From mentor at alb-net.com Wed Sep 29 18:25:46 2004 From: mentor at alb-net.com (Kosova Crisis Center News and Information) Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 18:25:46 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [Kcc-News] Teen refugee sending books to homeland [Kosova] Message-ID: http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/living/community/9770085.htm Posted on Wed, Sep. 29, 2004 Teen refugee sending books to homeland Now a U.S. citizen, she raises money to help libraries in Kosovo By Cathy Gilkey HERALD-LEADER CORRESPONDENT Ardena Gojani remembers when Serbian soldiers stormed her apartment complex and gave her family five minutes to leave the building or be killed. She remembers spending days in a 10-mile line of fleeing refugees, watching old men die and hearing hungry children crying for food and water. And she remembers moving to the United States and leaving her friends and family behind. But perhaps her most moving memories are of her trip back to Kosovo to see her war-torn country again. Those memories have-driven Ardena, now 17 and a junior at Lexington Catholic High School, to lead a drive to raise $5,000 to buy books and ship them to her hometown of Gjakova to help refill the shelves of a library burned down during the war. "We want to do what we can," Ardena said. "It hurts to see how much they don't have." She and her family returned to Gjakova, now Gjakovica, in 2000 to visit their family, almost all whom remained in Kosovo despite the wars. Seeing her country for the first time after living in the United States for more than a year opened Ardena's eyes to just how much she has and how much her homeland does not. "There were four kids to a desk made for two, and they all shared one textbook," she said of a school her friends attend. Since then, Ardena and her family have been working to send books to Kosovo with the help of the International Book Project, a Lexington group that sends donated books to poor countries. In 2002, Ardena's cousin, Rubik Rudi, carried dozens of books to Kosovo. Because he could not afford to ship the books, he left his clothes and personal belongings behind and packed two large suitcases full of books from the International Book Project office. In March, Ardena's father also packed two suitcases with books. Every one was checked out in the first few days he was in Kosovo, she said. Cathy Anderson, president of the International Book Project, encouraged Ardena to write a letter in the organization's quarterly newsletter to raise awareness of libraries like the one in Gjakovica. Formed in 1966, the International Book Project receives encyclopedias, technical books and journals from donors, then distributes them to more than 100 countries. Sponsors like Ardena pay the shipping costs. "The demand for materials in English is high as Kosovars strive to modernize their communities," Anderson said in the newsletter. Ardena's experiences in her homeland and Lexington have influenced and matured her beyond her 17 years. Like many of her peers, she has a job, a cell phone and loves instant messaging her friends, but she is more aware of the fragilities of life. Ardena was 11 when she was forced to leave her home at gunpoint. "My mother held my hand so tight, pulling me out of the house as fast as she could, without taking any belongings with us," Ardena said. They fled to Macedonia, an independent republic south of Kosovo, and stood in line with other refugees with no food and very little water. "I saw a baby being born and old men die," she said. "Children were hungry and crying for food." Serbian soldiers robbed people of what belongings they did have and kidnapped some people from the line, she said. The Red Cross brought food a few days after they arrived, and after four days of waiting, they were allowed to enter Macedonia. Ardena's cousin Rudi sponsored the Gojanis, which allowed them to immigrate to the United States. Ardena, her brother, her sister and her parents recently became U.S. citizens, she said. Ardena keeps in contact with friends in Kosovo through infrequent phone calls and, more often, e-mails and instant messaging. "It's hard to talk about what it's like here," she said. "Here, if we need something, we buy it or it's donated. There, there is no one to help." So Ardena is doing her best to help any way she can. The money she raises will help buy books and ship them to Kosovo. She hopes the books will be shipped next spring, and she plans to travel back to Gjakovica to help unpack and present the books to the library. Ardena's classmates and teachers at Lexington Catholic have been very supportive, she said. They pray for her fund-drive in class, and classmates routinely donate what they can. She said she raised $100 in a week at school. "It just felt so good to have them support me like that," she said. "It feels good to be doing something."