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It is Sunday, June 11. I am writing to you from Prizren, Kosova. (Yugoslavia and the Serbs refer to it as Kosovo. The Albanian Kosovars refer to it as Kosova, with the accent on the second silable.) I'll describe my trip and what I've seen up to now.
I spent Monday night with Steve and Staci W. in Tulsa. Steve drove me to the airport at 5:20 AM. He gave me one of his free (except for taxes) D3 tickets that would allow me to fly stand-by to Washington D.C. The airport was pretty much deserted except for about dozen passengers. Those passengers were all in front of me at the baggage check-in. This caused me to miss the 6:00 flight to Dallas, but I had no problem getting on the 6:20 flight.
I also had no trouble getting on the first flight from Dallas to Washington D.C. If it were not for one other stand-by passenger ahead of me, I could have gotten into first class. I looked for politicians as I walked through first class. I would look at each passenger and try to imagine their face with "C-SPAN" written to the lower right, but there was no luck. At the Dulles airport in D.C., I saw a guy in a suit who looked just like Tony Coehlo, but it couldn't have been him -- I doubt that Gore's campaign manager would be traveling by himself. Who would carry the sacks of illegal campaign dollars?
Because I was able to get on the first of three flights I could have taken out of Dallas, I had a huge layover in D.C. The Austrian Airways counter had not opened yet, so I could not check in my luggage. I had a duffel bag so loaded down with Bibles and other books that sweat would start to pop out on my forehead if I walked more than 10 yards. I didn't want to carry it all over D.C., so I checked it and my backpack in with a luggage service and took a bus into town. A round trip ticket costs $14. I thought that was a bit steep. In Little Rock, a bus from the airport is $1. I then took the Metro subway to Arlington National Cemetery. (I got on a train going the wrong direction only once.)
Because of the shortage of time, I walked directly to Arlington House, which is the main thing I wanted to see. I went past JFK's grave and the "eternal flame" along the way. Arlington House is where Robert E. Lee and his wife lived for 30 years before the War of Northern Aggression. The house belonged to Mrs. Lee's parents and Mrs. Lee inherited it after they died. The Lees left the house when the war started and it was then taken over by federal troops to use in the defense of Washington. The government passed a law requiring all property owners to pay their taxes in person -- like getting a car tag. Because of her infirmity, Mrs. Lee was unable to appear. She sent her son with the money, but payment was refused. The property was then seized for failure to pay $94 in taxes. Years later, the Lees' eldest son, Custis, filed suit to reclaim the property. The case went to the Supreme Court where Custis prevailed. However, since the federals had buried several thousand war dead on the property, it was unusable. He had the legal right to insist that all the bodies be removed. Instead, he agreed to sell it to the government for $150,000.
When I got to the top of the steps leading to Arlington House, there was a sign that read, "Sorry, no more tickets are available today." But that was a trick. It is a permanent sign they leave up all the time. On a plak describing the house, there were instructions to go to a tent in the garden to get a free tour ticket from a park ranger. You then take the ticket to the front of Arlington House and wait for the next tour. Why don't they just hand out tickets at the front of Arlington House? Because the government is still amusing itself by using Arlington House to give taxpayers the run around.
Standing in front of the door to Arlington House was a teenage girl in period costume. Her over-sized plastic frames glasses took away a bit from the authinticity -- so did her bored stupor and air of indifference. Someone asked her why men were painting the outside of the house. "To make it look like sandstone." She volunteered no more further information. "But this is the actual original house?" She grunted out a yes. She seemed exhausted from fielding two tough questions in succession.
I went on a brief tour of the house and then walked through a small museum off to the side. It contained the Bible that Gen. Lee carried throughout the war. That alone was worth the $14 bus ride. The museum also contained Gen. Lee's field mess kit, a lock of his hair, and hairs from the mane of his favorite horse, Traveler.
I made it back to the airport and boarded my plane to Vienna without any problems. I had an aisle seat. The woman next to me did not speak English. She slept for most of the flight. I wanted to sleep but was unable to because of the persistent coughing of the little boy sitting across the aisle from me. I would press my pillow to my face to filter out the germs. It wasn't until latter that it occurred to me that there is no telling how many people have breathed into that pillow. It is probably an arts and crafts festival for TB. When the kid wasn't coughing, he was farting. He would lay his head in his mothers lap and then once he had the American sighted in between his knees, he would open fire.
The plane was quite nice. Each passenger had their own television screen showing movies in several different languages. I watched The Muse, Buddy Buddy, and Tarzan. That still wasn't enough to kill the 11 hours in the air. There were other movies available, but they would have cost money.
I was relieved to finally get off the plane in Vienna. However, the first twinge of anxiety hit me when I realized I was in a non-English speaking country all by myself. But there was no reason for concern. All of the airline personnel were bilingual and many of the signs contained English translations. After standing in a lengthy line for transferring passengers. I easily made my way to the gate for Pristina. It was easy to tell that I was no longer in America because people were smoking absolutely everywhere. I found a small designated no-smoking section, but you could barely read it through the smoky haze. It was ignored by one and all.
The flight to Pristina was just over 2 hours. Pristina is the capital. The first thing I noticed when we touched down on the Pristina runway were several large military helicopters, one of which was a white UN helicopter. There was also a small barracks with a British flag flying overhead. I was actually surprised there wasn't even more of a foreign military presence. The runway was in good shape, but the airport was very small -- about the size of the airport at Rogers, AR. We had to walk across the tarmac to get to the only passenger receiving area. No one guided us, so the Airline personnel must assume that no one arriving in Prizren arrives for the first time. I kept walking until it looked like I couldn't walk any further and then walked through the only remaining door. Inside I found the solitary baggage belt and I sat down beside it on an old plastic chair and waited.
After I picked up my luggage, I went through customs and immigration, which consisted of a single Yugoslavian police officer who merely nodded as I flashed my passport. I then began looking for Bujar, a man who I had never met or seen. I had been told that he was the owner of a travel agency in Prizren and that he would be waiting to take me from the airport to Prizren. When I stepped outside the airport terminal, I had to scan the waiting crowd for a minute before I spotted a man holding a cardboard sign with a name written on it that was reasonably close to mine. He was thin, wore wire-rimmed glasses, had receding gray hair, appeared to be in his late 40's, and wore an intense expression. When I approached him, he introduced himself as Bujar. He escorted me to a van that had the Partners In Progress emblem on its side. Bujar had borrowed the van from one of the missionaries.
We had to wait because Bujar informed me that several other people would be riding with us to Prizren. They included a stout man in his late 40's with a full beard and bald head, and a young couple and their little boy. They were all from Prizren and had been on the same flight as me. The young couple spoke very good English. They have been living in New York City. The American INS dispense a limited number of visas to Kosovars using a lottery system. I am assuming that this couple were some of the lucky winners. The men popped open some beers and we headed for Prizren.
It was a two hour drive. I had been told to expect roads that are almost impassable, but the two-lane road from the airport was very good, at least for the first 15 miles. Conditions would deteriorate as we got closer to Prizren. Some sections had pot holes so deep that we had to slow to 10 mph to keep from rattling our teeth. The many pot holes are a consequence of the many large military vehicles that used the roads during the war. From the air, it appeared that most roads are unpaved. We traveled on pavement all the way to Prizren, but could not do so by taking a straight route. After the first half hour, we began coming upon KFOR check points. There would be a couple of armored personnel carriers or tanks and maybe a jeep at each one. There would be two to four soldiers standing around holding machine guns. They looked quite bored -- like they hadn't had anybody to shoot at in ages. The road would be blocked off on either side at two locations, forcing automobiles to slowly snake their way through a single lane. The soldiers were not stopping vehicles, so I don't know what purpose they served other than just being seen. By slowing the traffic down, I suppose they made sure they were seen really well. "No," I thought, "they aren't just cardboard cut-outs." Most of them were German troops, but their was a 50 kilometer section that was a Russian section, patrolled by Russian troops.
The terrain was made up of gently sloping low hills that became small mountains far off in the distance. There were trees, but they were few in number and not very big. There were more on the mountains, but still not thick. The hills were covered with short grass that did not appear to be thick enough to be good grazing land. It had a green tint, but was asking for rain. I was told that it had not rained in a month. I noticed very few ponds and streams.
The most common sight along the drive were fresh graves. They could be anywhere. Sometimes you would see two graves beside a husk of a farm house. Other times you might see a newly created cemetery plot at the edge of a village containing as many as 50 fresh graves. The graves all looked the same. There would be a mound of reddish brown dirt at the head of which, in lieu of a cross, was a marker shaped like a slat from a picket fence. Sometimes a black and white photo of the deceased would be affixed to the marker. On top of the grave would be a round disk the size of a wagon wheel containing plastic flowers and covered with cellophane, giving it a tacky appearance. I spotted at least one road-side shop that was selling flower disks. The war must have caused such shops to pop up like fireworks stands on the Fourth of July.
At one point, we passed by a funeral party that was just breaking up. It must have been a Muslim funeral because most of the men were wearing rounded white hats that make their head look like worn eraser heads. Such hats are worn by practicing Muslims -- mostly older men. They are a common sight in Prizren, but are worn by a minority of men. Bujar spoke up and said that we were going by a funeral. He said we are probably too busy in American to have funerals. I corrected him and explained that we actually have two services for the dead -- one before the procession and one at the graveside. That will show him, I thought -- not only do Americans take time to give the dead two ceremonies, but we also drive below the speed limit to get to the second one! Bujar said, "Ah, but always with the money, uh?" and rubbed his fingers and thumb together -- the international sign for money (or possibly, Americans). I thought he was asking if we bury people with their money like the Egyptian pharoes, so I said no. Someone in the back of the van spoke up and said you have to pay the funeral home. I assented. Bujar said, "Ah! Here we bury people with no charge!" I wasn't going to argue with him about who does a better job of burying their dead, so I let it go. I thought it was an odd comment for Bujar to make. I have never heard him make any other negative comments about America.
As we passed through each village, Bujar would tell me how many people in that village had been killed by Serbian soldiers. "This village contained 2,000 people. Over one hundred were killed." "This village contained 500 people. Seventy of them were killed by the Serbs." I asked him if only suspected KLA members were killed and told me no. As we passed through one particular village, Bujar told me it had contained a large number of doctors and educated people. The Serbs killed as many of them as they could because those are the people who teach others about freedom. He said that young children were killed purely as a terrorist tactic. (One of my fellow teachers would later tell me that a woman had once brought her two-year-old son into our office asking for help in treating him. A Serbian soldier had crushed the side of his face with a rifle butt and as a result, he cannot eat solid food.) I have already heard a number of tragic stories. It does not sound like the Serbs were engaged in "ethnic cleansing," but there has been more civilian deaths than I had anticipated. Maybe CNN didn't exaggerate things as much as I had assumed.
During the second half of the drive, I saw a large number of crops -- mostly corn and wheat, but a surprising number of vineyards as well. I noticed most of the fields were big enough for a single person on a rickety tractor to manage. Bujar told me that many widows are now struggling to manage their farms on their own now that their husbands are gone. Many of them are living in their barns because the Serbs burned down their houses. I read an article about Albania in which it said that when all the males in the family die, the wife will live the rest of her life as a man. She will dress and act like a man and will be addressed as a man. I don't know whether that is also true in Kosova.
Once we were in Prizren, we dropped off the other passengers and then Bujar took me to the office of the World English Institute, which is next to Bujar's travel agency. I met Ken Sandefur, who is the only other WEI teacher present in Prizren. He is a short, thin man covered in freckles. Despite his 75 years of age, what's left of his hair is still reddish brown. He is from Wichita Falls, TX and has been here in Prizren since February. He will be returning home on July 10. The WEI office is a simple one-room spartan affair. It is maybe 300 square feet with three folding tables and a few chairs. There is one small book shelf and an old Gateway PC. It is located on one of the main streets of Prizren and the finished wood on the outside actually makes for an attractive storefront.
Next, Bujar drove me to Doug Smith's apartment. Doug had recently returned to the U.S. and agreed to let me use his apartment at no cost. The apartment building, like all the apartment buildings in Prizren, look like the typical soulless communist era people box. You walk through an open green metal door sprayed with graffiti at street level. You hold your breath to past the stench of urine. You climb several flights of concrete steps in a stairwell with no lights. Horrible images of what my apartment would look like began flashing in my head. Most of the images included partial walls, broken windows, no lights, and a dead goat or two. I was pleasantly surprised to find a very nice apartment that is much bigger than my apartment in Little Rock. (When I tell people that, they laugh like they don't believe me.) There is a large rectangular entryway that connects the bathroom, kitchen, and three living rooms. The back rear living room contains a wraparound sofa that folds out into a bed. That is where I sleep. It has a balcony that overlooks a rose garden that is overshadowed by all the other dreary balconies and tin garages covered in graffiti. The main living room contains three more full-size couches, a desk, and a TV connected to a satellite dish. (Except for a music video channel, the BBC World is the only English language channel I can pick up. The first thing I saw when I turned on the TV was a Rage Against the Machine video.) The third living room contains another couch that contains a bed. There is plenty of clean hot and cold water, a microwave, refrigerator, and clothes washer, but no dryer.
Bujar exchanged some of his Deutsche Marks for some of my dollars so that I could do some shopping. Kosova stopped using Yugoslavian currency when the war started. They do not yet have their own currency, so all transactions are done in Deutsche Marks.
Bujar took me down the street to a fast-food place where he helped me order a slice of burak to go. I've eaten more burak than anything since I've been here. That is because it is displayed in the window and I can simply walk up to the order window and point at what I want. Burak contains either ground beef or cheese cooked between two layers of bread like a pie. The bread is very greasy. It is like a cross between croissant bread and a Hungry Jack biscuit. One slice is enough for a small meal and costs only one DM, or fifty U.S. cents.
We then went to the market where we bought milk, peach juice, and some fruit. I returned to my apartment, unpacked, and went to bed. I had been up for about 36 hours. I slept for 15 hours.