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It is Tuesday, June 13. I will tell you about some of my observations of the things in Prizren.
It is a twenty-minute walk from the WEI office to my apartment. Along the way, there is an unbroken chain of shops and restaurants. The most common restaurants are hamburger places. There is at least one on every block. The grill is encased in glass and is up against the sidewalk so that you see the hamburger patties as you pass by as if they were fine gemstones. Most people order through a window and carry away, but some places will have a couple of tables inside. A hamburger costs $1 (US) and is nothing but bread and meat -- no lettuce, cheese, pickles, etc. The shops are very small -- maybe 300 square feet -- and have limited selections, but there are so many of them that you can find whatever you need. The shop owners sit on stools outside their shops and will jump up as soon as a customer enters. They prefer that you point and allow them to get what you want, even in grocery stores.
There are many shops and therefore there are many small business owners. They take great pride in their shops and they are meticulous at keeping them clean. They hose the dust off their sidewalks every morning and evening.
The only thing more common than hamburger places, is ice cream bar stands. There is one on almost every street corner. Everywhere you look, people are sticking Eskimo Pies in their mouths. There are also many ice cream shops. I've never seen people eat so much cream. There are no fat people. I don't know how they stay so thin living on greasy burak and ice cream.
Also along my walk, I pass by the main Christian Orthodox church building. German tanks and soldiers guard it day and night to prevent the Kosovar Albanians from burning it down. All the entrances are shut off and the grounds are completely encircled in barbed wire. There are several signs that read, "KFOR Area - Verboten." What few Serbs remain in town wouldn't dare try to meet at the church building, so the Germans are guarding an abandoned building. I suppose the logic is that if they don't prevent the destruction of Serbian buildings, the Serbs will be next.
I have come to associate the cross with barbed wire and "Verboten." Everywhere you see a cross, there is barbed wire. I went jogging on a paved road leading out of town and into the mountains. At one point, I ran past a Christian Orthodox monastery. There was barbed wire everywhere. At the front door was a German tank with a German soldier sitting on top watching me. Next to the tank was a large bunker constructed out of sandbags. Spray painted on the outside of the barracks wall was "Big Brother." I would take a picture for you, but Big Brother wouldn't like that. There is a sign reading "No Foto."
On Sunday, I walked up the hill in the Serbian part of town. There are still a few Serbs in Prizren, but they won't admit to being Serbs and they don't go out much. In the Serbian neighborhood I saw several former Serbian homes that had been burned to the ground. I wanted to keep going up the hill so that I could get a better look at the ruins of a Turkish castle left over from the Ottoman Empire, but the street ended in a snarl of barbed wire. "Verboten." I was told that people aren't allowed to get any closer to the castle because there are unexploded landmines. On Saturday, I had attempted to climb the mountain from the other side where there is nothing but rocks and goat trails. I turned around before reaching the top because I thought that maybe the only reason I hadn't come across any Verboten signs to keep me away from the landmines was that KFOR didn't think anyone in their right mind would attempt to scale the mountain using those goat trails. However, when I passed by the goats, they seemed quite calm. If their friends had been blown to bits, then I think they would have been more skittish. Then again, there seemed to be very few goats for so many goat trails.
There are more KFOR troops in Prizren than I had expected. There are all sorts of military vehicles patrolling the streets. There are military trucks, jeeps, transport vehicles, vans, and miniature tanks, all with KFOR painted on the side in spray-painted block letters. It seems like every tenth vehicle on the streets is KFOR. Most of the vehicles are German, but I also see Russian and Turkish. At the mid-point of my walk to my apartment, I reach a rock bridge that crosses the river at the very center of town. There are always two German tanks on the bridge.
In addition to all the KFOR vehicles, there are also sports utility vehicles containing the United Nations insignia and "POLICE" written on the side. Some of them are driven by officers wearing U.S. flag shoulder patches. I was told that they are American police officers who are here to train the local police. There is very little crime here. The only arrest I've seen was when a man was removed in handcuffs from the building next to mine. The men carrying him away wore a U.S. flag on one shoulder and the UN insignia on the other. (Some day maybe Fox will be airing a UN version of COPS.)
The UN has taken over the largest and most modern building in the center of town. There are UN people and signs all over the place. The people of Prizren seem glad that they came, but are getting impatient with them. They are coming to realize that the UN does a lot of talking and moving around, but accomplishes absolutely nothing.
Several of our students are doctors from the nearby hospital. On Friday, Ken and I were invited to the hospital for coffee. The hospital is something right of your worst nightmare about living in a Warsaw Pact country. The waiting area was a bare concrete box where some sad looking village people are waiting to be seen by a doctor. The next room is the doctor's office and examination room. There were two desks and some chairs. The only equipment I see is a scale and a stethoscope. I'm told that is about all they have. They have almost no medicine. The local pharmacy is well stocked, but most people can't afford to pay for the medicine. Ken and I had Turkish coffee with five doctors, all of whom were women. I hate coffee, but I drank it so that I could say I've had real Turkish coffee. It was horrible. The whole time we were talking, I kept thinking about the sad villagers waiting to see any of the 5 doctors we were talking with. As we were leaving, I noticed Yugo ambulance. If that is not motivation to adopt habits of good health, I don't know what is.