The Bear Necessities

There are some things we're completely accostomed to having 24 hours a day, 7 days a week in the US. Things like electricity, water, most likely internet, and air conditioning or fans if we're lucky. Well, things are different here, and I'm wondering exactly what we need, and how much of it we need.


My landlord never told me this, but I learned it the hard way: the water shuts off at night in Kosova. My first night here, after returning from dinner, I relaxed a bit, watched a DVD, then decided to brush my teeth. It was midnight. I went to try to turn on the water, and nearly nothing came out. I went to sleep that night confused, and with very bad breath. Sunday, I asked Shpresa about it, and she told me that in most buildings, the water turns off at night, and comes back on at around 5 AM. At work today, I was talking to one of my co-workers, (yes! one that can speak english really well!) and she said that at her house, sometimes her water turns off all day, or in the afternoon, and is really sporadic. She said I was really lucky to have it turn off only at midnight, and so far for it to be pretty consistant. I mean, I don't need water at 4 AM, and I don't usually need to take showers in the middle of the night, but it is just one of those differences that reminds me of how different of a place I live now.


Still on the topic of water, I've realized that showers don't really have to be hot.. or warm.. or even luke warm. The first two times I showered here I was blessed with warm water. Usually, I like to take long, relaxing showers, in hot hot water. I knew though that water is expensive here and a limited resource, so I've grown accustomed to turning off the water while I'm shampooing my hair, and I didn't complain when the water wasn't hot. However, the third attempt at a shower, I waited and waited for the water to heat up, but to no avail: I stood there for ten minutes, and it stayed freezing cold. I was pretty annoyed, and I tried to shower, I really did, but I just couldn't take how cold it was. I hopped out and gave up. Yesterday, I hoped that maybe it was just a fluke; I got ready for my shower and thought to myself, "BE WARM!" But still, it was cold. This time I really had to shower, and so I did. I figure, two cold showers down, I'll get used to it. Hot, or warm even, is not really a necessity, but showering definitely is.


Yesterday, at work, I crossed a milestone: I experienced my first Kosovar power-outage! So far my few friends (okay, okay, my two co-workers that speak english) have praised the electricity in Pristina, saying how even a year ago there could be a whole day with out it, and how now there are hardly ever black-outs, and if so, they only last several hours. Well today at work, while I was browsing the internet and catching up with my correspondance (well, it was lunch break), everything suddenly shut off. I sat here sort of confused for a moment, and then I got up and walked to a couple other rooms where people were still online. So I went back to my desk and sat down and took out Iris Murdoch's The Black Prince, which I bought yesterday at an English bookstore. Someone eventually came by my desk and asked me if I was bored, and I just said, "not really," because there wasn't much I could do anyways. It turns out that the other rooms all have back-up generators. Well this must be how I got this room. Another one of my co-workers then walked by and said, "no power?" and I shook my head no, then he replied, "well, that's Kosova!" Well two hours later, the power came back on, and I got right back to my internet perusal.

Internet. Today, it took me 18 minutes precisely to sign online once I got to the office. Whether it was the computer, or the internet, I don't know. It was probably a bad combination of the two. Internet Explorer kept on freezing, then I would have to restart it, over and over again. It reminded me of the good old days of dial up. To add to this, most of you know I don't have internet in my apartment, unless I sit in the corner of my living room, and steal someone else's connection. My landlord said that I could get it if I wanted, and I said yes, and he said the man would come by soon, but it's been 4 days and no such luck. There were two choices I had about internet: I could either get 5 hours of internet a day for 10 Euro a month, or 24 hours a day for 15 Euro. I thought, "why would anyone choose 10 Euro a month, when you get unlimited for only 5 Euro more?" But then I realized, the average salary here for those employed (and unemployment is upwards of 40% in the city,) is 150 Euro a month. That 150 Euro has to stretch a long way - especially because everyone here has so many kids. Anyways, 5 Euro is a lot to some people here. I read in my guidebook that most only live on 3 Euro a day or less. Seeing as one of my cucumbers cost 4 cents, that is very possible, but is still really tough.

Anyways, I just wanted to write about my first power-outage, I consider it kind of like inducting me into Pristina, and I expect a lot more of them to happen!

ps. the title is not a typo! It is just me expressing my love for The Jungle Book.

24 Hours Down, 2,136 To Go

My first 24 hours in Kosova have been an adventure. Before coming here, I really had no idea what to expect. These past 24 hours though has been filled with friendly people, good food, and a surprisingly nice apartment. A lot of the preconceptions I had about Pristina are true; the city is not beautiful and old communist block buildings stand tall throughout the city. On the highway, I passed many abandoned-looking brick houses with trash strewn about them, however parked outside were newly purchased Audis, BMWs, and VWs – so the people living there can’t be doing that badly

Shpresa, which means Hope, picked me up from the airport. She is one of my coworkers (I sound so professional saying that) at Women for Women. She’s a Kosova National and thirty years old. She has been extremely nice and helpful this past day. First, she took me out to a traditional Albanian dinner. I had some beef in a tomato soup-ish/broth/sauce with miscellaneous vegetables. I cannot really do it justice seeing as it was a hodge-podge of ingredients and I could not really identify them all, but it was pretty good. After dinner, I had my first Albanian coffee. I later learned that here they drink coffee at least ten times a day – perfect for me. We had a traditional Turkish coffee, which is often served here, and I really like. It is served in a very small cup, but it’s incredibly thick and strong so it evens out.

After dinner, I went back to my apartment and settled in a little. Well, okay, I still have not unpacked at all. My apartment is (mostly) furnished, so I expected everything to already be here. Today I realized I do not have any bowls or silverware, and I have not bought any yet, so eating has been interesting. There is one knife and I am just sort of stabbing everything.

Bright and early Sunday afternoon Shpresa picked me up and we drove to a grocery store. She explained to me that we had to go twenty minutes outside of the city, because it is a lot cheaper and there is a lot more variety. And by variety, I found out that this store is like a larger Walmart, only filled with crap. Suits, jewelry, wigs, right near food, ovens, there is even two isles dedicated to different kinds of cooking oil. Among all of the options, I could not find any crackers (I will miss you dearly TLCs) or olive oil, and I’m not really used to Albanian brands, so it took a while. The most interesting part of it was the cheese. I ended up buying Happy Cow (which is actually Austrian), but there was a huge barrel of cheese. Shpresa convinced me to try it, so she took the huge knife tied to the barrel and reached in. I peered into the barrel and saw a huge lump of cheese – probably 15 pounds or so – in some weird looking oil. I tried a little bit of it, and I tried as hard as possible to resist throwing up. It was really sour and tasted like it had been sitting out there for maybe a week or longer… I guess I don’t like Albanian cheese.

After shopping, we got another coffee and a sandwich. This time I ordered a makiato; coffee here is only 50 cents at most restaurants, which is how I guess everyone can afford to drink so often. Shpresa then took me back so we could each “rest” for 3 hours. Then she picked me up again for dinner at 6, this time with a friend in the car. Shpresa can’t really speak English very well, though we got by a little, so having a friend around just made it so speaking English wasn’t necessary at all. She then asked me if I wanted to go to Mitrovice, and I said yes because I had no idea where or what it was, and figured she wanted to go. An hour and a half later we arrive in another city and pick up her other friend who had two of her kids with her. So the six of us are jammed into this little tiny European car, and then (I think) they started arguing about where to go. We drove another twenty minutes, this time into the mountains, and we stopped at this huge restaurant in the middle of nowhere with a gigantic playground complex outside of it. The kids ran onto the playground, while the four of us just stood there and looked at them. For some reason, this restaurant wasn’t good enough, because they decided we should all pile back into the car and go somewhere else. Ten minutes later, we end up in an identical looking place, again with a huge playground. It’s around 7:45 by now and I’m pretty hungry and looking forward to dinner.

This restaurant pleased them more, because we walked around for ten minutes looking for a table. Every table had a weird assortment of people sitting there; usually around two kids, one young twenty-something mother wearing tight clothes make up, and of course heels, her husband who looks like a Kosovar version of Guido, with spiked short hair and pretty tan, maybe a friend who looks like one of them, and then a little tiny grandmother wearing a moo-moo and a cloth tied around her head. I am not sure if the other women with us ever ate, because when we ordered, everyone ordered ice cream and I ordered fish. I felt a little silly being the only one eating out of 6 of us, but I got a whole fresh fish grilled with French fries and a salad and a local beer for 3.5 Euro. We sat outside for about two hours while the kids ran around playing and I slowly ate my fish.

Once we drove back into the city, we stopped at a bridge. Shpresa said that this bridge divided the city between north and south; we were on the south side where Albanians lived, and Serbians lived in the north side and we could not go. I asked what would happen if we tried to go, and her friend laughed and responded, “they will beat us, or kill us, or do whatever they want with us!” She laughed, but she was serious; maybe laughing is just a way to deal with the sad reality of the tension in this area. We parked next to the bridge, and it just looked like an ordinary bridge to me. We got out of the car, and I was worried they were going to take me near the bridge, so I nervously said, “oh.. we don’t have to go near it just for me,” and then they poked fun at me for the next couple of minutes pretending they were going to give me to the Serbs. I looked around and noticed a heavy police presence; there is a twenty-four hour police guard on the Albanian side. It probably is not a coincidence either that the UN headquarters for this city are adjacent to the bridge; the bridge has sparked controversy and violence throughout the past ten years, and is a hotspot for ethnic clashes. Don’t worry, we didn’t cross it! Though I was worried we might!

We settled down at another restaurant and ordered more coffee of course. There were around twenty kids running around yelling, while all the adults were sitting at their tables chatting and not really worrying about the kids at all. Afterwards, we drove home.

This is a small summary of my first twenty-four hours. I haven’t even included my favorite parts, because I’m reserving those for separate entries about my views on the cultural differences, ethnic tension, how everyone here gets married when they are twenty, how cheap the food is, all that fun stuff. Sorry this entry was so long, I hope you made it to the end!