Things are indeed moving fast; the ceiling of the ground floor was being poured as I arrived. Smile told me it would take 80 bags of concrete. He had collected three UN guards and five teachers to help with the work. Everyone was working hard, mixing concrete in the two mixers Smile had borrowed, pushing wheel barrows of the stuff to the floor/ceiling, tying rebar together. It was an impressive show of mutual support.

Smile's house is set into a hillside. First the hillside was gouged out to create a flat space for the lower foundation and then a slab with rebar reinforcement was poured but not before rebar for six column was in place. [Week 1]

Cinder blocks became the wall between the columns and the outside was covered with a thin coat of cement which was then covered with a thick tar paper for water proofing. Half a staircase from the ground level was then poured. The second half had to wait for the work on the floor of the first floor.

Forms for the first floor floor were then prepared and numerous supporting poles consisting of 4-inch diameter tree trunks were used to support the weight of the concrete first floor. Rebar was placed on the forms and tied with wires to the rebar that extended from the columns. The floor rebar was then cross linked by more wire ties.

Today, a crew of Smile's friends were shoveling a mixture of concrete and pebbly sand into a rotating mixer that contained two thirds of a bucket of water. I asked about ratios and they told me it was one shovel of cement to three of pebbly sand and two-thirds of a bucket of water. It all seemed very unscientific to me. The outputs varied in volume and consistency but the floor/ceiling is so thick and has so much rebar that it is probably over-engineered for its simple task of standing up.

On the way there Smile told me that he had told his workers that I had paid for the beer, soda and chebop he was feeding them. He made it clear that I was not to contradict him in front of the group and I didn't. I think that he was covering me for my not doing physical work on his house. Of course, I had paid for the lunch, in a sense.

A worker assembles an interior wall of Smile's home.

I had met a number of the guys there before and they were as friendly as ever. The geography teacher from Smile's school was there and was an energetic worker. He told me he was a member of the Kosovo Republican Party of Mitrovitsa and he supported Bush for President. I let it pass since I suspect he thinks he was born in Texas.

He went on to say that he supported an independent Kosovo. I asked him if he believed that Serbs should be allowed to live in Kosovo. He said that he believed that if people wanted to live in peace that they should be allowed to do so but went on to say that "You can't trust them," and "they would never want to live in peace here." Another day in Kosovo.


--Tuesday, 07 November 00--
US election day. Did my vote count?

--Friday, 10 November 00--
After work Thuy, Glen and I walked over to the Kukri to have another goodbye drink with Gary. I told them that I had heard that there was a good Chinese restaurant in the block behind the Kukri. They asked who told me and I said I wasn't sure and they told me that that ruined my credibility, blah, blah, blah. I said that I thought it might have been Gary but later when he arrived he said he didn't know anything about a Chinese restaurant so the crew had at me again, claiming that I had no credibility. When the subject came up later, I remembered that Matt Macellaro had told me about the restaurant and I was reviled again for no particularly good reason, except that perhaps Matt was American and thus equally suspect.

In looking back I wondered if they were trying to see if they could get my goat by acting in concert to disagree with me. If that is what they were trying, they failed. I was simply bemused that they were acting so oddly.


--Saturday, 11 November 00--
Having heard from Matt Macellaro about a Chinese restaurant in the complex behind the Kukri, I asked Mike and Thuy if they wanted to go for lunch there. They both decided that Chinese food was more for dinner than lunch (go figure!) so they didn't want to go. Bobbing up and down, left and right in anticipatory pleasure, Maureen quickly said that she would go, volunteering this in an embarrassed school girl style. She had been there on Thursday night and liked it so much she wanted to go back on Friday night but couldn't. I told her to come down when she was ready and went back to my office.

A little while later, Smile came in and we were chatting as Maureen came in. I introduced them but they seemed to think that they had met before. I asked Smile if he would like to join us for Chinese food and he said yes. The Golden Road was missing most the usual Chinese kitsch but did have good food. The chicken with peanuts and spicy sauce (effectively Kung Pao chicken) was delicious, the fried rice was freshly prepared, and the beef in peppery sauce was quite good. Smile was game about trying to use chop sticks and did as well/badly as any first time user. Maureen was in such a good mood that she treated us.


--Sunday, 12 November 00--
Last night I went to bed at 9:30 so I was wide awake at six thirty so I got up and began the day. By 7:30 I was out the door and walked down to the street that forks off to the left from Germia not very far from the start of Germia. I followed it away from downtown for a couple of miles. I didn't reach the end but when I saw haystacks, hens, horses and cows, I realized that I was at the edge of the urban part of Prishtina so I turned around and walked back. On the return trip I decided to take a street that went further north since I haven't walked in that area of the city yet.

After my invigorating walk I bought a twenty bottle case of Skopko beer, came home and made myself a cheddar cheese omelet and cooked a package of Oscar Meyer bacon. Delicious! But I am now out of cheddar and running low on Grand Marnier. I will have to do something about that.

Smile came by after 11 and we had some abbreviated language training and then when to get some food for his workers and to pick up Kimeta. This was Kimeta's first visit to her future home. The walls of the first floor were half built and progress was evident.


-Tuesday, 14 November 00--
Thuy and I had lunch in a new chebop place as most places were closed for the ongoing demonstration about Albanian captives in Serbia. The staff didn't speak any English but a customer very kindly translated my needs for chopped onion.

Joe