--Sunday, 25 June 00--
Went to bed early and got up late -- a most delicious combination.
I decided on a trip to Fushë Kosovë/Kosovo Polyë/Field
of the Blackbirds. Smile told me that the No. 1 van runs every ten minutes
so I took it to Fushë Kosovë and walked around until I saw a
Norwegian unit protecting a Serb Church. I walked up to the armored vehicle
and talked to the soldier on top of it.
This handsome soldier told me in superb English that the battlefield was
in Obleetch, several kilometers from there and north along the road to
Mitrovitsa. He told me that there was a fifty meter tower (Smile later
insisted that it was not more than 20 meters) that viewed the battlefield
and that there were maps of the troop placements, etc. all provided by
the Norwegian troops. I decided that I would go there.
I walked/hitchhiked back toward Prishtina and then north on the road to
Mitrovitsa. I walked to the Obleetch turn-off then walked the several
kilometers to the town only to discover from some Norwegian soldiers eating
at a cafe that the tower was further north along the Mitrovitsa road,
not on the Obleetch turn-off.
It was now 1 PM on a hot and sunny day and my desire to walk was beginning
to flag. The Field of the Blackbird trip would be for another day.
I stopped at the cafe and had some cold Weifert Pilsner. It was as delicious
as it was refreshing. I ordered the Weifert because the cafe didn't have
any of the beers I usually order. It turned out that this was a Serb cafe
and didn't carry Albanian products just as the Albanian cafes don't carry
Weifert Pilsner. Even in beer there is division here.
I asked the waiter how to get back to Prishtina and he told me that it
was a Serb cafe and if I wanted to get back I should ask at the Albanian
cafe next door. He rethought the matter and said that it was better for
me to ask the KFOR soldiers further down the road.
The slightly breezy weather was delightful in the shade. In the sun you
wanted to be lying beside a pool or lake or ocean or sea so you could
dissipate the accumulated warmth by immersion in cold water. Already I
was feeling the tug of home.
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Across the street was a truck with a load of hay that made it look rather
like a mechanical hedgehog with a straw wig.
I walked down the road and asked the bus driver on the No. 2 bus about
the tower I was looking for and he said "Yes, yes," so I got
in but the trip was back to Prishtina. He had no idea what I was talking
about. So it was to be a trip for another day.
Smile, who returned today from a trip to his village, said with his usual
precision that he would be by between 4 and 7.
--Monday, 26 June 00--
There was a modest commotion today about a delayed wire payment to a vendor.
I was repeatedly requested to explain in writing what had happened and
I did so. The situation points out something that I have seen repeated
in finance work: staff people who attempt to cover their own failures
by claiming that all problems were caused by the finance function. As
in this case, staff can be quite creative and even more unprofessional
in their efforts.
Quickly, what happened was that a wire payment was processed by staff
without the form that contains the very specific wire information. Follow-up
phone calls were ignored. Later when the vendor was demanding payment
from staff, staff sent vendor reps down to me but without providing a
single piece of paper that might have allowed me to figure out what was
going on.
I told the vendor reps that I needed something to go on and that they
were getting the run around. They apparently explained things to staff
for on the next day someone came to the CFA with a copy of the CPO for
the contract. We were able to process the payment with some help from
staff but justifications had to be written. These events always seem to
demonstrate that more effort goes into CYA than real work.
I met Smile outside CFA building and told him I had to go to Luan's party
and that I would stop by Chesvee tomorrow night.
The CFA expats went to a party at Luan's home just outside the built up
part of the city. We met his parents and his thin, tall, handsome brother
who works in IT at the BPK. But we didn't meet Alice Mead who must be
known to my friends in Maine. It was a nice time eating home cooked local
specialties. Home by 10:30.
--Tuesday, 27 June 00--
More Dubious Menu Items: Frighten yellow cheese
Between being up early yesterday and today got a lot of work done.
Got some sun after work and then walked over to meet Smile. Halil told
me that Smile was not well and was home sick. I went to his apartment
and found him on the couch with his right lower leg in a cast. He had
been playing volley ball at school and hurt his leg, possibly breaking
it. He took the bus back from his school and a cab to the hospital and
they put a cast on his leg but the x-ray technician was not there so he
had to go back the next day for an x-ray.
There is something humorous in the thought of Smile, the most free-spirited
of people, mothered and cared for on a couch in his apartment. I knew
he would be very frustrated. Already he was telling Kimeta, "Don't
talk so much!" [or at all?]. Smile was trapped in a woman's care
and he was none too happy about it.
--Wednesday, 28 June 00--
I went to a meeting to discuss a "proposal" to establish an
information clearing house and that would "respond to guidance from
an UNMIK Chief of Information Coordination and a governing board comprised
of the major information consumers and providers."
I had been to meetings like this before where the real issue is "Who
is the boss." They always fail to achieve their goals because it
doesn't take a Ph.D. in psychology to recognize data-fascism.
Trying to be constructive, I proposed that as a confidence building measure
participants describe the databases they maintain. The answer was yes
but somehow the planned agenda for the next meeting didn't seem to provide
for this. A meeting was called for the next day to discuss "data
maps" but in all the time we talked not one person explained anything
about the data they gathered.
The discussion was all conducted in the utmost of rarified generalities
including the several times repeated piousity that it is "important
to liaise closely". Now, I enjoy verbing nouns but even I have limits
and converting liaison to a verb goes to far for the simple reason that
there are adequate legitimate words available: they could, after all,
communicate but that might be too simple for the grand plans in the back
of people's minds. When people substitute jargon for clear expression
who can take them seriously?
All the vibes were wrong. I suspect most representatives of organizations
with independent funding were thinking about how to avoid wasting too
much time in the effort. They must have been wondering whether a "Chief
of Information Coordination" would assist them or order them around.
No effort was made to deal with such sensibilities so everyone must have
assumed the worst.
On the way back to the office I heard the sound of long, rusty red rebar
being dragged along asphalt -- rather like the sound of a street sweeper
but with nothing like the same effect. At least the rebar was going to
be used to build something.
--Thursday, 29 June 00--
By lucky accident -- if not good planning -- I missed three meeting today.
The added time I plowed back into processing documents and, generally,
doing work that has a measurable product.
Where to sweep the dust? Each morning I see street vendors and others
sweeping up the accumulated dust. Most just put it in the gutter where
it sits patiently awaiting the next strong breeze.
--Friday, 30 June 00--
Larry Mead stopped by and introduced himself. We went out to lunch and
had a most pleasant conversation. He works with Dwayne Kline in Portland
and Dwayne has been forwarding the Press to Larry for months. It turned
out that Larry and Alice Mead were the people who brought Luan and his
brother over to the USA to go to school. So Luan and I have "four
degrees of separation." This is truly a small world.
After work, I walked over to Smile's place to see him and Kimeta. I brought
a soccer ball that I had promised to give the kids who play in the parking
lot near where he works. I couldn't remember who I had promised the soccer
ball to so I gave it to Smile to deliver for me.
Smile made me promise that I would come back tomorrow to see him. His
foot cast seems to have brought on a first class case of cabin fever.
Somewhat reluctantly I agreed.
Smile gave me some specific directions to the Field of the Blackbirds,
the location of the much-hyped Serb defeat of 1389. On Sunday I will take
a bus to Masgit (Maz-geet) where there is a tower about 200 meters off
the road to Vushtrri/Mitrovitsa. The tomb of Sultan Murad I is there as
well. Smile insists that the tower is not 50 meters tall (as the Norwegian
soldier had told me) but only 20 meters. But then he told me that he had
only found out about the location of the battle because I had asked him
where it was. There isn't a lot for a tourist to do here so I take what
I can get.
Joe
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