Kosovo Journal

We are now half a week into our second to last week in Kosovo. How the hell did it all go by so fast? When planning for this trip I thought in the back of my mind “It will start to drag a bit by the half way point”. We have now gone past that point and now all I’m thinking about is how fast this all happened.

On the other hand, we got back from Greece a few days ago. It was an awesome time. We chilled at the beach and hike Mt Olympus. We made some pretty good distance, unfortunately we didn’t have time to make it to the top. Greece was defiantly a trip and I look forward to whenever I can go back.

I have a strong recollection, a reclaiming of an understanding I once had of Free Society, what it meant to me, or what I perhaps desired it to mean. There is no purpose in detailing that particular misnomer here, or hereafter. What good is a qualifier of life and its defining motivators if one has no real tangible discernment of such? My travels here, my travels with the National Kosovo Ballet in particular have in their part helped supplant an image of Free Society, an image however in all of its inherent obfuscation. I know only of the universal want to ‘be’ in a place on ones own volition, to have decided for oneself that they have created the capacity therein for happiness in that particular place. To then, when these qualifiers fail, uproots oneself and go forth into the unknown extremities of the world, to seek the characteristics of place and ‘keep’ which may indeed satisfy them. That is then an intrinsic element of Free Society, placement and movement of will and person, to decide the tangible and intangible ‘what’ and ‘where’.

This weekend we spent most of Friday driving in a small but cozy bus. Then we arrived in Paralia, Greece! We spent the rest of the day Friday and most of Saturday taking some much needed beach time. A few of us got sunburns but it was worth it. The food was really good, I found a really good kind of ice cream called black forest. The ice cream and cone were both literally black, and it was a really great tasting ice cream. And we had these really good Pita bread wrap things called Gyros (pronounced like Euros). Each day except Sunday was sunny by day, and by night we got rain and lightning. It was well worth it! Got some decent photos of Mt. Olympus, but I wasn’t with the crew that went up the mountain!

Not much to say here. Classes are going well! And we are planning to go to Greece this weekend!

We had plans to shoot the last of our footage last Thursday. I had Elion do the first shift in the morning. I started getting texts from Elion saying that DJ Gamble had not came to the meet up point. After nearly two hours had passed Elion told me that he was not coming.

I asked him why and he told me that Adrian had gotten into a motorcycle accident. We got word that he is ok and doing fine and back on his feet. It is a good thing that he is ok. I saw his social media and he looks like he walked it off pretty well considering what happened.

I’m on my way back from Bulgaria. Exhausted, mentally drained, and completely unprepared to begin the coming week. Not that I did not enjoy myself, or that there were no moments of relaxation. But for the most part I embroiled myself in my work over the weekend to the determent of my ‘time off’ as it were.

The previous day began in calm fashion. I took a walk around the countryside, looking much I assume, like a homeless person who just happens to have an expensive looking camera by his side. The skies were cloudy and grey, and there could be felt the spittings of rain protruding from it. This prompted talk amongst the dance company that, should the rain persist, the performance would have to be cancelled. My reaction to this news was surprisingly nonplussed, despite the fact that the cancellation of their performance would mean the nullification of my journeys purpose. However, the rain eventually let up, the stage was dried, and the performance began in orderly fashion. While I filmed their performance of ‘Juliet, No Romeo’, I was struck by not only the beautiful and captivating movements presented on stage, but also the political nature of the piece which was I felt, intrinsically Kosovar. It seemed almost brazen to take such a message of personal and national pain, and perform it in front of the elites of another country. But it was for this, for the sake of this inclination, that I had wanted to accompany the group to Bulgaria in the first place, to witness and record the spread of a burgeoning nations culture. In returning to my hotel, I shared a taxi with a Japanese man named Hideki. A reserved, shy man who revealed to me that he is an IT engineer working in Kosovo of all places. (On a humerus note, he also told me that he had been chased by a wild dog the day before, the same one which had chased me.) He is sharing the bus back to Pristina with us, the bus I am sitting on while writing this entry. In the end, what this weekend has shown is that while I still have much learning to do, and a lot of technical knowledge to gain, it has reconfirmed to me that this is what I want to do in my life, it is all I ever want to do. So while I am drained, physically and mentally, I am also vindicated in myself, I feel that I am doing the right thing.

I decided in my resounding unilateral stupidity to, rather than relax and stretch out this weekend in Greece, to instead follow my documentary subject to Bulgaria. It was in the A.M. of yesterday that I hopped on a bus with a group of dancers whose language I do not speak, and traveled over the course of nearly twelve hours to the town of Pravets, all the while thinking to myself “what the hell am I doing”. The journey to our destination was about as uneventful as a bus ride could be expected. I sat and recorded with my camera as discreetly as I could, while the dancers, born performers that they are, would put on a smirk and wave when they noticed me pointed their way. Surprisingly, the Serbian border was passed without issue, within half an hour in fact. It was the Bulgarian border which was to be our heel. We sat there for perhaps 2 hours, a consequence which unfortunately could not be attributed to the lines. One of the dancers said to me in jest “Hey, you wanna trade?” whilst indicating the passports we were both holding, mine Canadian, his Kosovar.

When we arrived in Pravets, I left the group at their much nicer, much more expensive hotel to head to the b&b down the road I had booked previously. The following day was one of exploring the surrounding town and countryside, as their were no time slots for the company to rehearse. I walked across country roads and through fields to reach the town proper, a place which I could describe in one word as being ‘cozy’. A landscape of schools, playgrounds, parks, and small neighborhoods surrounded me. Nothing was present which could in be described as being made for a Tourist such as myself. In a way it was almost comforting, to be in a place where no one spoke fluent english, and all of the signs were in Cyrillic. I look much like a foreigner, with my scruffy beard, my large backpack, the camera always at my side, I espouse myself as being in wholly unfamiliar territory.

After lunch I visited the resort where the company stayed, I sat by the stage where they will perform tomorrow evening and worked on some homework (you’re welcome Meredith) while sipping on my third or fourth coffee of the day. I then began to walk back to my own hotel, a short 2.5km journey. On the way I came across an abandoned factory, which I had seen previously from a distance across the fields. I passed alongside it on the road and, given my aforementioned resounding and unilateral stupidity, decided to approach. Coming upon the entrance and dilapidated guard station, I suddenly heard a series of snarls and barks to my flank. A wild dog I did not notice previously in my unobservant intent, was standing across from me in the overgrown inlet of the factories entrance. So what is my first reaction? Take a picture of course! I snapped some pictures from my hip in the animals general direction before backing up towards the road, the dog meanwhile approaching me, still barking with great intensity. I bolted down the road, only briefly looking behind myself to see the dog calmly ambling its way back towards the factory, its sacred ground successfully protected from intruders. Even now as I sit in my hotel room writing this, I occasionally hear the sound of wild dogs along the countryside.