More Details and Photos of Kosovo

I wake up the sound of the Muslin call to prayer every day at 6am. I took the picture out of my guest bedroom window when they woke me up one day.

I don't know if anyone ever listens to end credits movie music but the Moulin Rouge end credits remix is absolutely amazing. I'm just playing the ends credits chapter over and over again. I know, I have issues. AH I just got the Devil Wears Prada on dvd.. hehehe.. time to kill it. I'll have this movie memorized by the end of this week. :P

My apologies for not blogging (I know, it's a first and I know everyone has a ton of stuff to do for finals) but I've been having a hard time adjusting back to my normal sleeping habits. I slept for five hours last night at 4am and woke up at 9 when I set my alarm for 10:15. -_-. Anyway, I'm also down with a cold and have a lot of work to do like the rest of you. I've been wanting to put up pictures but ever since I swapped to Blogger Beta, it's not letting me. Technology sucks. Oh wait, now it works. Whoohoo. More pictures up in a few days. I was talking to one of my classmates who went on the trip with us and she told me because my brain knows that I have jet lag, my body automatically jet lags- but if I don't think about it, my body would function normally. Except I don't really believe that: just because I 'think' it doesn't mean my body will automatically shift back to my normal sleeping pattern. Shall I say 'mind-body dualism'. Haha.

As for my Kosovo trip, if you were wondering. I don't think I could fully explain what we really did nor the feelings expressed during that period. You just had to be there. I was extremely humbled by the experience- we made our product proposals to the project coordinator-a bunch of extremely talented women who oversaw other village women who made these products. They are then sold to the North American market and all the profits go to the women. They still live in a very patriarchal society where women are to be set apart from men in both conversation, intellect, and career (if any).

We spent a lot of time with the director of the Kosovo unit. This organization, Women for Women, is by far some feminist group. They just want to help women rebuild their lives, gain respect from their husbands by providing some money and that is all.

I think the most emotional aspect of the time I was there when we visited a village an hour away from the capital, Pristina, and we met a woman who appeared to be in her mid fifties, hosting a group of six women to create rugs from looms (one week per dinky rug- about 2x3 feet). We spoke to the women at the looms- three that were my age. Heating is a luxury in Kosovo- and the etiquette is to take your shoes off at the door of the house so you can imagine how cold my feet were. Anyway one girl who was the same age as me, told us (translated by the director) that she wanted to go to university yet could not because her parents regarded her brother as more valuable despite her contributions to the family. Women for Women also hold biweekly discussions that focus on marketing, business, ethics, childbearing and other random issues. The director asked her what she wanted to learn more about and the first thing she said was "human rights." And despite all of that, you could see this tremendous spirit and hope from all the people I met- they all wanted to rebuild their lives, and they've exemplified all the selfless quality people ought to have here. I was incredibly humbled by the women we collaborated with- their sheer generosity (like my host family. I stayed at an Albanian house... we all stayed in seperate family houses. Yes it was slightly awkward). Sometimes the water didn't work- I once tohught I clogged the toilet because the water stops working at random times. Haah.

We then proceeded to the room next door where a lone woman was sitting in a cold room creating a rug during the last meagre rays of sunlight. It was freezing in there, the village is way up in the mountains and we had a roller coaster ride trying to get up our dinky car in these unpaved rocky roads. Where's the SUV when you need one. Anyway she sat us at her kitchen/ living room and began to tell us her story.

She came through the war (Serbians attacked Albanians genocide). The villages up in the mountains were hit the hardest- people were shot, houses burned and many Albanians fled to neighbouring countries for safety. Anyway, she told us her husband and two sons died. She has another son and daughter with her in the house. She told us when they finally returned to Kosovo, people began to count their material losses. Her house was burnt down yet she didn't count it as material loss- only people count as material loss for a house can be easily replaced but people never come back. As she talked to us, we could see the tears prickle in her eyes and it made me cry. Her boy just turned 17- and when the male of the house turns 17, financial aid stops. She worries because it supported her and her two children and they now cannot go to university because they don't have the $300 Euros to spend a year for education. She looked to be about 55 yet she was only 45- even younger than my mom. Pain has aged all these women.

But through all this, I couldn't help but see the tremendous amount of beauty in the village. The sun bathed the entire area in this warm golden glow, the house overlooked the rolling mountains and it just looked so serene and peaceful you could never have imagined so much pain was in them. How can so much sadness exist side by side with so much beauty? Here is a photograph of their backyard.

I have more stories to tell but I don't have the time right now. I have over 500 pictures so if you want, I can show you when I get back... in TEN DAYS!! HAHAHA. I've gone delirious. Anyway, we were at another village visiting another gracious family and they showed me their well and I drank for the pail- it tasted rusty. :S