--Sunday, 01 October 00--
From my balcony I saw the locals unloading, splitting logs, sawing, and stacking wood. The winter is coming and since some of these people live in my building, I am worried. The regularly recurring sounds of hand saws, chain saws and axes has entered my audio dictionary.

Up at 8:30 and by 9:30 I was walking up Germia determined to find its end wherever that might be. Through the park, past the empty pool, along the road I walked. The road rose quite steadily and gradually narrowed, dropping first its edge and then a half lane and then the other half. There was some traffic until I passed the turnoff for the restaurant that Smile mentioned and then there was silence as the trees edged the asphalt ever more closely. I passed several utterly demolished brick and concrete structures. As the road rose more steeply I moved more slowly, stopping more frequently -- to observe the forest and admire the view, of course.

At its end Germia fans out like a wrist into a palm and has three dirt track extensions that like fingers head in three different directions. I chose the one that seemed to lead back and above Germia and it did, taking me back to the restaurant. It was a pleasant walk.


--Tuesday, 03 October 00--
Smile was supposed to come by at 7 PM but I wasn't surprised when he didn't show up by 7:30 and read the paper and enjoyed myself. He actually did ring the bell at 8:15 or so and said that he and Kimeta were on their way to the Fjala with a couple they knew. He seemed disappointed when I said I wanted to stay at home and read the paper. He urged me to go but I didn't want to so I didn't. He told me not to go to lunch tomorrow, that he would come by and we would go to lunch.

Day and night the fire burns and the smoke floats in all directions.

The trash collection point and informal dump up the street seems to be maintained by some neighborhood pyromaniac. It is constantly burning, producing a tower of vile, acrid smoke that, depending on the direction of the moment's breeze, can completely surround my building. I can smell it, I can see it, and I don't like it. Perhaps I am too pollution sensitive.


--Wednesday, 04 October 00--
I stopped by the MEB on the way back to the office but the wire transfer I had been waiting for was not there. Very frustrating.

Orders and Elders
Gary told me that in this culture younger men cannot give instructions (orders) to older men, or at least with great difficulty and no assurance of success. Gary found that there were two old (sixties?) men who spent the day in a room on the top floor who refused to do anything they were told. He visited them and informed them that if they didn't do what they were told they would be fired. Gary has a very gentle style but he manages to effectively get his point across and they were soon picking up the trash in front of the building -- as they were instructed to do.

I went to the foreign publications vendor who is just outside the Monaco Restaurant and bought a Herald Tribune and an Economist. I miscalculated what was owed and gave the guy a 10 DM bill. He gave me a one and a five DM coin in change, failing to notice the Economist.

I noticed the error immediately and showed him the Economist. "Oh," he said, "you have the Economist as well. That is nine plus four, thirteen DM."

I could not resist the temptation and handed him back the five DM coin he had give me and said, "Fine, here's five, now you owe me two DM."

He almost bought it but found the confusion to much to deal with so he handed me back my bill and took back his change and asked to start over. This time the change came out right.

So many people can't make change these days and most would have bought my misrepresentation of the transaction.


--Thursday, 05 October 00--
I needed to get a haircut and I had asked Smile how to say "short" and "very short." He had said it was "shkurt" and "shum shkurt." Armed with this extension of my vocabulary, I went to the barber shop Smile had taken me to in July and where he had translated my instructions to the barber. I used my new vocabulary and then settled back into the chair. Forty minutes of snipping, slicing and chopping later I put my glasses back on and realized that I was millimeters from being bald. Thus is the price of a slim Albanian vocabulary.

Met Smile and Kimeta at Kukri. Smile was visibly out of sorts and Kimeta told me that she had insisted she come along since I was her friend as well Smile's. We sat inside because Kimeta thought it was chilly outside and that left us near the TV where dramatic developments in Belgrade were being broadcast. Every 15 minutes a new development seemed to be announced. It looked as if Milosevich's reign was coming to an end. I told them it was a historic evening.


--Friday, 06 October 00--
Since my advance had finally appeared in my bank account, I tried to pay my Hotel Grand bill. I went to the desk and tried to describe my complicated story. I was bumped up to a senior person (who was quite young and had a baby face) who took me into the payment room. They searched in the manual registration books and files and eventually produced a signed bill that everything had been paid. I thanked them for their efforts and left wondering what to do.


--Saturday, 07 October 00--
Starting with this trip I decided that I would use the Internet banking feature my bank offers. The bank recommended processing payment five days before they were due so on the 28th I processed a payment for the rent of my apartment. I checked today and found that the money had not been withdrawn from my account. I sent panic emails to the building manager and to Mark who usually pays my bills. Not a fun way to begin the day.

I had lunch with an Albanian friend and suggested that we walk over to Marshall Tito Street so I could look for a key shop. He complained about the length of the walk. We found the shop, I got the keys copied, and we had lunch nearby. My friend complained about the length of time it took to serve him though it didn't seem very long to me. He then woofed down his food and announced he was over full. I was still eating my food.

My friend hates Serbs with a genuine passion. He told me that his grandfather had come home to his village to discover that his entire family had been killed: his parents, his grandparents, his pregnant wife, his grandfather's children; sixteen in all. His grandfather buried them all and came to Prishtina where he lived as a street person for many months and then married again and had a second family.

This Albanian is pro-Milosevich because he figures more Serbs will die that way. He also is an irredentist, claiming that every time the Albanians turned around, there neighbors steal some Albanian territory.


--Sunday, 08 October 00--
When I got up at 9 AM I decided that I wanted a good walk and some cheddar cheese so I walked up toward the Hotel Dea and then further south before I turned to the east and headed down to the city center. When I got near the Grand I looked at pirated CDs sold by an outdoor vendor. I bought Classic Sinatra, Sacred Arias by Andrea Bocelli, and "Eminem: Greatest Hits 2000." The prices here are so inexpensive that these three CDs cost about $7.50. At these prices I can afford to find out if I like Eminem who won a big music award recently.

I walked on and picked up the weekend edition of the Herald Tribune and went for a tanning session only to discover that I had forgotten my eye protection so I continued my walk to the KFOR base to see if I could find some cheddar cheese.

At the base I ran into Al Woodhouse and we had a genial chat. I didn't find any cheddar cheese but I did find Grand Marnier -- the only Grand Marnier I have found in the Balkans. And at a great price! It was only $10 for .7 liters which compares nicely with $21 for one liter at the duty free shops and $42 for one liter in Chicago. I bought two bottles.

Here is Blacky, one of the two humble, needy dogs who live in the apartment hallway. As is usually the case of beneficiaries of general benefit not assigned to any specific giver, he is alive but not prospering.

One slightly odd feature of my building are to the two dogs who live and sleep in the entry way. They don't seem to be "owned" by anyone because they seem to sleep near different apartments at different times. The one that is nearly all black has the eerie habit of silently following me upstairs and trying to enter my apartment. One time he did get in and I had to shoo him out. At all times he was very quiet and very nervous and, I suspect, very hungry. I wondered if the previous resident of my apartment might have fed him. I have noticed that the only people who seem to pay attention to these dogs are local children.

This dog's habit is particularly eerie now because it is dark when I return now and there is no lighting in the stairway. To get to my apartment on the third floor (here it is called the second floor) I have to pass through the entry way and turn to the right and find my way to the stairs by the faint glow from the outside lighting that filters through the glass bricks in the stairwell wall.

Then I climb the stairs to my door and fumble with the keys in the dark. Once I am inside I can turn on the light and turn to lock the door and that is when I first discover "Blacky" (that's what I call him) at the head of the stairs and clearly expecting something. I realize then that he has been following me stealthily and it is a little unnerving.

Another day in Kosovo.

Joe