In June 2008, OXAB decided to investigate a possible expansion to Kosovo. In December of that year, three graduates travelled to Kosovo to consider how OXAB could work there, and meet with potential partners.

The OXAB Kosovo Exploration Trip Report summarises the findings of that trip. We welcome any and all feedback for inclusion in our Final report; please send any comments to kosovoreport[AT]oxab[DOT]org.uk

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‘is he coming’

‘i dont think so. he’s got chatting to some girl and he looks animated. better leave him to it.’

It is nearing 2am so I thought I would start the Friday blog on Friday. Will and I start to head home after a heavyish night in a bar where all the people we have met over the weeks drink. The only it could be described is ‘like a scene from the Simpsons’ (Brough 2008). Will and start the trekk to home, Edmond Hillary has no idea what an up hill struggle is! Mark is left entertaining some blonde beauty, Will and I do ask ourselves if he will be alright and come to the conclusion that a man who can teach himself Albainian in an afternoon will be fine walking around drunk in a foreign city.

On the way back hunger strikes and instead of getting a kebab, not only an English thing to do but knowing that the kebabs here are sensational, we opt for the pasta and sauce approach. When home we chat and cook, then eat. My god. It was the most horrific taste I have had the pleasure of eating. I force myself to eat as much as possible before my body rejects it. Will does not take the same approach and leaves what he deems to not suitable for human consumption. We contemplate Marks return and hope he has the decency to go back to hers because we have a busy day in the morning and retire and sleep.

Morning hits, we have an 9.30 meeting with the Youth Council Minister. We meet him in the most expensive cake shop in the world! there are amazing and worth their weight in gold but I would not part with 3€ a slice like my lavish compadres. Like everyone we have spoken to he has had enough with how things are and really wants to make a change and sort the current problems out. I think he will. To start with he was a little sceptical about if we could help but when he realised that all we want to do is help, he warmed to us. The meeting went well and the the list of possible projects continues to develop and grow at an unsustainable level, looks like all the students in every uni are going to have to give up a year for OXAB.

After we were off to meet the Director of Youth, who turned out to be ill and we spoke to his assistant. The assistant just said the Director has been rushed into hospital, pointed at his gut and then laughed, well I guess you have to make light of a serious situation! We chatted about the current situation in Kos and where we thought that we could have an impact and the things we should be able to bring. The re-occurring theme came out, he was happy that we were trying but was unsure just how much we could achieve, fair comment. The meeting turned into a touch base and see saw that there were possibility of working with the uni and possibly the youth centres teaching english etc. After another coffee we part to the next meeting, the students of Pristina Uni!

After sruggling around the whole of Pristina Uni for the best part of an hour we get to where we should be and meet the student representatives. One girl is incredibly helpful and guides us in the right direction. However, the man sat in front of us thinks he’s Don Kelliano. He turns up late and thinks everyone should listen to him and do what he suggests. Classic student politics. Well they are all incredibly excited about the prospect of setting up a student based society and getting up links with any uni in the UK. It goes well, as we were 40 mins late we have to apologies and use this as a meet and greet rather than anything solid. We head for the British Council, and meet Fazz there.

We walk in and there is a lions rug on the floor, muskets line the wall, golds from Indian, artifacts from the Americas, the smells from 1000s of different teas. Sadly not. I was hoping for a colonial setting where I was offered a cup of tea that would have been sailed across the seven seas, I did settle for an Earl Grey, so not all was lost. The building was like any modern office block with computers and books and nothing suggesting the empire, I will have to go back a couple of decades for that I fear.

We discuss what we are doing in Kos and the lady informs us that the BC has had a couple of calls saying they have heard there are a couple of Oxford Professors walking around Kos and could they have our details. Chinese whispers? No wonder we managed to meet so many high powered people. We had a joke about that and got back to asking for money really. It was good. We were told there might be a case for us to work with the BC and make sure money was pumped in and then manipulate the projects the way we saw them working. All in all the final meeting went well. But as it drew to an end I think we were all a little sad, the Oxford Profs whistle tour of Kos was coming to a close. We said our goodbyes and left the BC.

When outside we explained to Fazz we were off to Sopje that evening and asked if he knew when the last bus was. He called his mate and found out it was 5 pm, giving us a couple of hours. We then met Fazz’s cousin and Will had to go get a mug. Yes a mug. If we miss the 5 bus then we have to get another €180 cab, but we better get that mug! Mark then starts to mess around with stamps. Only got an hour and a half before the bus goes, loads of time I am assured by the other 2. We say goodbye to Fazz, I can not start to say how emotional that was and get a taxi to the hostel. So instead of agreeing to pay the €2 he asks for we opt for the meter knowing that we are only going 1/2 a mile. Tour of Pristina time. The guy drives us around the whole town and racks up the meter to €3 and wastes about 1/2 and hour. great. Mark then gives him a good telling off in German and we run up to our room to pack like crazy! We get it all together, grab another cab and get down to the bus with over 5 minutes to go, perfect timing! On the bus we meet ……………. and chat to him about the OSCE and how the christmas party was.

Right so we get to Skopje and Mark is like ‘yeah all the cabbies know Hostel Hostel.’ Apparently it is the greatest thing to ever come out of Massadonia. None of them know it. We run around trying to find someone who will take us there, then finally we find a guy. We get there and all is happy, un pack a bit then off to the resturant of our dreams. I should have mentioned this before, the reason we are here is so Mark can take us to the best resturant anyone has ever eaten in!

We get there. It’s empty apart from 8 people up stairs. We look at the prices, Mark frantically starts blaming the falling exchange rate and weakening pound. ‘It’s all Gordon’s fault’ he kept saying. Oh well, at €8 a head i think we can manage. The wines and that’s good. The starters come and they are good. We eat and laugh about the trip so far. We wait and no main course. We wait longer. after an hour and a bit we ask what is going on. The waiter forgot to order the mains. After 2 hours they come out. They too are very tasty. Then the bill, we look at it and convert it to € 79 in fact. WHAT! are you having a laugh? Turns out they are trying to charge us €20 for each bottle of wine after showing us on the menue that it cost €5 a bottle. Only one thing to do. Re-write the bill and leave them the correct amount. So that is what we did! Very funny! On the walk home we chatted about being followed and hunted for the rest of the cash, we were all laughing but I think there was a hint of fear that possibly it could happen.

We get back to the world renowned Hostel Hostel and get into bed knowing we have an 8.30 bus in the morning.

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The day begins exceptionally early with a meeting at LINK, Pristina University’s careers service. We stumble out of bed at the latest time possible (I certainly do) and head down to the university buildings near the centre. Of course no morning would be complete without a trip to the bakery, and this time we manage to pay the right amount for three pain au chocs (25c each). The baker does not seem impressed, we’re not sure why.

We walk over to the university library, an interesting building with roof shaped like bubbles (that’s the only way I can describe it), and arrive on time for our 08:30 meeting with Arlinda Beka, the director of the centre. There is some confusion at the entrance to the building as the security guard is rather reluctant to let us in, but when we flash out our business cards and cite Arlinda’s name, he grudgingly lets us through.

The careers service is a well-resourced room on the ground floor of the university library (which doubles as the national library). Only the day before we had been to a handover ceremony of LINK from the OSCE to the University. Arlinda offers us drinks, but no Nescafé here - macchiatos and herbal tea all the way. We get down to business and Arlinda is interested in our project proposals and how we could work together with students from the university of Pristina. She understands the importance of volunteering for students’ future career prospects (btw guys - OXAB means big CV points. possibly), and has been trying to foster a greater culture of volunteerism in the university. An idea that we together come up with is for students who work on Oxford newspapers to come to Pristina University to help set up a student newspaper here. This would be hugely beneficial for the employment prospects of both sets of students. Arlinda thinks we might be able to find funding for such an idea. Towards the end of our discussion, informed that his first cup was too cold, Luke is offered some more herbal tea. He politely declines. The meeting demonstrates our rapidly increasing knowledge of both possible projects and cultural etiquette.

After a very successful meeting, we head off to our next stop of the day: KIPRED. Unfortunately we haggle the price up with the taxi driver and pay €2 for the rather short journey to Sunny Hill, arriving just before 10am. The Kosovar Institute for Policy Research and Development is the foremost think-tank in Kosovo. A lot of their work concentrates on building political institutions, particularly political parties, in the new Kosovo. Qemajl and Genc are two of the main researchers for the institute; we have a great discussion with them about their work and our plans. The project here would likely entail promoting the institute and getting recent graduates, or particularly Masters students, to come and intern at the institute. Students from the local University are always interning there so that fulfills that criterion. Qemajl and Genc are keen to emphasise the substantial benefits to the participating Oxford student. In such a place as Kosovo, there are great gaps in research and so it offers a great opportunity for the basis of a PhD thesis or the testing of existing hypotheses, for example. Interns also get to do a lot of work both independently and in a team, and the working language is English. They are gearing up for fresh elections in 2009, which they will monitor in coalition with many other civil-society groups.

The meeting moves on from their offices to the local “Starbucks” in Sunny Hill. The Starbucks Corporation would probably be unhappy about the using of their brand name on this otherwise unassuming café, but this “Starbucks” is much better than the real thing. I can’t think of any chain café that serves macchiatos anywhere near as well as any little place in Kosovo does. The discussion turns inevitably and inexorably on to the question of girls, the default topic of conversation here. They’re a cheeky bunch, these Kosovars, and it’s nice how open in general they are. Even when we occasionally demonstrate an ignorance of the problems they’ve been through, they’re receptive, as well as polite and courteous in putting us in our place. We are informed that Harem is actually a very poor choice of nightclub, and given a long list of alternatives. “Spray”, a club just outside town, comes somewhere near the top of the list. Luke gets talking to the Swiss intern at KIPRED, Jon. He is currently researching financial policy and looking at emerging stable (well.. maybe not so much now!) economies to try and establish which route Kosovo should go down. There really are so many opportunities for research here.

By this point we are flagging a bit as we have had a limited amount of food so far today. KIPRED head off back to the office and shortly thereafter we head on to our next meeting at 11:30am at REC, the Regional Environmental Centre. This takes us some time because roads are rarely marked here, and the REC office itself is accessed via an innocuous alleyway and then up several flights of stairs. After some discussion on the phone we eventually reach Margarita and sit down to our meeting and fourth coffee of the day. This meeting is more difficult than the previous ones. REC, a Hungarian-based organisation established by the US and EC, has been operating in Kosovo for some ten years and has a staff of six in its main office here in Pristina. Even from the sixth floor of this office block the environmental issues are painfully obvious: not too far away are factories billowing vast plumes of yellowy smoke. There would be several problems for OXAB working with REC here. The biggest one is the language barrier: Albanian is the working language in the office. Secondly, the REC do mainly coordination work with other environmental organisations who work on the ground (again in Albanian). Finally, it is quite difficult to establish what other work the organisation does apart from the aforementioned coordination work, and a termly newsletter. Perhaps there could be some scope for helping with project proposals and proof-reading the newsletter. This meeting turns out to be one of the shortest and we leave with a greater sense of how our organisation should work with others in Kosovo.

The time is nearing 1pm and we are all very hungry, having had only one pain au chocolate each thus far. We move to a local bakery, with a great assortment of quiche, ‘pizza’, cake and pastries, and have a very tasty lunch for only a euro or so. Luke and Will are however not satisfied by this and we move on to a local Qebaptore (kebab) shop for the standard meat and bread.

We head back into town for our meeting with Kosovo Stability Initiative (IKS). The ride back down to the centre, on the meter, costs only €1.65. The meter is obviously the way to go. We go and sit down in a café/bar down a side street near the Grand Hotel and order orange juice and beer. At this point half an hour before our meeting, disaster strikes: KSI ring to cancel. The director apparently had to go to Skopje; they will have to reschedule. Crestfallen at this, our first significant setback, we consider our options before our meeting at 4pm. Should we go to our Internet café, or go back up to the apartment for an hour and a half’s rest? In the end, we stay in the bar. Will and I begin to flag, after so much coffee and an early start, and I decide that Luke’s example of 2pm beer is the way to go. Will chooses the stronger alternative of Red Bull. The beer sorts us out immediately, and we sit in the bar reading random fragments of promotional material from the various centres we’d visited, for another hour. At 3.30pm we decide it’s time to leave for our meeting at 4pm.

We have a brief walk up along Mother Teresa Street and then head back to the orange Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport building. Here we meet Ilir Hoxha, the Director of the Youth Development Project. The YDP is a World Bank-financed project running youth centres across Kosovo, with the specific aim of empowering young people and encouraging volunteerism and greater activism in civil society. Ilir seems really enthusiastic but also particularly keen to understand the benefits as well as the problems of the YDP as it currently stands. It seems like we could really work with this organisation which is quite exciting. Ilir schedules a meeting for us tomorrow with the YDP resource hub at Pristina University, so we can have a look at an example of how the centres operate.

Following our very interesting meeting with Ilir we are all quite tired but have one more meeting left for the day, with Guri from SPARK, a Dutch-based organisation aiming to improve entrepreneurialism and help businesses get going, particularly for young people. We meet Guri in a small, well-hidden bar down several side streets off the ABC Cinema street with all its trendy bars. This bar is itself rather trendy but also looks a lot like someone’s front room! There is an assortment of vintage chairs around the room, variously occupied by regulars who all seem to know each other. Throughout the evening, it is like an episode of the Simpsons where all the characters come together and you see all the different people we met with during our trip. It was really rather surreal.

Guri gives us some pointers as to what we should watch out for when dealing with these organisations, who’s good to work with and who is not so great. It is always very useful to get more opinions, especially as we’ve only been here for two weeks and are just getting a feel for the place! Around 1830 our local friends come over to the bar to meet us. Conversation is still rather difficult and the language barrier is ever-present, so I end up just going through pictures and trying to explain things from them, Will is having a bit more success though. This is something we obviously need to bear in mind when sending volunteers over to the projects! But hopefully the tie-up with the University of Pristina should help.

Towards the end of the evening we bump into another woman from Balkan Sunflowers, apparently she’s tried to get in touch with us via info@oxab.org.uk and there was no reply..  We seem to have had a similar problem emailing info@ generic international institution but in this case it seems like there must be more of a problem because the emails are literally just disappearing. So sorry to anyone who’s tried to contact us in this way! Balkan Sunflowers seem to be a really interesting organisation and she says she’ll get in touch with us before we leave Kosovo tomorrow.

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Mark, who by now is developing the nickname of Mr Macchiato, is unable to get out of bed. When I say unable, I mean unwilling. The order of the showers today is such that he is the last to emerge from bed to face the world in which we have a busy day scheduled.

We know we have a coffee meeting (and what meetings in Kosovo aren’t coffee meetings?) at 0930, but we are only stepping out of the flat door at 0905. This means we have to be extra quick today at the bakers to get our pain au chocolates and/or pain au jams (as we refer to them).  Today we ask for all chocolates, but as Luke discovers in a cruel game of Russian Roulette we have a rogue pan au jam in the mix.  We cross the road in the usual non verbal negotiation with traffic at the zebra crossing. It seems in Kosovo, pedestrians know to stay on the pavement when it would be inconvenient for a car to stop, but otherwise cars slow down enough for pedestrians to cross, and sometimes this even means that they stop.

We’re running a little late to meet Faz when we spot the café which is the place of our rendezvous.  Faz is late too, fortunately.  We discuss the previous day’s events and despite the early morning are enthused to talk about out latest ideas and our planned meetings. Faz also informs us that we have a meeting set up with the Provost of his University.

After a quick macchiato we are forced to quicken the pace across town to get to the OSCE Headquarters for our first meeting of the day.  We arrive just on time and get security checked by the guards who are by now beginning to recognise us as semi-permanent features of the building. We are met by woman from the “Assistance Department”, a vague title indeed. She is very interested to find out about what we are doing in Kosovo, and how we are proceeding as students since she has only stopped being a (much more advanced) student herself. We leave the cafeteria (on one of the top floors with a fantastic view of Pristina), and although it seems as if again we don’t have directly related interests, we are able to gain valuable contacts who we are set to meet later in the day.

We again have to rush across town to make a handover ceremony by the iconic Grand Hotel (not in it mind you).  The University of Pristina has recently created a Quality Assurance body under the guidance of the OSCE and today is the handover.  We are also here to meet the manager of the LINK centre which helps the students of Pristina University find jobs. The handover ceremony is bi-lingual in Albanian and English with the relevant translation being provided via headphones with a wireless link. I notice we are some of the only people using the headphones during the Albanian presentations. It seems as if we are already becoming part of the Pristina higher education “scene” because we meet the tall chap from the OSCE we had met the day before. We only get a chance to arrange a meeting for the following morning (and at 0830, Mark gets into trouble from Luke who points out the difficulty we had in getting to a 0930 meeting).  We also receive a call from Amsterdam after meeting the Kosovan SPARK representative, which helps small business in Kosovo. There is a lot of food on large plates with a copious supply of canned fizzy drinks piled in one corner. We stay for as long as possible, as does another group of men opposite us on the large tables arranged into a large square with paintings on the wall.

By now it is time to get back across town to a restaurant near the OSCE, it has also started to rain, which is not good for the group of us not with umbrellas and wearing smart shoes in a hope to impress. Now these smart shoes are becoming progressively more muddy and wet as we are forced to walk around cars which are parked on the pavements (which seems to be the most common place to park in all of Kosovo).  We arrive at the “De Rada” restaurant and are directed by men in French waiter outfits to a table for about 5 with a man and a women sitting on the table. They look at us with slight bemusement and we quickly establish that they are not who we are supposed to be meeting.  We again question the waiter who comes to the conclusion that we must mean the “other De Rada” which is outside and down the street. He helpfully shows us the way. I can’t help but think of the scene in Monty Python and “The Meaning of Life” where the camera follows the French waiter out of his restaurant and into the countryside although we don’t go nearly as far with this waiter.  After sitting down at this place (a pizza restaurant rather than a café) we finally decide to go back to the first De Rada where we find the woman from the Kosovo Woman’s Network waiting for us. After explaining ourselves we sit down to another macchiato and discuss the problems facing women in Kosovo. We hear how the laws are already in place (for example UNMIK copied family law from Germany), but that it is not being put through in practice. We hear about how the network conducts research, generates public interest and organises workshops and protests.  Our contact says she only sleeps 5 hours a night which is believable since she called us at 10pm from the office the previous night.  Although the scope for projects here is limited, we are definitely able to offer our powerful networking and publicity skills to Kosovo Women’s network to publicise the internships they run for internationals (subject of course to OXAB committee approval).

We part ways and battle through the rain to our favourite internet café where the computers were charmingly slow as usual (it took an hour to upload a facebook album).  We leave just in time to walk to the Regional HQ for the OSCE in order to meet the team responsible for Podujevo. When we arrive we are greeted by a young OSCE staff member with brown hair, about Luke’s height and with a faintly surprised look on his face.  We soon find out from the other OSCE staff member that they were expecting to meet Oxford professors, not students. However, we soon establish a good rapport and there are interesting and exciting ideas on both sides of the table. We immediately get on which is real bonus in these things.  We try to pay for the macchiatos but fail once again.

It’s still raining when we meet Faz in order to take the taxi to the Provost’s house (not his office we find out). The taxi takes only 15 minutes before it drives up an unmade track: seemingly in the middle of the countryside with the typical half built buildings lining the road. We soon arrive at a huge house which is on the left hand side. We stop and pay the taxi.  Faz informs us that 3 families reside in the building, but we are still very impressed. We all wait with anticipation as Faz rings the bell. A small boy runs down the stone steps to open the door which leads into a cold but dry room with a stone floor which could be a well equipped garage but instead has many pieces of large artwork. We climb some stairs which brings  us to a large internal courtyard with neatly trimmed grass and impressively lit pieces of art on display.  We climb some more steps where the child shows us into the house. We are provided with slippers and walk into the marble floored hallway.  I am offered slippers too, but they appear to have a heal and are far too small so I opt to walk in socks instead. In the lounge the Provost greets us, a tall and slender man with glasses and a beard, black hair and well into middle age.  Even though there is a subtitled South American soap on TV (playing quietly), he listens attentively our presentation having given us a fruit juice delivered by the small boy.  Our conversation is translated by Faz, although the professor seems to talk for a long time before giving Faz a chance to translate, I am amazed that he remembers how he started.  We are then invited to drink Raki, which has a pear in the glass bottle.  The taste is nothing like the liquid we bought under the name or Raki in the supermarket the week before.  We carry on talking for a while, and as we have come to establish good relations, we consider the meeting to be a success. Before we go, we are invited up three flights of marble stairs to see the art room in the top of the house with some life size figures of extra-terrestrials.  We are given a brochure and a DVD each before we go.

Faz informs us that it is only a 20 minute walk to our apartment which we find hard to believe because we are in the countryside and our apartment seems so much in the city.  However, Faz is correct once again and despite the cold and wet weather we are happy but tired at the end of the day.  We once again go to the shop to buy vegetables (and are still unclear as to how to differentiate between peppers and chillies) and beer.  But this time, we are exhausted and head toward an early bed after discussing some of the ideas we have had over our tasty dinner.

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Mitrovice: A Frozen Conflict

The bus from Pristina arrives at the central bus station. The bus station has no electricity inside the probably once impressive building. The place smells pungently of urine, so much so that we think the lakes of liquid covering the stone floor may well be the source. Fortunately, we have no need to stay and walk toward the centre of the town and the Metrovica bridge. We’re passed by the usual hum of Kosovan traffic and there is steam rising from the sides of the street where the kebab houses, patisseries, and shoe shops form the backbone of the street economy.  These shops die away as we approach the bridge.  There is a large UN compound surrounded by razor wire and high metal fences on the right hand side. On the side of the road is a man taking away the number plates of his car.  Mark approaches the guard and asks if the situation is calm today: we intend to cross if there are no incidents reported today. Another man is called from inside who speaks fluent English. He says that the place is “a time bomb waiting to go off” and gives strong advice not to cross to the other side.  However, he gives us the information that the situation is no different today to how it normally is but that violence can happen “at any time”.

The bridge itself is now in sight. It’s a new looking four lane road bridge, with an obvious architectural intent to make it look nice. The bridge itself is empty except for two Kosovo policemen and a French lookout post flying the French and NATO flag on a nearby building.  We approach the policemen in order to get an up to date report of the situation. One policeman, about five feet nine, with kind looking eyes, but armed with a Sig handgun and CS gas on his waistbelt claims to speak a little English. In fact he’s got much better English than that.  He’s keen to know our nationality and what we are doing. He says that if we are not with an international institution, and have no necessity to cross there is a strong chance that we’ll be taken away for questioning by the security forces on the other side, or worse, by the paramilitary hardliners who watch the bridge twenty four hours a day.  It is a certainty that we’ll be followed wherever we go and our nationality will be a problem.   He says that “Not as a policeman, but as a friend, I tell you not to cross”.  We talk for a while, and ask about his experiences and what he is allowed to do on the other side which is not much. He once drove his car to the other side only to have it vandalised.  He claims that Serbs are safe to cross to the south and do not face intimidation. At this point a car with Serb plates drives freely into the south seemingly validating this point. No vehicles with “KS” number plates have crossed to the other side and none do in the time we are on the bridge except those turning left along the river road.

We ask where the jurisdiction of the southern side ends. The policeman points to the (Serbian) flag which flies on the far side. We make the decision not to cross into the North but to walk to the flag.  Traffic, both pedestrian and vehicular is very light.  A KFOR jeep and OSCE 4×4 cross whilst we’re on the bridge and two pedestrians also cross. We take photographs. As we approach the north a policeman (probably from the north, but we can’t be sure) tells us that we cannot remain on the bridge for longer than a minute and tells us either to cross or to return. We have already decided to return and the incredibly tense atmosphere has not changed our mind.  For the first time politics is more than simply discussion by men in suits and students over beer.  In north Metrovica things are real; and there’s no better way to describe it.

We walk back across the bridge and chat again to the policeman on the South side. We get along well and we all shake hands when we part ways.  At a newsstand barely 50 metres from the bridge some French soldiers are bartering and joking with the store owner.  Although I’ve seen similarly armed soldiers in Gare du Nord, these soldiers are obviously armed less for show and more for necessity.  I ask in broken French whether it would be possible to have a photograph with them. They pause and look in the direction of their NCO who is standing a little back. “Oui” is the response and so we take a couple of photos, very similar to the ones of the Carabinieri we took outside the OSCE in Pristina.  This time however we say “Merci bien” rather than “e tutto, grazie!”

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