He's not from Kosovo...

Friday evening, Valon offered to show us the route of an annual bike ride that will take place in September.  The bike ride starts in Kaçanik and out to where there is a swimming area on the Lepenci River.  There is a restaurant along the river called the Lepenci Restaurant.  Gjethi sponsors the biking event to encourage biking, but the lack of biking lanes still hinders the ability to bike in this area.  It was a nice evening as Valon showed us the swimming spot and we ate dinner at the restaurant while listening to the babble of the Lepenci River.

It is a beautiful spot along the Lepenci River

Parking 2 euro and a table is 1 euro, and the landowner keeps it fairly clean

Picnic area among the trees, this is the turnaround point for the bike ride

The bike route for the bike ride

Trash along the swimming area

Playground and picnic area

Outdoor eating area at Lepenci Restaurant

Sheltered eating area along the river

Small group eating area, way to be on display if you eat there

Outdoor eating area and playground in the back

We had no plans in the morning on Saturday, but I am always out of vegetables, so we headed out for vegetables and coffee.  As we were on our way to Të Dadini's, I pointed out a guy I saw walking in the park across from the fortress wall.  I told Thom that he was not from here (Kaçanik or Kosovo), because he went out of his way to find a trash can to throw something away and he had a reusable water bottle.  When we got to Të Dadini's, we saw a bike with panniers and a tent strapped on it.  Sure enough, it was the guy's bike and Thom started talking with him while I finished shopping. 

His name was Andrew and he is from Australia.  He is biking around the Balkans and was in Skopje with an extra couple of days and decided to bike from Skopje to Brezavicë.  Brezavicë is the ski area that is in the Sharr Mountains about 30 miles from here.  Thom offered to buy him coffee or whatever and we headed to a nearby kafe and we sat and talked for a bit.  Interestingly, Andrew works for an environmental ngo in Australia that is working on preserving natural areas by purchasing them.  He works virtually 3 or 4 days a week and is biking around Europe the rest of the time.   There were several things that Andrew commented on that are worth noting:  1)  that people are super friendly in the Balkans  2)  the trash problems are shared by other Balkan countries and 3) social currency is real and important.  He explained that sitting down and having a two-hour coffee creates bonds and enhances relationships and that is the value of saying  "yes" to "do you want to have coffee".

We were going to hike with the hiking group on Sunday, but the trip was canceled as a friend of the group died several days ago and they were going to pay their respect on Sunday.  

The sky on an evening walk

Beautiful sunsets over Kaçanik

My lemon tree, green lemons about the size of small limes

Cows wandering along the river in the city

Two cows by the unfinished bridge

His eyes say "Stay away"

Thom didn't get the message until his horns said "Stay away"

Elementary school on the hillside and cows grazing in the foreground

Mr. Horns is wandering through the construction site

My praying mantis visitor when I was cleaning the balcony 

Cool Down and Some Rain...

Last week it was still in the 90s and very dry.  The guys from Gjethi were worried about the cherries trees and if they would survive the lack of rain.  This past weekend it started raining and it is now in the 80s.  Of course it is humid as well, but hopefully this has happened soon enough for the trees.  Early last week, there was not much going on.  Thom is busy working on the litter awareness campaign that he is involved in, but I am not very busy. 

Thursday, I attended a workshop by another non-profit and Gjethi with the purpose of educating a group of citizens in social auditing for projects in Kaçanik.  The workshop works to give citizens the means by which to be involved in the decision-making process and the accountability for public projects done in their communities.  It was interesting and I learned a lot about the rights and responsibilities of the people and municipalities of Kosovo.  And because it seems as if some projects never get completely finished or they take forever to be finished, this is a much needed civic duty.  This workshop as are many of the activities we attend, was held at Uda Restaurant, which is a really nice restaurant just north of Kaçanik in Doganaj.  Uda was the first restaurant that Remsi took us to when we first visited Kaçanik.

At the workshop inside Uda

Outdoor eating area at Uda

Shaded outdoor eating area

On Friday, after out language lessons with Shpresim, we headed to Podujeve (see the map below), for the KOS 7 send off party.  KOS 7 came in the Fall of 2022 and most are leaving starting as early as this week, while others are leaving in October.  Cat, one of KOS 7, has signed on for 6 more months.  Nancy, one of the KOS 7 volunteers, lives in a house in Podujeve and hosted the party.  It is a diaspora house and the family that owns it lives in Ireland.  Nancy has lived in the house by herself in a pretty small village, and while the house was nice and roomy, and has no issues with water, I would not want to be in such a small village.

Nancy was the first volunteer that we met in Kosovo as she was at the Hotel Amazona during our first week in Kosovo.  She has way more energy that anyone you can imagine and she is definitely unforgettable and I am sure she will be really missed as will the other volunteers.

It was a pretty big group and we enjoyed a taco bar and weird array of side dishes such as potato salad, mixed vegetables, and cucumber salad.  I was amazed to see the ingredients that people found and brought, but most were snagged in Prishtina on their way to the party. It was nice to get away to the quiet countryside, until three of the guys got sick during the night.  They thought it was food poisoning, but it was probably a stomach flu.  These guys had met the night before at Noah's place in Ferizaj and probably spread it there.   By Sunday, several others had it, including me.  It has taken me several days to shake it, but I doing good again and I can finally eat.

The UÇK Memorial in Podujeve

The Coca-cola and Santa pictures on a building on the way to Nancy's

KOS 7 (four were missing) and seven of the group did not make 2 years

We were supposed to go to a lake on Saturday morning, but it took a long time for some people to get moving and by the time we were going to go, some of us felt it would be too late for us to spend much time at the lake.  The next bus wasn't until 1 pm and others agreed, so a group of us decided to head back to Prishtina for the afternoon.  Thom contacted a couple (Gent and Jeta) that he met at an environmental workshop to see if we could meet for lunch.  We had tried to meet up with them before and had not worked out, but they were available today and we decided to meet for lunch with them at Baba Ghanoush which is a restaurant that serves vegan specialties like falafel, hummus, buddha bowls, etc.  I've eaten there twice and I really like it.  Jeta is also vegan, so we already have that in common.  While we were waiting for the couple, two more KOS 7 volunteers showed up at Baba Ghanoush, Annie and Joe. (Kosovo is a really small country) Annie was the volunteer that lived near us, but she is getting ready to leave soon to start a master program in the Fall.  Joe will not be leaving until October.  They were on their way to the lake to meet Nancy and those who went to the lake.  They plan to spend the night at Nancy's.  Annie and Joe joined us until the couple arrived and then left for the lake.

Jeta and Gent are an interesting couple, kind of modern day hippies.  Jeta is the chief executive officer for a climate technology company called habitat.  Gent is working on an app called 360 to create awareness and a community for sustainability.  Gent's dad is the founder of "Let's Do It Peja", which I wrote about in an earlier blog.  This is an environmental group in Peja that was also part of the river quality meeting that I sat in on several weeks ago.  Let's Do It Peja has a thrift store and makes bags out of discarded textiles.  They are also looking at making textile bricks.  I really enjoyed lunch and then coffee with this amazing couple. 

After lunch, we headed back to Kaçanik and it's been a pretty slow week for me as the stomach flu symptoms started Sunday night.  The good news, the weather is cooler, there rain, and the river doesn't smell like Ferizaj at least right now.  

The view as I walked from the grocery last week

The trash accumulating behind the city center

Hard to tell -- but that's a chair or love seat dump by the railroad tracks

A horse and a mule roaming in one of the city parks

A Week or So in Review...

The lack of water continues to be an issue in Kaçanik.  We did have a couple of nights of rain in the mountains and it was a little better for a few days, but the lack of rain and the increased population from the diaspora, means that we are randomly without water several times a day.  The water is always off between midnight and 6 am.

On Sunday, August 4, we walked to Guri i Shpum Restaurant for lunch and it is indeed opened.  It is a really beautiful spot and it was cool and comfortable sitting in the shade.  I love their space, but we will wait to see if the food gets better over time.  The outdoor seating is surrounded by rosemary, sage, and other herbs and flowers.  

We also walked to were the collection of trash and bottles has piled up alongside a bridge.  The bridge has fallen tree branches underneath blocking passage of the debris and along with the low river water a huge pile of trash continues to collect.

Most of the pile is empty water bottles thrown or washed into the river

Another view of the pile of trash

I spent Monday and Tuesday morning in Ferizaj at the English Language Camp and that went pretty well.  There were less students this time, but there was still the big age gap to deal with.  I tried a few different games and they seemed to really like games that I created with lots of pictures (especially the younger students).  I did a game of "Stand Up, Sit Down", where students stood up when the agreed with a statement and sat down when they didn't.  Having pictures in a PowerPoint for the younger kids along with the words for older kids, really helped.  We also did a picture version of Four Corners.  Students would pick a corner based on which ever of 4 related objects they liked the best such as baseball, soccer, basketball, or volleyball.  We did some relay races and the beach ball game.  For the beach game, I write a different questions in each of the balls colored sections.  We stand in a circle and toss the ball.  Which ever color the students right hand lands in, that is the question they must answer.  All four of the groups liked this game.  I have been using whiteboard markers to make the questions and then I can erase and change the questions for the next day.

English Camp -- Spoon and Bean Relay

I didn't have a lot to do for the rest of the week, so I started working on some rock art that I am doing.  I found some acrylic paints in Prizren and rocks make a good canvas and are easy to find laying around.

My first few attempts at rock painting

The week before last I had coffee with a teacher, Mirvetë, from school.  I really enjoyed talking with her.  She has had a busy summer of family visiting from abroad.  She said she thinks there may be some teacher work days, before school starts in September and she will let me know when they are.  

It continues to be pretty noisy around here as weddings are any day of the week.  With weddings, you get honking horns, loud music (until midnight) every day for four or five days, and fireworks.  The weather is very comfortable at night, so people stay up late and the kids play in the street until 11 pm or midnight.

Fireworks on Sunday night, probably from a wedding

August 10th is Martyrs Day in Kaçanik and this year is the 25th year since three fallen martyrs died heroically in a nearby village.  One was Besnik Begunca, who was freedom fighter from Kaçanik and was also a good soccer player.  His nickname was Fikshat and the soccer team in Kaçanik is called the Ultris Fikshat.  A mural was painted along the train tracks over the last two weeks in honor of Besnik (Fikshat).   Saturday, people met in the square to honor Besnik and other fallen martyrs.  They wore t-shirt with 25 years Fikshat and walked around to the various parts of the city where the fallen are remember and had a moment of silence.  Some had a banner that they carry around.  Around 11 pm, the Fikshat supporters lit flares throughout the streets of Kaçanik all at the same time.  It gave the streets an eery red glow and we could see them on the hillside facing our apartment.

Some painters working on the mural

Part of the mural design

The mural is big and it is hard to get a photo of the whole thing

At the square Saturday Night

A group in the middle wear black t-shirts, waving flags, and shouting chants

Fikshat banner

Flares on the street not far from our apartment

Street view taken from our apartment balcony

The street right below our apartment

The intersection down from our Apartment

Sunday morning, we left with the Kaçanik hiking group at 7 am for a hike to Konjusha Lake and Konjusha Peak.  We arrived in Prevallë to start the hike at around 8:15 am and we notice smoke from fires in the forest above Prevallë.  Fortunately, the fires are on the mountain peaks opposite where we are hiking.  Ekrem from the hiking groups told us that they had crews working to control the fire, but we could tell it was worse by the end of the day.  Occasionally, the smoke made it to where we were hiking and my throat became very irritated, but mostly the smoke was going straight up.

Morning picture of the fire near Prevallë

Smoke from the fires as we left for our hike

As we walk back, there is more smoke than this morning

The fire is definitely spreading

It was another beautiful hike starting off at the same point as the hike to Bistra.  This time we hike a trail that went west of Bistra and towards the spring that feeds the Lumbardhë River in Prizren.  It was beautiful day and cool when we hiked although the sun is still really strong and warm.  It is much dryer than it was on our last hike here and it is easy to see that there has been little rain on the peaks.  The blueberries were plentiful and very good.  I even found a few red raspberries on the hike down.  We had some young people on the hike.  One was visiting from Germany where she moved after finishing nursing school.  She is from Kaçanik and the other four young people were her cousins.  The youngest was still in high school.  Another one just finished a graphic design program and is taking a break before looking for a job.  While another one is working on German language with the plan to move to Germany and go to a university there.  Three of them stayed by the lake and did not hike to the peak.  Enis stayed back at the lake with them and the rest of us hike to the peaks.  We were once again on a peak that borders North Macedonia and we could see peak after peak in almost any direction.  

First group picture of the day

At our first stopping point on the hike -- coffee time

A rock scramble along the way

Refilling water bottles at spring fed stream

The spring fed stream is oasis of green

Picking and eating blueberries along the way

Along the trail on the way up -- photos are a chance to catch your breath

Konjusha Lake drying up 

Our group in front of Lake Konjusha

Another pic in front of Lake Konjusha

To the peak

Looking back where we came from

Photo at the second peak (maybe Guzhbaba peak)

At the Konjusha Peak with our flags and the USA Kosovo Flag

Rock cairn on Konjusha Peak

Konjusha Peak with the nurse that lives in Germany

After lunch break

Heading down the trail 

Another spring fed stream

It was another great day for a hike, but it was tiring and we enjoyed relaxing at home in the evening while watching the closing ceremony of the 2024 Olympics.

A few more photos from the week

On a walk from the grocery, I saw this remote control jeep in the river

Thom's new friends

He is telling them to stay, but they don't listen

Pups on the railroad tracks, don't worry the trains not working

Interesting hodgepodge of electrical lines I notice while waiting for my ride to Ferizaj

They are removing the train tunnel

This was the tunnel before

The corn stand

Corn, cucumber, tomato salad from leftover corn on the cob

A pretty good homemade black bean burger

Beautiful sky photos the night it was raining in the mountains