Journal Entry 41

November 23rd, 2004

"Pleasantly Decrepit"

 

...refering to Kosovo and Albania.

From Macedonia, I went to Kosovo, joined by Krys, an Australian. On the bus, we met Eliza, an Albanian woman who invited us to her home in a village (Rahovec) near Prizren (where we were headed). This turned out great, because she had a son (Liridon) and his friend (Valbon), both of whom spoke good English.

Kosovo, or Kosova as it's called in Albanian, is an interesting place. The countryside is very hilly...I'd say mountainous, but not in the Rocky Mountain sense, more Appalachian maybe. The villages are denser and slightly more chaotic than elsewhere in Eastern Europe. It's predominately Muslim, and old dudes wear domed white felt hats.

Graves and memorials from the recent war are everywhere around the country. There are some bombed-out bridges and factories, but few other signs of the war, most everything seemingly's been razed or rebuilt. It's hard to miss the KFOR (Kosovo Force) presence...everywhere, you see armoured vehicles and tanks and jeeps with soldiers and machine guns, part of the UN Peacekeeping force. It's a bit unsettling at first, going down the road with a tank and gun pointed at you.

Prizren is a cool city. Mosques and a beautiful river and a Turkish bath, the place definitely having a Turkish feel. There's a ruined castle above the city, and a bombed-out Serbian church (March 2004) serves as a reminder that all is not yet well here. They like President Clinton...I saw a sports complex and a restaurant named after him.

The next few days in Kosovo, we hung out a lot with our Albanian hosts, had a load of expressos at coffee shops, and ate a lot of good Albanian home cookin'. There are frequent power outages here, and a lack of much heating meant the whole extended family hanging out around the wood-burner in the living room--a nice atmosphere!

I went back to Macedonia again, then continued to Albania. This country is Kosovo's poor little brother. While Kosovo was part of the relatively-advanced Yugoslavia, Albania was in the Middle Ages under a 40-year harsh dictatorship. It's over now, but the scars remain. The whole country seems broken. Buildings full of holes, railroad tracks that end nowhere, trains that run but have no lights at night, the worst roads I've seen since Indonesia or Papua New Guinea. Skeletons of buildings (half-built or half-destroyed???). And concrete igloos.

...Hozha (the dictator) had 750,000 concrete bunkers built as part of some strange national defense system. They're only big enough for a couple people, and look like igloos with gunslits. Nowadays, most are wrecked, but as you cross the mountainous country, you see them scattered everywhere. Some house animals, others completely overgrown.

I stayed in the coastal town of Durres. It has a crumbling Roman amphitheatre and old Byzantine city walls. The beach is a wreck: gray waves splash onto a broken sidewalk right at the water's edge. Litter and pieces of benches populate the swampy park, and a dull stench pervades the atmosphere. As a backdrop, there are heaps of half-built buildings. Inspiring place. Durres' highpoint is the evening promenade: from 5pm - 8pm, the main street is cleared of traffic, shops set out tables, and the whole town comes out for a walk. From little kids to chic teens to old farts with canes and ill-fitting suits. It's great, and something that cities elsewhere should try!

I made day trips to Kruje and Tirana, Albania's capital. Kruje is set on the side of a mountain and has an old ruined fortress, and some cobbled streets that house women still weaving by hand on giant looms. I stopped by a medieval-looking bakery and bought coarse unleavened bread to eat with some cheese that a local gave to me.

Tirana. I've never seen a city that hasn't been bombed that looks so much like it has. The suburbs seem an urban warfare zone. Despite this, the place has a certain charm. It's trying, and is now littered with cool coffee shops and brightly-coloured buildings. Quite bizarre.

Food. Along with stews and rice pilaf and pickled green tomotoes, I had Turkish coffees, pitte (huge baked flaky greasy bread thing filled with cheese or cabbage, eaten with yogurt on a Sunday morning), baklava (flaky nutty pastry soaked in rose water), gliko fiku me bajame (figs stuffed with horsenuts and soaked in sweet syrup), and fergese (beef and paprika stew in a clay pot).

I have nominated Albania to be 'the country where you are most likely to fall in a hole'. Truly a unique distinction.

It rained so much in Albania! My Gore-Tex jacket has taken on the curious but undesireable property of absorbing water instead of repelling it. And the umbrella I have blows inside out if you breath too hard. I had to get out.

I liked the Albanian countries of Kosovo and Albania. There is a degree of disorder and contradiction that you don't often see in this part of the world. Both are ruined places that are really really trying to change, slowly but surely. It's...pleasantly decrepit.

'The world is a complex, continuous, single event.' (Leonard B Meyer)

 

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