Thursday, July 17, 2008

Visit to Prizren

I travel around the world for my job at the Stanley Foundation. So you would think by now I would be used to the disorientation that sometimes comes with traveling nearly half-way around the world in little more than 24 hours. I’m not. I am always amazed at how quickly an airplane (even with a long layover) can take me to a new culture. And I continue to be amazed at how difficult it is to adjust to the time difference that goes along with global travel (we are seven hours ahead of Muscatine time).

In 2005, the Muscatine Kosovo group spent the night in London on the way to Pristina. As you know by now, we didn’t have to spend an entire night waiting to catch a flight to Kosovo. The good news is that eliminating the overnight layover helped us stretch our budget. What we saved in Euros has been erased by jet lag.

Another Familiar Place
Liz travels back and forth between the US and Kosovo often enough to understand how jet lag can be difficult to deal with for the first couple of days after arrival. I suspect this is why she scheduled our group to visit the beautiful southern Kosovo city of Prizren on Wednesday afternoon.

One of our 2005 guides told us Prizren was once the capital of Kosovo and was part of the Roman Empire. It doesn’t take long to realize some of Prizren’s prized buildings are more than 1000 years old.

This was my third visit to Prizren. Keith and I spent an afternoon here in 2002 and the group spent a day here in 2005. We started our visit at a museum run by the Albanian League of Prizren. Our adults were fascinated with what they learned, but as you can imagine, the youth from Muscatine and Kosovo were not as enthralled with the museum.

I could almost see the signs of relief on the youth’s faces when we gave them the option of visiting the city’s historic Turkish bathhouse or Prizren’s famed fortress. A handful including Ric Smith, Kelli Hindrichs, and Diana Baker toured the Turkish bath. The rest visited the ancient fortress.

The fortress overlooks the entire city. Visitors must endure a mile-long steep, winding, and narrow road to reach the fortress’ crumbling entrance. I remember questioning my sanity when I made the walk in 2005. Today I was questioning why I didn’t learn my lesson last time. I (and many of the adults in the group) stopped frequently to catch my breath. In the end, I am glad I made the hike. The view of Prizren from the fortress is still breathtaking (literally!).

A First Hand View of Destruction
Large construction cranes and newly constructed apartment buildings are the most obvious signs of Prizren’s expanding prosperity. But the path to the fortress has not changed for the better since our 2005 trip. The area just below the fortress was a Serb enclave up until ethnic violence in March 2004 destroyed the hillside neighborhood. Then, riots swept across Kosovo after a group of young Albanian boys drowned in the river that divides the flashpoint town of Mitrovica (in northern Kosovo).

The burned-out shells of former houses and shops are frozen in time, save for some added weeds. For our new travelers, this former Serb enclave was their first glimpse of the widespread destruction Keith and I saw throughout Kosovo in 2002.

I must admit I was stunned the former Serb enclave had not been rebuilt. The international community demanded Kosovo’s majority ethnic Albanians guarantee the rights of the several thousand Serbians that remained here after the 1999 war, as well as those of the other minorities as a condition of independence. KFOR billboards plastered throughout major cities and Kosovo roads urge Kosovars to “Be Tolerant.” I do believe Kosovo has come a long way since the 1999 conflict. But the ruins of Prizren’s Serb enclave are a vivid reminder that the deep seated mistrust between the Kosovars and Serbs will likely take a very long time to heal.

Until next time...Kristin McHugh-Johnston