Day 17: Discovery in Priština

5/23/22

In the morning, we walked through the local farmers market on our way to the center of town.

Here are the wares in all their color and abundance! Also sold were notably many vegetable seedlings, which further affirms the Kosovo people’s close relationship with horticulture which I will apply in my research paper!

Today, our briefing was with the Youth Initiative for Human Rights (YIHR)

They are based in Priština, and their mission is to counter monoethnic narratives.

Each people thinks that their people were the only victims during the war.

This narrative is strong, and though ethnic Albanians see Serbs as perpetrators in Kosovo (and there are several people in power who are working hard to erase their presence there), the war was also brutal to Kosovo Serbs. YIHR creates spaces for victims and families of missing people to share their stories to be included in the mainstream narrative, including street activism/discussions and creating a virtual platform of refugee stories which include Albanian victims as well as Serbian and Roma victims. However, society resists this approach- there is a nationalistic discourse, and people ask why Serbs should be included, saying “they killed us.”

The missing people is still an open wound in Kosovo. There are 1,600 from multiple backgrounds who have yet to be found and returned to their loved ones so they can grieve.

In the museum they opened about children’s stories during the war, there was pushback- people would ask, “Why are you including Serbian kids they don’t have bad memories,” or that they were happy during the war, but these statements are the product of monoethnic and nationalistic narratives. In school books, children learn greatly exaggerated numbers about the war, and there is no mention of other ethnic groups.

The status of women in Kosovo is also very precarious- YIHR estimates 20,000 cases of sex crimes during the war, but only one came to legal verdict. This poor regard of women is also reflected in how many men catcalled and leered at my friend and me when we were just trying to find a grocery store to eat some dinner. There is also high number of reported domestic abuse cases, and many many more unreported since the culture says that this is a private matter, and some even think a Muslim man has the right to beat his wife since he is head of household. Violence towards women is still legitimized- police may not take victims seriously, and the perpetrator gets a very light sentence decided. (For example, 100 euro fines... wow.)

However, it's not all grim: the quota in parliament introduced to have a reflective representation of men and women began an organic shift- now, parliament consists of more proportionate numbers of women without the quota!

They had really intense security doors, and though they said they were installed by their predecessor, they said it also protects them from the (often corrupt) police raiding their documents.

Priština has some fun inexpensive shopping. My friends and I found a well made and inexpensive purse store and had fun looking around some jewelry places.

At the end of the day, we got a quick dinner. I had a hamburger for 1.80 euro and at first I was worried about my stomach, but It turned out to be just fine. Then, we went to the pool in our hotel. It was 10 euro to use that and the steamroom + sauna, but when they found out that yesterday was Andora’s birthday, they gave us our money back. :) It was a super cool pool, and it was underneath the floor, something I’d never seen before.

Ćao for now!