4th of July KOSOVO STYLE
Alright, so I’d been warned beforehand that the Kosovar people celebrate 4th of July even more so than the Americans themselves and it seems my husband could have been right in his assessment of the celebration here. The following is my experience this year as we celebrated the US Independence day in Kosovo, or rather; celebrated freedom with the Kosovar people as they praised the US for bringing a stop to the ethnic cleansing they all were victims of only a few years back.
The official Kosova flag next to the US one. Time to celebrate!
Most of the Kosovar people we celebrated with had dressed more in honor of the US than any of us Westerners; red, white and blue! I myself; pink! =)
I have to admit that I still don’t understand the full story of what happened during the time of the genocide, but I’ll share some of the stories I’ve been told to give you a better understanding of why the Albanians in this country would celebrate their rescuers so much.
An old grandma living next door to us told me how the Serbs came and forced them all to WALK all the way to Albania. The Serbs took their passports and all documents they had and destroyed them. They also forced them to give up everything they had of value, or else face death. It took this old lady I met a week to walk to Albania. The ones that couldn’t make the walk got killed along the way.
A Norwegian named Josef Martinsen was sent to Kosovo after the war to help clean up wells for the Albanians living in the villages around this country. The Serbs had killed the men of the villages and thrown them into the wells, making sure the rest of the people would struggle for survival as well.
The village we work in, Tushile, had most of it’s people survive because the Serbs had an old map of the area, not showing one of the fields. The night the Serbs came through to kill and the destroy 600 Albanians were quietly standing in the field hoping to survive – and they did!
Most of the people I’ve met have lived in foreign countries; places they went to try to escape the genocide. One of our translator’s family was split up : mom and 2 children in one country, dad and 3 children still in Kosova. They all got reunited eventually and now all live here in Kosova again.
One family I’ve met are only here on a visit this summer. They moved to Norway during the war. Now they no longer have Kosova citizenship, due to Norway not allowing dual citizenship. Now obviously Norway is a rich country, possibly now their choice of place to live, but still as a person that have lived many years already as a stranger in a foreign country I have to say it would hurt if I had to give up my citizenship to my home country – the one thing that kind of defines best who I am.
There are lots of stories, and I’ve only heard a few. Regardless, this is how our 4th of July experience was in Kosova:
It all started last night (July 3rd) as I was lying outside on our balcony enjoying the fresh evening air. All of a sudden the shooting begun. Loud, cracking sounds, echoing all over town. And yes I could see the yellow blasts of the guns as well. Where do they fire their guns you might ask. I tell you; into the air! INSANE! What happened to the philosophy…no; correction: the proven theory that everything that goes up also comes down?!
July 4th started out with loud local music blaring all over town. Sitting inside the apartment I could clearly hear the music and festivities, but at 7.30 am I was not quite ready yet to enter the outside world and check it out first hand.
Later in the day I realized that the celebrations might not have been quite as dramatic here as I’d first pictured, but we did enjoy a whole wonderful afternoon celebrating together with Americans and Kosovar friends in Pristina, the capital of Kosova.
One of the elderly Albanian men held a speech and made a toast to the US for their continues work for human right.
Our kids enjoying the party together with American and Kosovar friends.
Bedtime for our kids is before most of the festivities started here, so we dropped one of our team mates off to go celebrating with local friends at a restaurant and then later a concert held in celebration of July 4th.
Heading down Pristina’s main street towards home, we see…
...a statue in honor of Bill Clinton...
...several stores named after Hillary Clinton...
...and the main street itself is called Bill Clinton Avenue.
Bill Clinton might not have done everything right, but to the people of Kosova he sure was an angel of life.