provide a very noisy phone
>connection to other parts of Kosovo/a and the world. After the transmitter
>was repaired, the local radio station was able to go back on the air.
>
>On the main street in Dragash/s, next to a  primary school, there is the
>cultural centre that is yet to be completed. Lack of funds halted the
>construction just after the new walls and roof went up. The secondary
>school, located behind the primary school, serves the entire municipality.
>The town currently also houses  the regional offices of UNMIK, which is
>responsible for establishing the legal status and structures of post-war
>Kosovo/a, and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe
>(OSCE), which is responsible for developing democratic structures and
>instituting civil society in Kosovo/a.
>
>******************************************************************
>
>**************************************************************
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