The Source of Information

This last Friday, as I do every two to three weeks, I made a visit to Burim’s for a haircut. This is a smoky little glass fronted shop in a side street in the centre of Prishtina sandwiched between taller buildings put up in the post war building boom. I have been going there since I first worked in Prishtina in 1998 so I have acquired the status of a regular, at least an honorary one as even this period is not nearly as long as some of the more hardy regulars. Burim’s is a typical men’s barber shop as found all over the world; regular hair cuts and cut-throat razor shaves are their standard fair. Turkish coffees and tea drunk from little glasses on silver sauces are served from the next door café if required. This is a barbers shop of the more traditional kind, Burim’s is not what you would call a hairdressers and you would certainly not use the more androgynous epithet of hairstylists and it is definitely not unisex. This is entirely a place for men. And the haircuts or shaves are of entirely secondary importance to the real social function that Burim’s serves. Prishtina is still a city where no local information is on the internet nor are there Yellow Pages. If you want to know the best price for bricks, the best person to repair a Volkswagaen or where to buy a piece of land you come to somewhere like Burim’s. Conversation is decidedly masculine; car talk is popular, the prices of things are frequently discussed at length, the occasional raunchy joke is told. Passers-by drop in to join the conversation or ask if anyone knows anything about something. Politics and the situation of Kosova is the fall back conversation when all matters to do with supply and demand have been dealt with.

Over the years I have grown to appreciate Burim’s and indeed Burim, who I count as a friend, he has helped out on many occasion finding us some one who will repair this or make that. Even taking time away from cutting hair to drive me across town to some difficult to find workshop or business premise. This is how business at a low level gets done in Prishtina and I guess in many other less developed places. And it makes me wonder about the benefits of development; the personal interaction that takes place, the opportunity for one person to help another, are all lost with modern information systems. Burim, who is well educated and speaks good English, took the business over from his father some years ago, I hope it will still be functioning in another 20 years although I expect by then it will be complete with an internet terminal for customers to use whilst waiting. Incidentally “Burim” in Albanian means the Source; very appropriate I think.