July 2017 – Page 6 – Kosovo Journal

Time Alone

With the rigor of classes which has been bestowed on us these last two weeks, I feel sometimes that I am not so much living in another country, as living on the RIT Kosovo campus. I could not have expected that an international trip such as this could in its own way feel so effectively constraining in nature. And with the sparse amount of time we are allotted here, every hour, every minute spent indoors seems as a wasted one. So sometimes, when even a few hours of the day are presented to me, I like to take a walk up the street to Germia Park to hike the trails, just so I can get some time to myself, clear my head, and remind myself of the wondrous potentialities of being in another country. I say this mostly as a pretense to showing some of the photos I have taken while on these daily walks.

The sight of the city from the park entrance.

The First Tragedy

End of Week 1 of classes

This will be a short one. The week has been good, but it’s had it’s ups and downs. I have been able to meet lots of new people, people from this new country I am exploring. Only a week of classes have gone by and a lot has already happened. I have made steps to contacting my final project subject and I have gone through three different subjects for my first newborn’s assignment, a miss rate I have had yet to achieve. The War, Diplomacy, and State Building class is also something new to me; I have never taken a college political science class and even though I really like the topic I definitely don’t regret not being a major in political science.

End of Week 2

That wasn’t so bad. Classes went well, and as is usual for me when classes are starting I was needlessly nervous. My State Building political science class is very interesting and our documentary class has us working hard. But working with a Newborn has been interesting. I was partnered up with Elion Misini from here in Prishtina, and we were assigned to work with Indira from Mitrovica. I’ve learned a lot from her and Elion after spending the day with them.

Bear Sanctuary

Disclaimer: It wasn’t until I took out my Nikon on location that I realized the battery was dead. ::FACEPALM:: Pictures below were taken on my Dad’s Samsung.

There is a bear sanctuary in Pristina.

Restaurant owners used to keep bears in cages to attract customers. In 2010, Kosovo passed a law banning this behavior, but the authorities couldn’t rescue the bears because they had nowhere safe to take them.

Bear comes out of the brush to wink at the visitors

Four Paws International built the bear sanctuary in 2013. They have space for roaming, toys for playing, pools for swimming, and dens for sleeping. Some of the bears ignore the visitors, while others like to come out and say hello.

View of Badvoc Lake from the bear sanctuary in Prishtina

After so much time in captivity, the bears would not survive in the wild, but this sanctuary in Mramor village isn’t a bad alternative.

They seem beary happy 🙂

Bear Sanctuary Prishtina, Mramor village, near Badovc lake, 10000 Prishtinë, Kosovë

Montenegro and Beyond

The regional study tour at the beginning of this program seemed to split clearly into two sections. The first couple of days were spent mostly in Montenegro, although we began at Kruje Castle in Albania. Most of our time in Montenegro was spent seeing the old town sections of both Ulqin and Kotor, and visiting the beaches. Although Ulqin was absolutely beautiful, and I have one of a kind memories from our time there, Kotor blew me away.

I fell in love with everything about Kotor. I kept describing the view as sitting in a bowl of mountains. I loved the buildings, the people, the food, even the act of opening the window in the hostel (because I felt like a Disney princess in doing so). Every minute there was spent well. We saw the town and learned about its history and went to the beach several times. The night we spent in Kotor did not include ANY sleep, but it was filled with so many adventures. Dinner was amazing. I finally found good Caprese, we spoke with an English couple who was very excited about our study abroad program, and everyone at the restaurant was incredibly welcoming. After dinner, we explored the town some more and got to meet people from all over the place. We went back to the beach at night and got to talk to a bunch of people our age from England, Ukraine, and other areas.

We saw the town and learned about its history and went to the beach several times. The night we spent in Kotor did not include ANY sleep, but it was filled with so many adventures. Dinner was amazing. I finally found good Caprese, we spoke with an English couple, and every at the restaurant was incredibly welcoming. After dinner, we explored the town some more and got to meet people from all over the place. We went back to the beach at night and got to talk to a bunch of people our age from England, Ukraine, and other areas.

Then came 4am… we are crazy. We had originally decided to wake up at 4am for a sunrise hike, but instead, we just stayed up till 4am for a sunrise hike. The view at every point on the mountain was stunning. You could see the whole town, endless mountains, and endless water. Unfortunately, I had to listen to my knees and not go all the way to the top, but it is definitely a goal of mine to go back to Kotor and finish the hike.

The first couple days of the regional trip were also spent getting to know the group we were travelling with, and creating some very strong friendships. As a whole, our group functioned very well. I feel very lucky to be spending this time with such a great group of people. Although most of us are from RIT, we have students from all over, and with many different backgrounds. It has been interesting to learn about all of them while also learning about so many new places.

End of Week

It is currently Saturday night over here. I am currently working on my essay for my state building class and working with my partner in our Newborn project. Class are going mostly smoothly.

I have been really enjoying downtown Pristina. I have gone out for a few drinks about half the nights I have been here and It had been a blast. I am defiantly looking forward to the next few weeks.

Tired

So I’m tired, obviously, I am. We just got back from our week long trip from the Balkans and it is time for class, but my mind is still on the past week. We went to a record-breaking (for me) five countries in 8 days. Albania, Montenegro, Bosnia, Serbia, and Macedonia, you can also count the Bus as a country since we were probably riding inside for jsut as long as we stayed in some of the countries. This trip was groundbreaking for me in many ways; it was the first time I (mostly) had autonomy (during free time) of my actions during a trip abroad. We went to historical sights that I had never gone to and we also went to Peace organizations, that I’d never heard of, including the OHR in Bosnia and a handful of NGO’s; bars…we also went to bars many. So after a week of traveling, staying up and learning, I am finally back at the campus I arrived in initially ready to learn. I climbed a mountain in Kotor and now it’s time to repeat the performance in Prishtina