Kids go to the dogs

Because of the large amount of stray, verile dogs wandering the landscape of Kosovo, it is easy to understand why so many people here are absolutely terrified of man's best friend. This makes it rather ironic that there is a shelter here that takes in these stray dogs and trains them to be of service to humans that need the companionship. I guess it takes all kinds, though. And it is true that this dog shelter is kept alive by the donations given by the international community here that don't have the space or time to keep their own pet. This is how I got to know the shelter. Good friends come here weekly with bags of food in order to walk the dogs through the surrounding village and mountains. It makes for the perfect spring afternoon.

SOOOOOOOOO, this is how I came to bring my two groups of Albanian and Serbian high school students to walk the dogs for the afternoon. A good number of them were terrified and unwilling to even let a dog get their noses close to their feet. That's at least when the walk started. Through the village and up the mountain the dogs played, ran and showed their true loyal doggie traits to those doubting students. By the end of the walk the fear had subsided if not vanished for most of them.

Ardite who has lost a lot of family in the past few years and often does not have much to smile about was one of the terrified at the begining of the day. By the time we were back at the shelter, she was calling me to take her picture with every dog that walked by her on their way back to the cages. Milica, a Serbian girl, and Faruk, an Albanian boy found themselves toward the end of the group walking a Lassie-looking dog. I fell back with them and we walked our way up the hill. Half way up we decided to have a seat and check out the view. We could see villages all the way to the opposite moutnain range. Blue skies and green pastures laid in front of us. We talked about dogs, nature and other random subjects that were easy to discuss in English. At one point Milica said, "A year ago I would never have guessed that I would be sitting on a hill with an American, an Albainian and a dog." I could not hold in the laughter and asked her how it felt. "It's pretty cool," was her simple answer.

If Ardite, Miica and Faruk are the only three reasons I'm here, that's is 100% worth it for me. Faruk and Milica are unique students that are curious, open minded and willing to find out more. This is not the case with most of them and that is okay. Teachers have to come to the conclusion that they will not get to all of their students, probably not even most of them. If we can get to just the two or three, we've done our job. If we are able to get to 5 or more, we've done our job well.

Albania . . . Albania . . .

You border on the Adriatic
Your land is mountainous
And your chief export is
Chrome

Thank you Coach for that geography lesson 20 years ago given from a famous pub in Boston. Everything I ever knew about Albania before coming here, I learned from you.

It was Easter weekend and five of us jumped in a rental 4x4 and headed to the southeast toward the Kosovo neighbor. They share a border, they share a flag and they share a language, but the calm, laid back feel of Albania was quite the contrast from the high energy, tense feel that pravails in Kosovo. We were lucky if we got a paved roads during our drive, but we were not lacking in beautiful scenery and friendly, helpful locals. They were often facinated by the idea of five women from 5 countries driving around their country. We went from lakes to mountains, countryside to seaside and entered back into Kosovo through a river valley that was quite unbelievable. Surprisingly we saw as many crosses as we saw minerettes. We watched a parade lead by a crucifix march up a mountain to a church on the night of Good Friday. Happy Easter signs were hung in virtually every town we drove through. That definitely wouldn't be something seen out in the open in Kosovo. The Kosovar Albanians like to think of themselves as one of them, but the Albanians from Albania feel little connection to the provence that is seeking independence. A bit strange, really, but obvious in conversations with Albanians about their neighboring Albanians. The generally seem to have little if any concern about what happens here. they don't see it as having much of an effect on their country. The irony of the fact that every Kosovar ALbanian that knew we were going to Albania acted as if we were going back to their home land . . . a place they share with their Albanian brothers and sisters.

The poverty and untouched spaces of Albania in addition to the relaxed atmosphere reminded me a lot of traveling around the Domonican Republic. Albania doesn't have the tourist draw of the DR yet, but given what Croatia and Montenegro have done for their tourist industries, I have a hunch Albania will figure it out soon.

Social Experiment

Driving around Kosovo there are some common sights that you see. Gas stations all over the place, random shopping centers in the middle of no where, and hotels that are all bright and shiny, but located where no normal tourist would want to go. Given the mob culture around here, it's pretty widely known that many of these are money-laundering cover-ups. Two girl friends of mine and I, all with enquiring minds, have been wondering lately about these hotels. Who actually stays in them? Are there even beds in there or is it just another smoky cafe? Last Saturday night became out night to see what we could find out.

Theresa works for the UN and asked some of her security guards about some of the hotels in the town of Ferizaj, a small municipality about 30 minutes away form Pristina. With a surprisingly straight face, they told her about two, saying that the Motel Europa 92 and Motel Man were all right. At about 8.30 that night, after spending the drive discussing what our story would be as to why were checking into this place, we drove by the Motel XXX. NOT the one for us. Europa 92 showed up next, so we pulled the white, clearly marked UN vehicle into the parking lot. If our inability to keep a straight face didn't blow our back-packer cover, the car did.

Walking in the front door brought us directly into the cafe/restaurant. Inside, like every other care, were only smoking men drinking coffee, and every one of their eyes turned to look at us . . . and kept looking at us as we tried to communicate with the waiter/host that we wanted a room. His English wasn't great and our Albanian isn't the best, yet it was surprisingly difficult to convey our request to him. "Room" and "3 beds" are not the most difficult words to communicate to a hotel proprietor. Not sure what he thought we wanted at first, but eventually he picked up some keys and lead us through a very inconspicuous door, turned on the light and walked us upstairs. On the way up we tried to find something strange, dirty or creepy about the place, but the truth was that it was quite clean and impressive. The first room he showed us had three single beds, a clean bathroom and a balcony overlooking the parking lot and mountains. A heck of a lot better than many rooms these three traveling women had slept in before.

We did it! This was a big deal! Right?! It was supposed to be, but once we were actually in and thinking the spare sheets we brought from home might not be necessary, it all seemed like no big deal anymore. By 9.00 we were ready to tour Ferizaj and have something to eat . . . destination being Benaf, the largest department store in the area and only thing open and worth gong to at 9.00 at night. Pizzas from the cafe and paper cups from the store were what we bought . . . needed nourishment and cups in order to drink the local liquor that was waiting for us back at the room. We figured we had to make the entire experience as "local" as possible. Before going back to the room, though, we figured we'd have a glass of wine in the hotel cafe, doing our best to handle the constant staring from the other patrons. What the hell were they looking at?! Never seen three foreign women before?!

The uneventful night continued with a drink, conversation and some music in the room. We all nestled in our beds and fell asleep. It seemed as though there was nothing to our social experiment. But then night continued, to morning and as we all woke up, we asked each other if anyone heard the knocking throughout the night? Nothing on our door, but several knocks from the hall. We didn't think much about it until we walked out into the hall and down the stairs. About 5 doors to rooms that were all closed the night before were now open at 8.30 and they had been used. Never once did we see any sign of life in the hotel other than our own, but clearly there were people around. So where were they coming from? We never saw anyone walk through the door from the cafe into the hotel. Was there another door? Sure enough, at the bottom of the stairs was a door I had not noticed before that went right into the hotel from a side parking lot. That was red flag to me. It then became clear that this was not a hotel that generally rented rooms for a full night. Knocking, used rooms, back door, no people in the hotel at normal evening hours . . . DAMN!!!!

It started out as an adventure, it became just another night in a hotel, it ended as a morning of Austrian, a Swedish and American women walking out of a questionable hotel without being trafficked back to their own countries in a sex trade.
Hehehehe, a lot of people say we were lucky. Don't think there was really that much danger in it. They wouldn't hurt internationals around here, but maybe our nationalities were all that kept us safe? Doesn't seem quite fair to the local women that might have found themselves in a Motel Europa 92 room that night, or any other night.