Hipsters Playing Tetris

This weekend I had the pleasant surprise of discovering a cool club called Tetris. It’s basically a house with a bar and a spot for a DJ or band. We first went there on Friday, when a DJ was spinning fun retro songs (including the Schoolhouse Rock multiplication tables). We went back on Sunday to hear a jazz band play while silent movies were projected behind them.

In attendance was the greatest concentration of hipsters I have seen outside of a First Friday or a Vampire Weekend concert. In the two nights I spotted:

• A guy wearing overalls
• A girl wearing a vintage red dress
• A guy wearing white pants and a striped shirt
• A guy smoking a pipe who looked like Gary Shteyngart
• White girl dreads
• Guys wearing summer scarves
• A girl wearing blowsy flower-patterned peg leg pants (circa 1993).
• Several guys who looked like Iron & Wine

It was nice to know that hipsters can find a home outside of America. Prishtina has a great live music scene. We will definitely be coming back to Tetris as soon as my lungs recover from the second-hand smoke.

NB: I highly recommend clicking on the Gary Shteyngart link as his Wikipedia picture is simply delightful.

English in Kosovo

When I’m listening to a conversation in Albanian in Kosovo, I feel a bit like a non-Russophone French person trying to read War and Peace in Russian.

I should probably rewind and explain that sentence.

Tolstoy’s War and Peace is a masterpiece of Russian literature, but it also has a great deal of dialogue in French. Russian society at the time of the Napoleonic invasion was, ironically, greatly influenced by France. Members of the upper class spoke French fluently, even to the point of forgetting Russian. Even proud Russian-speakers occasionally threw in French words. Consequently, Tolstoy uses a fair amount of French in the book.

Now, English isn’t nearly so prevalent in Kosovo, but there are some similarities. There has been a tremendous international presence in Kosovo for the last ten years (since the end of the war with Serbia). I am just one of many English-speaking internationals here. I work at a research and development think tank where everyone speaks English more or less fluently. For my benefit, conversations often occur in English. Even when I’m not involved in the conversation, however, you can still hear English words seasoning the Albanian speech.

To me it sounds something like this:

Albanian Albanian Albanian...political development...Albanian Albanian Albanian...then KFOR has to enforce the fucking regulations...Albanian Albanian Albanian...gain the upper hand....Albanian Albanian Albanian...

It’s quite interesting to observe which words are in English in these conversations. My personal favorite are the conversations where the only English words are swear words. Other English words are those connected to international organizations and development, which makes sense because these organizations all operate in English. It’s also interesting that idioms are quite common. I suspect this is because these idioms are shorthand for conveying certain specific concepts that aren’t as easily rendered in Albanian.

I’ve been paying so much attention to this because it’s been really strange for me to live in a country where I don’t speak the language. At any rate, this is what I think about when I’m witnessing conversations where I only understand every tenth word. It's definitely like War and Peace.

Health in Kosovo

Having been bothered by a few persistent and annoying symptoms in the past several weeks, I have been spending rather more time that I expected exploring the medical world of Kosovo (accompanied by my very nice coworker/translator Eremire). This is my first time going to a doctor in a foreign country despite nearly two years spent abroad in my lifetime. I didn’t really get sick in Armenia and I avoided doctors in Moldova like the plague--I heard too many horror stories. I have survived in the past by studying reputable internet sites (the Mayo Clinic has a good one), asking medical students for advice, and self-medicating at pharmacies (which don’t require prescriptions most of the time in this part of the world).

Before launching into this, I’d also like to note that the U.S. Embassy won’t let you within 50 feet of their doctor unless you are a staff member there, so that is not an option for me or most other Americans abroad. Don’t expect any help from the Embassy beyond a list of English-speaking doctors.

I’ve been pretty impressed by the professionalism of the medical staff that I have encountered thus far. I’ve been going to private clinics (not sure if public ones even exist) in various parts of Prishtina. People have been remarkably kind and helpful, which has put me at ease. When I was getting blood drawn for a test, they kept asking me if I was okay, which I appreciated since I hate getting blood drawn! The clinics I’ve been to have all used new, clean instruments, and I certainly haven’t been anywhere dirty.

There were a few things that would be surprising to someone used to the American medical system. First of all, you just show up during receiving hours and wait for someone to see you. No appointments here. The offices are a bit more stark, although not lacking in equipment. The guy drawing my blood didn’t wear gloves. When I went to a dermatologist I had to doff my shirt in order to show the doctor these little red spots I had been getting on my back. Not so strange, except for I was in the front room of her office near a window to the street. Modesty: the first casualty in my quest for health.

I’ve only been going to places that I’ve heard about through personal recommendations. One of the places I went to was a big clinic that has Western-trained and English-speaking specialists. I had an exam and met with a specialist for a grand total of 20 euro. Hmm, another big difference from the U.S. health system. Unfortunately, it’s hard to know if you can trust the diagnoses of the doctors or not, but at least the internet is good to have as a back-up resource.

Overall, this has been pretty non-traumatizing, thanks in part to Eremire’s translation skills. I still haven’t gotten my problems resolved yet, but so far I’ve been pleasantly surprised by Kosovo.

Mini-Tour of Pristina

I walked all over Pristina on Sunday and took pictures of the center. Above are the flags outside of the main library, which looks like a building from Halo or something. From left to right, you have the Kosovo flag, the Albanian flag, a mysterious white flag, the EU flag, the NATO flag, and the U.S. flag. Did I mention there was a large international presence here in Kosovo?

This is a half-finished Serbian Orthodox church. Construction ended when the war began in 1999.

A clock tower (Sahat Kulla) in the older section of town.

This is (I think) Mbretit Mosque, aka Fatih Mosque, aka Xhamia e Madhe. It was built in 1460-61 by Sultan Mehmet II a few years before he conquered Constantinople.

This is (as far as I can figure out) the Jashar Pasha Mosque, which was built in 1834. You can see the clock tower behind it.

Skenderbeg is an Albanian national hero who rebelled against the Ottoman Empire in the fifteenth century. His statue stands in front of the main government building.

The main pedestrian street in Pristina is named after Mother Teresa, who was an Albanian Catholic. There are cafes all over the place and it's usually pretty busy.

Another shot of the bizarre library building. You have to admire the architect's conviction, I guess.

A market in the older part of town, near the mosques.

I think this is the Çarshi Mosque, which was built in the 1400s to celebrate the Ottoman victory in Kosovo in 1389. The area around it used to contain a bazaar and a hammam (Turkish bath), but the communists were not interested in preserving them. This is a shame because the Ottoman-era bazaar in Sarajevo is beautiful (and totally like sugar for the tourists).

This monument was unveiled around the time when Kosovo declared independence in 2008 and became the world's newest nation. I'm not sure whether I like or dislike the graffiti, but I think it probably looked more impressive when it was squeaky clean.

So those are some of the main landmarks of Pristina! There are not that many historical places because Pristina was something of a backwater until the 20th century, but the old part of town near the three mosques is pretty pleasant, with lots of shaded, winding streets. I like the lively cafes and restaurants.

By the way, I'm not sure whether to write Pristina or Prishtina in English. Pristina comes from the Serbian, which was how the word presumably entered English when Kosovo was part of Yugoslavia. (In Serbian there is a little diacritical mark called a haçek on the "s" which makes it a "sh" sound.) In Albanian, you spell it "Prishtinë," which is the indefinite form, or "Prishtina" in the definite form. The definite form is closest to how it is usually pronounced. The U.S. Embassy here still uses the old spelling, but it seems more logical to switch to the Albanian these days. Quite the linguistic conundrum!

After my long picture-taking trip I think I have finally got my bearings. I'm looking forward to wandering around more (and visiting all those cafes)!

Things I (Don't) Have

When I come to a new place, my initial instinct is to compare it to a place I have just been. My initial impressions:

Things I have in Kosovo that I also had in Moldova

• Semi-paved streets
• Delicious Turkish snacks
• Duvet covers instead of sheets
• “Fairy” brand dishwashing liquid
• Convenient markets on every corner
• Miscellaneous Turkish television shows
• A ten-minute walk to work
• Nice and interesting coworkers

Things I have in Kosovo that I didn’t have in Moldova

• Lights with motion-sensors in my hallway!
• My own office
• Turkish coffee
• Television channels in English
• Television channels in French
• Slovenian beer
• Çevapi (a Balkan food that resembles a cylindrical meatball)
• An elevator in my building
• Euros
• A balcony
• Tasty street food such as döner
• English-speaking waiters and store clerks
• Deadwood on TV (with Albanian subtitles)
• Чайник (electric tea kettle)

Things I had in Moldova that I don’t (yet) have in Kosovo

• Speakers for my iPod
• Fluency in the local language
• Towels
• A language tutor
• Тапочки (slippers)
• Peace Corps volunteers
• Fulbright friends
• Pelmeni in my freezer

Another Year, Another Blog!

I arrived in Pristina, Kosovo, three days ago and decided it was high time to start blogging anew. For the next ten months I am going to be working on the Future Voters team. Future Voters is a democracy development project based on Kids Voting in the U.S. Basically, we organize parallel elections for junior high and high school kids during municipal and national elections in Kosovo. We work with teachers and principals to implement elections curriculum.

I picked the name "The Young Europe" because this is Kosovo's new advertising slogan. Kosovo is young in two ways: they just declared their independence in 2008 and they have one of the youngest populations in Europe. I also figured it was a good idea to have a nice, generic blog title so that I could continue posting under this name for future travels. (For my Moldovan blog, which I'm going to try to meld with this one, click here.) Since I tend to favor Eastern European and Eurasian countries, I figured this would work. While the nations of Eastern Europe are by no means young, their nation-states certainly are, most having declared independence in 1989 with the dissolution of Yugoslavia and the fall of the Berlin Wall or in 1991 with the end of the Soviet Union. Being a twenty-something myself, I thought the adjective was apt to describe myself as well.

I'll keep posting my usual blend of travelogues and pictures. I hope to get some good pictures of Pristina once the gray cloud cover breaks!