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August 08, 2006
Kosovo Stories
Right, time to tell some tales of my trip to Kosovo...
First of all Kosovo isn’t a country, though it is applying to become one. [Who do you apply to to become a country?] It’s being run by the UN at the moment, the United Nations Mission in Kosovo to be precise, or UNMIK as the stamp in my passport says.
I’m not qualified to go into the politics, suffice it to say some bad stuff has gone down in Kosovo in the last ten years, some of which we’ve heard about on the news.
Ten years? Talking to Teki, one of the Gjakova Lecturers, it goes back thousands of years. The phrase “There’s Trouble in the Balkans” is not without meaning. A dozen or so countries with almost as many languages and three opposing major religions don’t go to make for a contented neighbourhood.
Apart from a huge military perimeter fence round the airport, the many road blocks and the constant convoys of KFOR troops, Kosovo looks like most countries on latitude 42. Oh, and the bridges have little yellow signs advising the speed limits:
There are houses with red-tiled roofs and lots of concrete, dusty roads, big lorries and small tractors,
a mid-European mix of the ultra-modern and timelessness with the connection that at least one window in every building I saw, old or new, was cracked or broken.
Posted by john at August 8, 2006 12:00 PM
Comments
You know it's a place where there's been some serious stuff going on when there are permanent road signs with speed limits for tanks.
Posted by: Daphne at August 8, 2006 05:58 PM