--Monday, 12 June 00--
Mitrovitsa Office Opening

Crossing one of a number KFOR-constructed bridges that replace older structures destroyed by NATO during the bombing campaign that ended over a year ago.

Today the CFA opened a Treasury Office in Mitrovitsa (estimated population: 120,000), the most divided city in Kosovo. Our third regional office, after Peje and Prizrin allows local government officials to complete transactions without having to make the bumpy 90 minute trip to Prishtina. Things are not perfect yet because although we can provide authorizations, the BPK has yet to provide banking services.

The road to Mitrovitsa was fairly good -- at least by Kosovo standards. As we entered the city I saw a cemetery with a number of grave stones knocked over. I was told it was a Serb cemetery and the cemetery north of the river was an Albanian one, my guess is that it is in the same dilapidated condition.

There were numerous damaged structures, probably more numerous than I have seen in other cities but I only got a look at a small part of the southern portion (the Kosovar part) of the city. The northern (Serb) part is off limits to expats without special approval. Since the regional offices are located near the famous bridge that links the two parts, I was able to see it clearly. Not a very pretty sight.

Above, the main bridge connecting north and south Mitrovitsa. The monument to the left on the hill doubles as a water storage facility.

From the glimpses of the family of factories I saw on the way in, it was clear that Mitrovitsa was developed as a industrial center based primarily on the lead and zinc mines nearby. These mines provided Hitler's war industries 80% of their needs until the Nazis were driven out in 1945. Their history goes back many hundred years into the middle ages when all the miners were Saxons imported from Germany.

The stories here about Serb abuse of Kosovars parallel those in other cities. One of our employees told me that he was forced out of his apartment in 1991 because it overlooked a police station. He was given no where to go and a Serb family took his apartment.

The good news is that we opened our office in a shabby, ill-kept building abandoned by the UNHCR. It was incredibly depressing -- I was able to peel the faded wallpaper off by simply pulling on a sheet from the bottom. I told Bali, our office manager, to have the wall paper removed and to get the whole place painted a bright white. That will help a lot. He later asked me to approve a few hundred dollars for new carpets and I did.

We met with the necessary people and got things arranged and were back in Prishtina by 5 PM.

An odd evening. I sat reading "A Necessary Evil" in Kukri's for two hours until 8 PM and then when to my room in the Grand where I found a note from Smile and Kimeta saying they were in Kukri, to which i returned but they were not there. I sat in my room editing Expenditure Procedures and then read the paper in bed. The phone rang ever so softly. Smile and Kimeta were downstairs so I joined them for a drink on the veranda.

Smile was not himself and Kimeta noticed. He said he and Kimeta went to Kukri three times and I was not there -- but that could not be. We talked for a while and then Kimeta went home to get some rest.

later Smile came up to my room for some intensive language training and afterwards requested that I make some signs in Albanian for the bus excursions for his students that he was involved in. It seems that the school wants to instill some sense of Kosovo as a place into its students by taking around the entire country in one day. (Kosovo is so small that you can do that here -- even with the terrible roads.) He wrote the signs out in Albanian and I typed them in.


--Tuesday, 13 June 00--
Finished the six basic forms in the morning and then edited preliminarily the funding source code, organization code, and economic codes.

Before lunch reconciled the reorganized Public Services budget and advanced the allocation spreadsheet to the point of entering startup costs.

I stayed on the Grand's outdoor veranda because Smile had asked me to wait for him there. Smile arrived but he didn't remember his request for the excursion signs and was surprised when I gave them to him. He suggested we have a drink on the veranda. Once again I asked for cold beer and was assured that the beer was cold and then I was served warm beer. I told Smile that I would no longer drink beer at the Grand.

We walked to the bar that Sabri, Smile's friend, works at and relaxed. Sabri told me that Smile had described me as Smile's father so I said that made me Sabri's grandfather. Both Sabri and Smile got a big kick out of that.

Sabri drove us to the Grand and Smile came to my room to watch the Slovenia versus Yugoslavia soccer match. Yugoslavia came from behind to tie 3-3 to Smile disappointment. Then we had some more language training. Smile is making good progress and his confidence improves steadily.


--Wednesday, 14 June 00--
Another hot, sweaty day. If the windows were closed to keep out the street noise, you become soaked in sweat; if they were open the noise could drown out conversation. Much to be done and many interruptions. I thought I had the allocations done but comparisons with spending through May were unsettling. Now I have to do a detailed comparison of department spending by object code with proposed allocations. It is the only way to be sure that the allocations are appropriate to spending needs but it slows the process down.

That night my room's phone softly rang its baritone burble. Only in complete silence can I hear it. I was writing emails, trying to catch up on back correspondence. It was Smile. I met him and a friend of his In the lobby and we went out to Centrum for chebop. It was pleasant time for I had met his friend before. We chatted and they ate.

Joe