--Wednesday, 21 June 00--
I had a meeting with the one private bank in Kosovo and had an informal discussion about using them as a paying agent. I explained our complicated requirements and he said, "Why don't you use checks?" He really cut to the heart of the matter. We will pursue this.

A flunky from a line department sent two representatives of a vendor company to see me to ask for their money. He did not give them a single document that I might have used to determine the status of the project. I told them without documents I could do nothing and that they were getting the run around.

Yesterday Smile said to me that if he didn't come for typing lessons, I should come over to Chesvee to see him. I realized that he had decided to not come but didn't want to say it and, sure enough, he didn't show up. I read the Herald Tribune sitting in the sun on the balcony so it was fine with me.

When I went to see Smile we chatted and then Kimeta stopped by and we shook hands but before I realized it Smile escorted her home, telling her she had to leave. This is a very male dominated culture.

Smile wanted me to go into his apartment and watch the French-Netherlands soccer match but I was not interested. I told him that I wanted some time to do some writing. He walked me to the "semifore" (Albanian for traffic light) and he asked me why I was "nervous". He told me several times that he knew I was "nervous" because I was quiet. He reads me like a book.

The library building of the University here, one of the strangest buildings I have seen anywhere. It is as if it was designed as a series of cubes piled on each other and then the top cubes were given hemispherical domes and then the sides were draped in chain mail.

--Thursday, 22 June 00-- Summer Solstice
My Second Trip to Prizren
Thuy, Phil, Luan and I drove to Prizren. The road was significantly worse than the road to Peje. We frequently had to brake rapidly, swerve to avoid potholes, drive on the margin, drive on the wrong side of the road (traffic permitting) and take other evasive measures in order to get to the city. The holes could be frighteningly deep.

The Man from UNMIK.
On arriving in Prizren, Thuy and Phil went to a meeting at the private bank and I went to the CFA office so they would know we cared about them and to see how things were going. I entered the Regional Headquarters and a security guard asked me if I had come from UNMIK in Prishtina. I said, "Yes," and he said that I was expected and that he had been told to call his supervisor on his radio announcing my arrival. I felt quite flattered.

The supervisor quickly appeared and told me that they were expecting me and they didn't want me to be delayed at the entrance by security and that he would take me to where I was awaited. He did and when the person expecting me came in we quickly discovered the mistake. They told me that the CFA office was upstairs and to there I went, now unaccompanied.

At the office I met the staff and the new Finance Director for Prizrin who quickly showed he was so afraid of doing something wrong that he might do nothing at all. The Pillar IV coordinator was at the meeting and seemed to understand everything I said which I cannot say for the Finance Director. I told the Finance Directors to get services going.

The timing of trip was most fortuitous because the Pillar IV coordinator had run into Alan at Joly's going away party and he had introduced her to Mohamed the new director of the BPK and she had told Mohamed that if he didn't open the Prizren office they [who?] would deal [how?] with the MEB. This seemed to galvanize Mohamed who called the Prizren branch manager and ordered him to make payments for us.

At our meeting with the branch manager he was variously arrogant (we don't make mistakes), rude (interrupting my translator, Ramadan), and dead wrong (the CFA has to bank with his branch and only with his branch). He told us that we had nine accounts and verbally listed eight. When we got this straightened out, he was coy about balances. For the municipal accounts, he would only give me a sum of the three accounts.

Ram, the Pillar IV Coordinator, and I met up with Thuy and Phil and had a very pleasant lunch in the old quarter.

After lunch Ram prepared some sample documents and we conducted training at the BPK using role playing. I had my staff come into the bank and present document for payment. At each phase I explained what was happening and why it was happening. It was fun and, I think, effective.

Afterwards, Ram and I waited for the others at the Delphen, an outdoor cafe on the bank of the river. It was a hot day and several of the cafe's customers had moved the plastic garden furniture down the steps into the sun and the creek itself. I rather liked the idea myself but I had to maintain my image in front of staff.

The trip home was as pot-hole filled as it was uneventful. We observed instructions and avoided the shorter route of Moreshevits(?) where the Russian troops are shot at nightly.

That night Smile was a host at a graduation party for his students. He hinted I might attend but I told him that watching 13-year olds have a party was not for me. Later I found out that the party went on to 4 AM. What did they do for all that time?

At home I did some writing while drinking Extra from no-deposit, yes-return bottles.


--Friday, 23 June 00--
Several people are going to call or visit me, at least they warned me they would. The Reconstruction Department wants to have a web page and wants to learn how to do it. The CFA website has become a rather prestige item. But no one else seems to be able to figure out how to do it. Naim, out IT guy, told me that he had attended a meeting where someone had announced that their office was going to have the first government website in Kosovo. He stood up and said, "No you are not. The CFA has had a website for months!"

The Friday Barents Meeting
I was to write a report in "cable format". Steve told me that "cable format" was so important that I shouldn't start writing until I had it. But what is "cable format"? No one seemed to know though everyone has heard of it and even seemed to have opinions about it. Glen even told a story how he had written something in a "cable format" only to be told that it was the wrong cable format.

It was finally decided that Hilary thought she had the format and would get it to me. It turned out that she didn't have it but had contacted someone who she knew who did have it and she expected to have it later that morning and would email it to me immediately. Eventually Steve sent me a report in cable format. It turned out that the format was as follows:

DRAFT CABLE FOR USAID: [Author names], Re: [Report title], and sections titled, Summary, Background, etc.

And for this I was supposed to wait for the format before writing.


Beyond the horror of "cable format," this was another day from hell. It seemed as if everybody wanted everything and wanted it RIGHT NOW. I got a call from a charmingly voiced woman who told me that she was working with a World Bank grant that was not part of the budget. I told her that every pfennig I had was in the budget so she should be talking to someone else. She persisted and said that they wanted to send people to a workshop in Sarajevo, tomorrow. I told her that I was not aware that there was any money in the World Bank account so I didn't think anyone was going anywhere and under all circumstances no money would pass hands until CFA forms and procedures were followed, all the latter being available on the Internet.

She passed me over to an expat who at least understood the issues. I told him that we needed reasonable notice and calling up asking for money today was not reasonable. He didn't disagree, whatever he might have been thinking. While we talked I checked the Commerzbank account on the Internet but, as luck would have it, the sub account in question was not available electronically.

I called our banker and he asked me how I was and I told him that I was besieged by assholes and idiots and I needed his help. He laughed. I guess he was having a bad hair day too. He confirmed 700,000 DM in the account and agreed to look into getting the sub account on the Internet. I called the program people back but no one was there so I decided that if they didn't care neither did I.

I have been really irritated by people who think the CFA is some kind of drive-by financial McDonalds where they can place a verbal order and have the cash tossed into the back seat 60 seconds later.

I decided to drop off a fax wire at the Government Building and make a withdrawal from MEB. Walking back I saw a seat in the shade at Toni's Spaghetteria and decided to have their very good lasagna. While I waited for my food, I entered some additional ideas for the "cable format" report into my Palm Pilot.

While I was writing someone I did not recognize walked up to and asked if I was Mr. Kelley and I said yes. He continued his interruption to say that he was from Mitrovitsa and wanted to spend the Music School grant. I told him that I had already given authorization to spend to two people in Mitrovitsa. He didn't know anything about it. He said that they needed an advance because the contract called for an up front payment of 20%. "It's the first I have heard of it," I said. Since my last conversation was to tell the guy who got the grant that they had to have a contract covered by a CPO form and he could go to town, so I guess progress was being made, if not communication.

Joe