Brezovica on a grey day

 

hoppy easter, too

Yesterday I went snowboarding... in Kosovo :)

The ski resort is called Brezovica, and it's located in a Serb enclave roughly an hour and a half's drove from Pristina. It had been over two years since I had done any skiing (well, boarding) at all, if you can even count the last attempt I made - it was mostly spent on my tush, sliding painfully down an ice-covered Whistler! Even though I didn't expect much out of Brezovica, and normally would have smiled at the concept of quality skiing in Kosovo just as I still smile at Hamilton's "mountain", I was so in need of practice that it suited me just fine. Besides, it was cheap enough at 22Euros for rentals and a lift pass. As you can imagine, though, I came out of the whole ordeal soaking wet, which was to be expected since the weather was warm, the snow was melting, and I had absolutely no ski wear whatsoever. Have you ever tried snowboarding in fleece pants? I don't recommend it!

But here's the funny part...

After a few warm-up rounds down the bunny hill and two slightly more successful attempts at one of the two runs, it began to drizzle and we opted for a lunch break. So, I admit lunch was a little leisurely because we were waiting to see if the weather would improve, but we definitely expected to head out again and squeeze in some more runs before heading back home. Instead, we stepped outside to collect our waiting equipment only to find the entire mountain deserted! Seriously, a few stragglers were still milling about, but the lifts had been totally shut down and the mountain staff had even been sent home. It had mostly stopped raining, but we figure everyone just gave up on the blah weather and decided it wasn't worth their time... and we missed everything sitting inside eating lunch :)

In the end, I did have a good time, and it reminded me to try again next season... but maybe back in Canada, where I can count on getting a full day's worth!

In a similar story, I got all excited to bake hamantaschen for Purim last week. I wasn't planning on anything fancy, like the yummy fruit fillings, but I was inspired by the over-abundance of nutella-like chocolate spreads around here... Unfortunately, though, they ended up a little pitiful. Because I can't read most of the packaging (German would be a huge help over here, for food as well as for TV!), I'm fairly certain that what I thought was baking powder was actually baking soda. To make matters worse, my oven doesn't actually have any numbers on the dial. I just guessed, and turned the dial relatively high, and the first batch came out fairly decently (except for being generally rock hard from the baking soda, but we already discussed that problem). The second batch, of course, was burnt to the point of being charred! I'm fairly certain that Grandma would have been horrified :) But I tried, and enjoyed them all the same.

Try, fail, laugh, and repeat... It’s all very familiar to me here.

ultimate

I guess expect the unexpected in the most unlikely of places... In very exciting news, I played ultimate yesterday with a group of mostly UN/OSCE people who have been playing here for a few years. I was definitely out of practice, but felt right at home since the game was informal and most of the people had only played for the first time in Kosovo. Besides, the field they use, located a few minutes drive from the centre of Pristina, is super funny - it's about one third the length of a regular field, entirely enclosed with a fence and a netted ceiling, and is made of Astroturf. But I guess you take what you can get around here :) Anyway, I know I'll be looking forward to my Wednesday evenings from now on.

In other not so exciting news, I made the mistake of getting my hair cut on the weekend. Oy. It's fairly horrendous (or shall I say butchered?), but also it's just hair and I'll survive. The bizarre part, though, is that it wasn't a language barrier problem; the lady who did it had actually lived in Victoria for several years. Apparently, she just couldn't grasp the concepts of "layer", "shape," and "round" and, after using those, I was totally at a loss for words to describe what I wanted. It seems the pictures I showed her, too, were of no help. But what can you do? I have faith that the experience was not a reflection of all hairdressers in Kosovo, and I'm just trying to work up the nerve to try again soon...this time somewhere else...

On the way home, I made up for the disaster by buying myself beautiful flowers...white lilies. Being close to Holland does have its perks, and I truly believe that the availability of nice cut flowers is one of Pristina's saving graces. With so much concrete around here, and especially until the trees get their leaves back, I find you really just need colourful living things to reflect the sunlight sometimes.

Otherwise, for the moment, that's all the news that fit to print. I'm finding that, as time goes on and as my life becomes more routine, it has become more difficult to recognize new things to write about. So forgive me for that, and I'll try to spice it up again soon.

happy Naw-Ruz

And happy spring, too! It's really been lovely here this past week - not overly warm, but mostly beautiful... The kind of weather that makes you want to be outside... Apparently, I'm not the only one thinking that because enormous numbers of kids have appeared en mass in the streets, playing and rollerblading about until quite late at night. Of course, I find the obvious lack of helmets a little nightmarish, especially considering that the sidewalks here are about as nice as the roads! But that's a different story. I'm definitely looking forward to things like hiking (I've finally found the large park outside of Pristina!) and sitting out on my mini balcony when the weather heats up a little, but, at the same time, I'm dreading the fact that it will be oppressively hot here in no time at all. I just have to keep reminding myself that nothing can be worse than a summer in Maryland, and all will be okay...

Speaking of spring, Naw-Ruz, meaning New Day, is the Persian New Year's, but it is also celebrated as the Bahai New Year's. Although I have to keep reminding my mother that I'm not converting any time soon (seriously...stop worrying!), I have befriended people from the small, close-knit Bahai community here in Pristina. They are awesome, and it's been especially nice to hang out with such an international group including people from Malaysia, Ireland, England, Algeria, Spain, Belgium, Luxembourg, Iran, Canada (Vancouver, actually!), the States, and of course, Kosovo. I guess, as an expansion, it's been easy to build friendships with everyone on an individual level because there is an inherent sense of common values and shared interests stemming from the basic fact that we are all in Kosovo and all involved in some sort of development work. Anyway, yesterday we had a big party to celebrate their New Year's and to mark to end of their crazy 19-day fast (think Ramadan - no eating from sunrise to sunset every day), and it was a lot of fun.

Unfortunately, though, it was also great to me to spend time with friends because my week was not so fabulous with regards to work... I've come to realize, not only am I not busy enough with fundraising to feel productive and useful, but I'm just not doing anything that I find really fulfilling. I do think that the organization is wonderful and doing good things, but my interest in their work lies with the role theatre can play in peace education and I am feeling very detached from that aspect of the office. Now that I've recognized this, I know I need to try and figure out how best to deal with it. Because the office is so small, though, and I rely on the people I work with for friendship as well, I don't want to rock the boat too much or in the wrong direction. Any advice out there?

Otherwise, this week has been fairly slow paced. I mean, for the first time in my life, I have actually been motivated to go to the gym! The one I eventually did join has turned out to be a very friendly and non-intimidating kind of place despite the fact that it's officially called the Pristina Bodybuilding Gym :) And I have spent a lot of time reading (Tolstoy has been keeping me thankfully busy for quite a while now), and mucking around on a guitar (I've improved, but am still generally pitiful), and watching pirated dvds (one was so obviously taped in a theatre that people kept getting up in front of the camera!). It's been relaxing, but a bit too relaxing. So I'm working on it...

and for more website fun...

Okay, so I'm still an online news junkie... what can I say?

Kosovo's missing people hit today's bbc news online and this article gives just a little sense of the problem... As a side note, though, with everyone in the UN missing person's office busy with preparations, these talks in Belgrade have sort of put the Memory Project on hold. With a deadline rapidly approaching, the timing is not so wonderful.

(to access the link, please click on "and for more website fun...")

website

Okay, so it still needs work (which basically means that I need to edit the English language materials...again), but Center for Children's Theatre Development finally has a working website. Feel free to check it out sometime.

our prime

Of course, it should read "Our Prime Minister," but I guess we all get the point :) This slogan seems to have popped up overnight. It's on store windows around Pristina and on this tee-shirt sported by the guy who brings coffee upstairs to our office from the cafe below. I have to admit I've been quite impressed at how calm Kosovo has been this week, and this attempt at a little nonviolent protest deserves our respect, too. Mind you, the other night after leaving the gym I finally joined, I was stopped by local police and forced to take a long detour. I luckily ran into two friends who were coming out of a show they had just performed at the nearby theatre, and we all walked together... Apparently, only half an hour earlier, two grenades had been thrown in front of the gates at UNHQ (UN headquarters), which I normally would walk past on my way home. Strangely though, it seems to have just been someone trying to spark trouble because there were no obvious targets. In my mostly unsuccessful attempts to follow the local Albanian TV news, it seems that a protest that was meant to be staged on Monday has been cancelled, perhaps as a result of the threat of violence? Either way, it has been very quiet here. I guess we'll see what happens tomorrow, whether the protest goes ahead or not.

In other news, the CCTD van, which acted as the primary source of transportation to theatre performances outside of Pristina, was stolen on Tuesday. Although we have filed a report with the police, it seems unlikely that anything will come of it, and sadly, for whatever reason, the van's insurance doesn't cover theft! So, if anyone has 5000 Euros (roughly $8000 CDN) sitting around that they'd like to donate to a good cause... Anyway, the loss of that money just adds incentive for me to get working on the grant applications that I've finally started to write. The actual writing process is not the most inspiring work -- in fact, it's much like the "blah blah blah" of writing papers, complete with elaborate exaggeration -- but it's been quite nice to feel useful and productive. And who knows? It would feel good to actually be awarded money based on the proposals that I will write.

We've also just started the more intensive process of beginning to write a play the UN memory project. It's far from being finished; the deadline for a final draft isn't until the first week of April when a British director has agreed to come to Kosovo and stage the show. There have been many obstacles, too, like the one minor detail of money (oy. you'd think my life now revolves around the stuff!)... But overall, it has been crazy to watch the project turn slowly from an idea into a reality. As soon as it's more of a reality, and out of our heads and onto paper, you'll hear more about it.

Haradinaj

Well, it's what we've be waiting for. The elected PM of Kosovo, Ramush Haradinaj, was indicted today for war crimes. He has said that he will resign his position and cooperate with the Hague.

The mood here, amongst the few people I've talked to, seems to be one mostly of frustration. In part, it is embarrassing for them that last March Kosovo was in the news because of violence, and now this, again in March. But there is also anger directed at the international community, based on a feeling that this is actually being done to embarrass Kosovo...as if to reaffirm the UN's role here.

But, except for the daily power outage (I love coffee), and a phone call I received from the US office requesting my email address (!), daily life goes on uninterrupted. I will write more about this, but first need to spend some time understanding local perspectives on the matter. Until then...

my lovely apartment building.

My flat is one with a satellite dish below the blue awnings.

more of what I see.

This is a view of my mini kitchen, in all its mini glory. Yep, it really is 50's style, soda shop green!

Ontario in Kosovo.

No joke.

small details

I was totally out of luck with my dreams of warmer days. Instead, winter has returned to Kosovo, and the city is mostly white again. But today is sunny, which comes quite welcomed after a week of grey skies, and relatively warm, so I am thrilled that my laundry handing outside to dry has a small chance of actually doing so (instead of freezing...again!). In general, I am feeling more set up and cozy in my apartment since I bought such fabulously exciting things as candles (to make those evening power outages somewhat relaxing), a fry pan, a knife (small but mighty!), a good tea mug (since I knocked over and completely smashed the last one during a recent power outage), and some more dvd's. I still haven't started cooking on any regular basis, but now that is more a function of my schedule being irregular than of my not wanting to bother... well... I suppose it's a bit of laziness on my part, too, because it takes effort to come up with yummy meals based on the limited (or simply different) selection of foods here. Back to the apartment, though, there is now just one remaining problem: my kitchen being my living room, the nearly white carpet is taking quite a beating!

It's not only my apartment that feels comfortable... I've been thinking a lot lately about how much more comfortable, in general, I now feel about living here, especially when I compare it to memories of how lost I felt when I first arrived. It's almost as if the process of adapting to a new environment is so gradual that you can miss the changes entirely unless you take the time to consider what is different. When I came, and was sick, going to a pharmacy for aspirin was a challenge. Really, I had no clue where to look for anything, and something so theoretically simple as shopping at the local grocery store seemed complicated and foreign. Now, the sensation is one of ease, and the difference is that I no longer feel totally lost when I walk down the street. Maybe it's small, but definitely recognizable...

Like, for instance, the other night... I went to the Oda Theatre to see a very popular local comedy called "Three Fat Germans." A friend from the office was involved in the show's creation and I know a few of the actors, so I had been meaning to go for a few weeks now...even though it is all in Albanian. I insisted that someone tell me about the plot (albeit in minimal detail) before the play started, and the comedy was very physical and easy to follow for at least 45 minutes (or half of the performance). After the show, however, I was actually uncertain about how much of the dialogue I could follow. I did not realize at first that I could understand many individual words and common phrases, likely because they did not necessarily translate into an ability to understand full sentences or even general ideas. Even so, I think I would have been much more lost watching the play a few weeks ago than I was the other night.

Ok. Clearly, my Albanian needs work. But as for things and experiences in daily life, nothing is really that new for me anymore... It seems I'm left with the small details to ponder...