Away to the Hills

Today Enita and I (and our soon-to-be-child of course; only 7 weeks to go now, all being well) have packed an inordinate amount of bags and things and are setting off for Brezovica for a one week stay in the mountains. Joining us will be my sister and her two sons who fly into Skopje this afternoon. The boys plan to go snowboarding, or at least they did, but like the rest of Europe the Sharr Mountains have so far only received a thin layer of snow - not enough for winter sports. Lets hope for snow in thick white layers but the forecast doesn't look promising. Winter sports aside the real problems will come next summer since Kosova very much relies on the storage of snow in winter to provide water to the lakes and rivers through the hot dry summer. The required amount is just not there yet.

This will be the longest we have stayed in the house in Brezovica since we reconstructed it. We have no TV, internet, CD players and such like and, as anyone who read my earlier blog will know, rarely any electricity. And probably no functioning ski resort. So a week ahead with seemingly not much to do but keep the wood stove burning and rest a while. Perhaps a welcome quiet retreat in the mountains? Lets see.

Faraway from Christmas

I grew up in England with a long unbroken sequence of happy, traditional Christmas days to remember, for which I am extremely grateful. In Kosova there is no Christmas to speak of, this being a country that generally celebrates the Islamic calendar. Here there is no tradition of present giving and receiving, card sending, getting together with family…and all the other things that collectively create the experience of Christmas, at least the traditional English one. There are however some rather tacky attempts at various Christmas traditions, badly dressed Santas in shops and such like, but these only serve to make what is missing more obvious. For me it is difficult to let go of the feelings engendered by those childhood Christmases and this has been true today. I have lived nearly six of the last eight years away from Britain and do not usually feel homesick but today, Christmas day, I miss England, family, friends and all that is Christmas.

Being away from where I grew up, in a foreign land, has often led me to ask the question; where is home? I have a life here in Kosova, family and friends here and have enjoyed many wonderful times and experiences. But is it home? Is for that matter England home? There is an enormous sense of longing that comes with these questions, a longing to know where home is, to be home. But I suspect this longing is something much deeper; that even if tomorrow I was to go and live in the exact same street where I spent most of my childhood I would feel no more, or no less, at home than I feel here, in this far-off place that doesn’t have Christmas (and that is a loaded phrase…far-off from where?). It seems to me that home in its true meaning, and I am probably stating the obvious here, is not a physical place at all but a state of mind, a deep contentment that in fact can be found anywhere if we chose to look. It is where we stand right now. Early this Christmas morning I went for a walk near our house in Brezovica, and in this place without Christmas, I had a sense of this in the peaceful beauty of a crisp snow white morning frozen in stillness. This is hard to capture in words - maybe the picture below speaks more.


Indeed it is true, as is oft said, that “home is where the heart is“…but the heart can be at home wherever we are.

Just a Little Tremor

At exactly 8.08 pm tonight there was an earthquake here. Actually I wouldn’t have immediately said that this is what happened but Enita has a greater sensitivity to these things than me (this is not the first time this has happened near Prishtina , in fact the last tremor was only about three weeks ago). She was taking a rest and felt the bed wobble from side to side. At the same time I was in the living room watching the Simpsons on TV when the metal pendant handles on some cupboard doors started rattling for about ten seconds without any obvious reason. Just a little tremor. Enita came into the living room and we looked at each other and realised what it was. Immediately there is a sense of fear and some moments when you wonder what to do - carry on doing what you’re doing or what? Run out into the open? Hide under the kitchen table? If so for how long? Is it going to be just that one little tremor? Probably, but who knows. Or is it the harbinger of something bigger? We are helpless in the face of these questions but somehow carrying on watching the TV does not seem quite the correct response to the movement of the Earth. But its cold outside so we have stayed in the flat, it’s the easiest thing to do. Anyway our neighbours have not run outside; probably they didn’t notice. But the sense of being unsettled remains with an anxious feeling in the pit of the stomach.
I look around the flat and everything seems so safe, so permanent. This little tremor is certainly a reminder that the seemingly solid ground beneath us is not immovable. That occasionally big devastating earthquakes do happen, without warning. That nothing is quite as permanent as we would like to believe, even though there will, I am sure, be yet another episode of the Simpsons.

Paying for Electricity

Earlier today I set out on a mission. To pay a bill for two hundred euros for electricity for our Brezovica house to the Kosova power company, otherwise known as KEK. Since we live in Prishtina you would not think that too much of a task, it’s a big city, the head office of KEK is located here. Here’s what happened. First to the local customer office near our flat; a short queue then “Sorry we don’t take bank cards“ (I had no cash). So to the nearest cash machine - its displaying an “out of service” message. So not wishing to give up, on to another cash dispenser quite a long walk away. Also “out of service“; clearly not my day today. By now I am half way to the head office of KEK so I make it my next destination. Surely they will take bank cards. I queue for a while, service is painfully slow and patience is needed. There are fifteen potential payment booths and only one is manned. There is a sign “Pay by Bank Card”. That’s encouraging. But no! They are not accepted, the sign is apparently “old”. Banking progress is clearly in reverse here. But my bill says I can pay at a bank, any bank. Next I try two; in the first I queue for twenty minutes, more patience, eventually I arrive at the front but, alas, the person who deals with bank giro payments is “off-sick, sorry sir”. To the second bank; a computer problem and no success, the giro payment data is not accepted. Another idea; I can take cash and return to the KEK main office. So I return with cash in pocket to another queue but confident now that this will finally be settled after one hour and a lot of walking. My bill is scrutinised, they are unable to accept my payment. I must go to the KEK office in another city nearer to Brezovica, here at head office they don’t have my account details on their database. Now I am getting cross and pointlessly argue that there must be a way, any way, by which they can “please” accept my payment. There is none. I leave, beaten by the system. On my way home I pass again the local customer office and have an idea they will accept my payment since as far as I see they don‘t have a computer, so no database. It will be my last attempt and in I go. The one and only cashier is eating his lunch and tells me to wait. I wait. He turns his back to continue eating. I wait some more. He eats some more. My patience snaps, “See you another time. Goodbye!” and out I go. He looked surprised that I wouldn’t wait. He didn’t have the kind of day I had.

An epilogue: less than half an hour after returning home there’s a three hour power cut. Why? Because KEK cannot afford to supply electricity for twenty-four hours because people aren’t paying their electricity bills. Such are things in Kosova.

A Visit to the Post Office

Often friends ask me how is life in Prishtina…in some respects its not so different from Britain but there are times you realise this is a long way from home. Today I made a visit to the local post office to post my Christmas cards (a bit late I know but better late than never). There is a small sub branch near my office. Its run by one elderly gentleman who chain smokes non-stop so entering is, I imagine, a bit like entering a smokers lung, never-the-less he’s a friendly fellow and clearly doesn’t have much to do. People here don’t use the post office much - its only for mail and not many people send letters - so normally the postmaster (rather a grand title but I can’t really say shopkeeper) is alone. Today was no exception. I had about twenty cards to send; we counted them at least three times, first in Albanian, then in English - same amount in both languages. He weighed them all twice - there were some in the higher weight to price category and some in the lower. There was much confusion about which, so we countered them again - by category. Some were to Scotland; “Is that in America”, “No", I said, "The United Kingdom”, he didn’t seem to understand, “Its in England” I told, not of course correctly but it did the trick. “Ah, so its not outside Europe” he confirmed and I agreed. We reweighed and agreed the price. A card to Hong Kong - “is that in America?”, “No” I confirmed, “but its outside Europe” I said, getting the hang of the tariff system by now. More weighing, more checking of charts and tables and a new price is established for this one. Two cigarettes later and much use of the calculator and we had established and agreed a total price. Now the hard work began - no letter was leaving Kosova for less than 60 cents and we only had 20 cent stamps - large ones with a picture of a cow on - that’s a minimum of three per letter plus a “by Air Mail“ sticker. Hong Kong needed nine; that’s a lot of licking. We shared the task. There were only just enough stamps in stock. A good job there was no queue of irate customers behind us like there inevitably is in England. Somewhat dehydrated we completed the task in the time it took for two more cigarettes. He took the pile, checked them again and sorted out my bill and change. We had started this process more or less strangers - we shook hands and, I felt, parted as friends whilst wishing each other happy new year festivities. As I exited to cold fresh air I wondered now about the onward journey of my newly departed cards and what the rest of their story would be. This is how connections are sometimes made in this world.