Busy in Kaçanik, but still a great place to live...

We have been told since we arrived in Kosovo, that it becomes a busy place in the summer.  It is not a tourism hotspot, but it is because of the many people who left Kosovo to work in other countries return during the summer.  It has been gradual as those who have children wait until school lets out.  The German diaspora arrived this past week as school have just recently ended for summer break and this is the biggest crowd of people.  It was noticeably much more busy this week and it was noticeably more noisy.

I am told that the retail business (restaurants, shops, markets) make most of their money for the year when the diaspora return.  This is also a big time for weddings and the little flower shop across from our building is always decorating cars.

All week long there was loud traditional music playing from an apartment in our building.  We could hear it all day long until midnight.  I came to find out that this a pre-wedding tradition and that the groom's family lives in our building.  They started celebrating 3 or 4 days before the wedding.  On Friday around 1:30 pm, I heard the sounds of cars on our street honking their horns.  This is also a wedding traditional.  The grooms family goes to pick up the bride and bring her to their home.  Typically, the groom's relatives are all involved and a long line of cars, honking their horns, drive (taking the longest route possible, I believe) to the groom's home.  

This time the honking horns stopped in front of our building.  There were dozens of cars on the street below our apartment and then a traditional band started playing.  I went to the balcony to watch and saw men in traditional costumes playing drums and other traditional instruments.  They whole time this was going on, both lanes of traffic were blocked.  There was a car decorated for the bride and groom parked right in front of the door to our building and eventually the bride got out of the car and was slowly escorted inside the building.  This is the video link to the watch the bride getting out of the car and the sounds of music from below.

On Friday, our language tutor came to Kaçanik and he got caught in the craziness.  He eventually made to our apartment and I was able to ask him about it. He explained the details of the event.

Thursday was another trip to Prishtina for additional training on reporting what we do towards completing the goals of Peace Corps and how to apply for a Peace Corps grant.  It was a uneventful trip, but with almost 2 hours of travel time each way, it makes for a long day.  When we got home, when had an electrical issue which affected lights, some outlets, and the water heater.  It is not good to be without hot water, especially since I like to was off the daily sunblock before going to bed.  Thom sent the owner of our apartment a message and he couldn't find an electrician until Tuesday.

Friday, we planted more flowers (lavender and potentilla) with Gjethi Group.  The flowers were planted near the memorial to victims of the war.  Hopefully, they will grow a lot by next summer.  Once all the plants were in the boxes, I took the empty plastic containers that the plants came in back to Te Dadini, so that they could reuse them.  They were happy to get the plastic containers back and gave me around 10 more free plants.  That is why they are my favorite market.

After planting the flowers, Thom went to a city meeting with Sami and Remzi.  After it was over, Remzi found an electrician and he came over and fixed the electrical problem in a very short time.  It was a fuse, but it was in a fuse box on the second floor of the apartment building.  He didn't even charge us as we are volunteers.

Cleaning up the dirt that spilled

Thom and Sami planting lavender

Remzi planting potentilla

The pony was walking along the river with a rope tied around his neck

We were not able to hike with the hiking club this weekend, but we hiked with Sami and Valon on Saturday to Strazha.  It was a nice cool morning and it was a much easier hike than the last two weeks.  We ate lots of blackberries and saw places where Sami hung out as a kid.  We had a picnic lunch  and  then stopped for drinks at the cafe in Strazha while we waited for our ride back to Kaçanik.

Bushes full of blackberries

Just another great view

A cow along the way

Thistle in bloom

Possibly a holly along the way

UCK Memorial and hang out during the war

An oven for making bread

A shelter with a marble topped picnic table

A spring with water

A pile of garbage in Strazha

Someone make flia in the picnic area

Among the peaks...

The peak of Ljuboten is impressive and last week's hike was definitely challenging and the views were very beautiful.  Ljuboten stands out, however; not because it is one of the tallest peaks in Kosovo (it is around 16th highest depending on your source), but Ljuboten is a giant among the smaller foothills that surround it.  The peaks that are about 2,000 (~ 6,500 ft) meters are more than 50 and most seem to be in the Sharr Mountins, followed by the Accursed Mountains.  While impressive, most of these are close to the elevation of Flagstaff, Arizona (7,000 ft, 2,079 meters) where our son lives.  The highest peak in Flagstaff is Humphries which stands at 12,633 feet (3,851 m) and I have climbed to the top of it.

Sunday's hike with the hiking group was to the double peaks of Bistra in the Sharr Mountains near Prevalla.  The east summit is 2,651 m (8,698 ft.) and is according to some the third highest peak in Kosovo.  The west summit is 2,644 m (8,675 ft.).  We met at the tea shop at 7 am and left around 7:30 am for the drive to Prevalla, which is a small tourist village headed toward Prizren.  It is an entry point to the Prevalla National Park.

Prevalla was already bustling as we arrived at the trailhead.  There were picnickers, campers, hikers, and traditional flija bakers at the trailhead.  As we headed on our way, we started out on a gently sloped gravel road.  However; as we have found, the thing that makes the trails so challenging here is they often go fairly straight up the peaks.  You do not have the highly maintained switchback trails that you find in the U.S.  Not long after starting, we were off trail hiking up the mountainside, picking blueberries as we went.  At one point we saw the spring that is the source of the Lepenci River as we continued to make our way to the peak.  The Lepenci goes east toward Kaçanik.  It was a hard climb, but the terrain is easier to navigate than Ljuboten.  

Flija making at a make shift bakery -- the lids are covered with coal to cook the flija

Making two pans of flija at once

A camper at the trailhead

Hiking to the peaks of Bistra was much more beautiful than the hike to the peak at Ljuboten.  It was green and lush all the way to the top.  We hiked up surrounded by beautiful lush mountain peaks and it was hard to tell which peak among the many was the tallest.  At the top, as we looked south we saw into North Macedonia and as we looked east beyond the peaks, we see Ljuboten.  We were truly walking among the peaks and it was beautiful and amazing.  We took a gentler trail back, but it was still very steep.  We saw the spring source of the Lumbardhi (White River) to the left us as we headed down the trail.  The Lumbardhi flows west to Prizrin.  It was a tiring hike (although we had many breaks along the way) and we finished around 5 pm and headed back to Kaçanik.  

As we neared the end, Enis (one of the hiking clubs leaders) told us that once we had done Ljuboten and Bistra, we could hike any peak in Kosovo as these were two of the hardest.

A new person that we met on the hike was the chief of police in Kaçanik and Ferizaj.  He said he often hikes with the Ferizaj hiking group.

I was just able to get a quick shower, before the water stopped for a couple of hours.  This was the second day, I had no tapped water to make dinner.  Fortunately, we had bottles of spring water.  I will be making dinner earlier and reheating for as long as this persist.

This ends another story of a great hike with the Kaçanik Hiking group.

Photos from our day of hiking

Picking berries as we go

With the youngest participant on the hike

A short break on the way up

Lepenci as we near it's source

The source of the Lepenci

The sun playing among the clouds

Prevalla in the distance

The final ascent to Bistra East

Prevalla below 

Wisconsin plates in Kaçanik...

It was a warm week in Kaçanik and after the big hike to Ljuboten, we didn't need to do any other long hikes.  We did manage the walk to Guri i Zi for dinner on Monday before Mathias left.  That is about 4 miles and was the perfect length.  We sat outside and enjoyed a nice dinner.  On Tuesday, Gjethi and the other NGO working on the anti-littering campaign met in Prishtina.  This gave Thom and Mathias the chance to spend the night and see a little of Prishtina.  Mathias left on Wednesday, back to rainy and cool Copenhagen.  It was nice having him visit and we definitely kept him busy.

When we came back to the apartment one afternoon, Mathias noticed this car with Wisconsin plates.  I am not sure why it was there, but Duli (the apartment manager) believes it belongs to someone from Ferizaj who has a restaurant there.  

A car with Wisconsin plates outside our apartment (Yes, in Kaçanik)

Might be diaspora -- not sure.

Sunset walking home from Guri i Zi

Ljuboten -- we were there

Wednesday was a cleaning day and a day to get some activities together for Thursday and Friday at the English Camp in Ferizaj.  This time, there were more kids and it was much hotter.  We still managed to have some fun, play some games, and hopefully learn some English.

Rainbow on Friday night from our apartment balcony

The moon peaking around a cloud -- taken from our balcony

Since the weather has been hotter, the water has been shutting off at night.  We are not sure if it has to do with the hot, dry weather or the returning diaspora.  There are definitely more people in Kaçanik and more to come next week we are told.  We have been walking to the spring more often to fill up our 2 liter bottles with spring water to drink.  

Dardan, the owner of our apartment, was back visiting and he stopped in.  We now have working cable (we think), plumbing fixed in the bathroom, and lights in the entry way of the apartment.

Saturday was a interesting day as Teuta invited us to coffee with her family and Dardan.  Annie walked in to Kaçanik and joined us for coffee.  Afterward, we went for lunch with Annie and at one point the Gjethi guys were thinking of meeting as well.  They were too busy, as were we.  We got calls from both of the kids.  And then we got a little rain, so the power went out for about 40 minutes.  Then the water stopped working.  Fortunately, we were able to walk to the spring for drinking water.  There were several groups ahead of us getting water as well.  

The water was only off for a couple of hours and we have learned to keep a big jug of water in the bathroom, for when the water shuts off.  So all was good!!! 

Waiting to get water at the spring