Month: July 2016

My earlier post was “lendi for short” and while we were deciding what to shoot and where to shoot, one of the place that he mentioned was the LGBT community place, where he used to be an activist.

first i was hesitating to go there because those cases are still “taboo” here,they lived in a “hidden” house, and they said that none knows about it, they don’t tell anyone because they are afraid, since last time they went publicly they place was demolished and they were beaten.

When i went in and saw like 20 people in there, i was freaking out at first but then you get used to it and they seem as normal as you are. i had that feeling because i’m not used to see those people go around together in public places.

 

 

Journalism is one of the professions that requires our energy, concentration, commitment and all of us. The adrenaline works once one is involved in the story—enthusiasm is crucial in our profession.

 

My adrenaline started from the moment I talked with Meredith Davenport last October 2015. I was very pregnant (9 months) and she was trying to organize everything for the Summer School in AUK Prishtina. Not only did her CV look promising, she worked among various cultures and in different countries and media, including for the New York Times and National Geographic, but her positive energy is what struck me the most.

 

This July we met in Prishtina for the first time, and my son Jani was there as well. You have to be lucky and it is important when in a work people have good chemistry together, and ideas too. I have worked at the University of Prishtina from 2012 with students of journalism and still I was enthusiastic.  I had my thoughts at the beginning that Meredith and I were more excited than the students but this changed gradually. As time passed by, students got more involved in their stories.

 

With one of the students we traveled to Mirusha, with Saadia we visited the Bektashi community in Gjakova. Their work includes stories from one about a trans-gendered boy to one about poor families living in what were previously prisons. Some days ago I finally saw the enthusiasm that I was waiting to see. Here they were Jacmin and Whentian in one of the lectures, completely different. At the beginning of the class they were as silent as a rock and as soon as they were involved in their stories they found themselves, their happiness made me appreciate the effect that journalism has on us.

I am going to leave Prishtina and the class will end this week, but with me I take a lot of lessons. Five of them I want to share with you.

–        Sincerity (you have to be sincere with your sources and treat them with respect)

–        Approach (this profession puts you in a difficult situation and being shy does not help)

–        Persistence (journalists should not give up on their ideas, even when the story is almost about to fall apart)

–        Behind the story (this is one, how shall I put it… You start a simple story but there is a big story behind it. It is no accident when people refuse to speak in a story. Think about it!).

–        Accuracy (we are the guardians of the truth; we should be accurate on what we report).

 

To all the travelers, who came in to Kosovo, I wish you had a good experience and hope that you learned something new. Kosovo is a small country but the people are the best host ever which make them big. I would like to say that you’re welcomed here at anytime that you want, we welcome you.

I know that some of you are planing to be here for a more longer time, so take that into consideration. T.S

This past weekend on July 15, 2016, Emily and I met with Zaneta Trajkoska to discuss the Colorful Revolution that is taking place in Macedonia. Zaneta is the director of the Macedonian Institute for Media and she has been involved with some of the organizers of these protests taking place as well as journalists who have been out covering the protests.

In our meeting, a point that Zaneta talked about that I found intriguing was a trending hashtag for the revolution. #protestiram, which means “I protest” of one of the hastags used on social media platforms, especially Facebook. This means that even though the protests are a group effort to put in place, each person is there protesting for themselves. Each of them are individuals protesting for their own specific reasons, because of how they are affected by the actions of the government and because of how Macedonia, their home, is being affected.

 

These protests used to be held every single day at 6 o’clock p.m. and would make their way along a specific route throughout the city. As the months have gone by however, the protests have changed, and now seem to focus on more specific civil movements and do not occur as often as before. There are two reasons Zaneta said these protests are not occurring daily anymore. One reason is that it is now summertime and many people who were involved in the protests are away on holiday and are no longer in Skopje. The second reason is that it is exhausting to participate in protests such as these every single day. After a full day of work, then heading straight to the protests at 6p.m., by the time the protestors get home they just go to bed and repeat this process of work and protesting daily.

When we began this project we were under the assumption that these protests were still happening nightly. It wasn’t until we were already planning to go back to Macedonia that we were informed the protests had become less frequent. Without there being a protest, a lot of the images we were looking for to pair with the audio were impossible to get. After coming back and talking with Meredith, we’ve decided to begin a new project this final week we are here, and then use what we did get while we were in Macedonia to make a separate shorter project on the side. Stay tuned for more updates on our upcoming project focusing on a local community here in Pristina.

This weekend was hard. There is no other way that I can describe it. Malinda and I went to Skopje, Macedonia to tell the story of protests through the eyes of main protestors. In these protests, the people use paint as a way to show their defiance towards the government. We thought this was interesting and were hoping to focus our story on this aspect.

But that’s not what happened.

After contacting many people and not having a solid “yes” from anyone, the weekend came and we had already made arrangements to get to Skopje. Our plan was to target someone in the protest and talk to them. Little did we know that even protesters take a vacation.

After talking to Branimir Jovanovic, a 34 year old economic professor and avid protestor, we learned that the protests had been way too frequent before to keep up daily. With the summer here, many students went home or on holiday. The protests were taking place maybe once a week and that was when something provoked them.

Our story slipped through our fingers faster than we could get a grasp on it.

We had a solid interview from Branimir about his experience getting arrested during a protest. His view towards protests was that they should not be violent, which is the reason for using the paint. We have many images of what the buildings look like with the paint splattered on them, some people we talked to even thought it looked better that way.

Admittedly we were not as prepared as we could have been before going, but we felt the pressure of time closing in fast. We didn’t have any other ideas. We thought that if we cared enough about the story then magically it would all work out.

It didn’t work out and we failed. But that’s all part of life no matter what profession you are in. So when, not if, you fail, it is important to remember that nothing is a mistake if you can take away a lesson learned. I know now to be more prepared and to really think through the story before I start it. I need to have better contacts in place before starting the story.

I still had fun seeing the city and getting to “live” there for a few days. The paint looks oddly beautiful against the vibrant white statues.

But today is a new day and I am going to walk away from this experience with my head held high and not let it get me down. I have too much to do to be bogged down by this mistake, and I’ll only move forward from here.

My very first interview was like a week ago. At first I was very curios about my subject and the questions i was going to ask him. At first i had to  convince him to do this project which i thought would be the hardest thing of the entire project but fortunately he was happy that some one is doing such thing  and he accepted immediately.

We met with him the next day, he was a really nice person and he was willing to share his experiences with us and show the world what is like to be a transgender in Kosovo, what difficulties has he faced or he is facing and different things about his life. He has lot of stories to talk about, like good stories and bad stories.

why my title says “Lendi for short” is because one of the difficulties he faced while growing up was his name, in school teachers would call him in his long name which was Lendita and he didn’t like it. So today everyone calls him Lendi and for those who call him with the long name he says that he doesn’t care as long as they don’t do it on purpose or with  bad intentions.

Tuesday of last week, I got to interview Arjona Morina for the newborns project with my partner Saddia Arjona is 16 year old girl who is still in high school but enjoys volunteering at an organization that assists people with down syndrome. After speaking with her it was apparent that she is extremely passionate with what she does and enjoys helping people very much. She has tremendous love for her friends that volunteer with her as friends with down syndrome whom she selflessly supports on a everyday basis.

She receives great happiness from what she does and is a very out going and optimistic person. She comes from a wealthy family with her father as a doctor, and mother as an engineer. Even though she lives her life at high standards, she can still feel the hardship that her people have to go through. She believes that because she is blessed, it is her duty to bless others. Such a mentality if were more common, would make the world we live in much more prosperous and less devastating.

The idea of walking up to a strangers house unannounced and asking them to interview and photograph them is something that gives me a great deal of anxiety. I imagine the scenario often, and I always picture me knocking on the door, explaining my project and politely asking their permission to photograph, and them rejecting it all and telling me to go away, leaving me with nothing to shoot. However, my experiences today were quite the opposite.

 

I visited three families today, and every one greeted me with open arms the minute I rang their doorbell. They were all very eager to help me with my project, and sat down, answering all my questions, and telling me loads of stories about their bees and the process of beekeeping and honey making. They even were kind enough to bring me snacks, and give me tours of their properties before letting me roam free around their yards. I was amazed that people here are so kind and generous, because I honestly feel like back home almost no one would have been as open and friendly to me as the people I met today.