Since arriving in Kosovo, we have heard the word "hajde". My first memory of the use of the word was at the Besa Center in Kamenicë. I was looking for a backpack and the shop clerk said "Hajde" with a hand motion to follow her and I immediately understood the word. It means "come", "come on", "come follow", etc. When "shkojmë" (we go) is added, it means "let's go". On our hikes, when our break is over and it is time to walk again, we will hear "hajde shkojmë".
This past weekend the hiking group took a hiking trip to Kitka in North Macedonia and we went along. We met at 5:45 am and loaded into two cars. We didn't even make it out of Kaçanik and our car had a flat tire. It took only a short time to put on the spare and then hide the old tire under a bush (so the driver could pick it up later) and we were on our way again.
This was our first time leaving Kosovo since our arrival at the end of February. We enjoyed the ride through Skopje to the village and the hiking trail. We saw many crosses and churches in Skopje. I later found out that Eastern Orthodox is the predominant religion in North Macedonia not Muslim as in Kosovo. They use the Cyrillic alphabet, but most of signs in Skopje were in English.
When we arrived at the meeting point, there were other hiking clubs there to greet us. It was a nice fall day, and the hike took us to an abandoned hotel and a group of small villas. As we walked the trail, we ate thona berries (cornelian cherries), plums, and a few blackberries. I like hiking with the group from Skopje, because there are more women in their group.
Two dogs see us off
Same building, different angle
Kitka on the side of the hotel
Abandoned villas
Group photo at Kitka
Smoke from a village on our way back
When we got to the hotel and villas, we ate lunch at the picnic tables scattered around the area. After lunch, several people from the Skopje club made Turkish coffee and shared it with the whole group. We relaxed for a while and then headed back down. It started sprinkling on our way down and the trail became slippery. But although a few people did slip and fall, we all made it back safely.
We stopped for coffee at a little open air cafe not far from where we hiked. It was interesting because the cafe was under a little shelter and they served the coffee from a little camping trailer. The side of the trailer was painted in a mural of a mountain scene with a river flowing through it. There was an eclectic collection of objects around the cafe and it was very entertaining.
Monday, two guys (Lek and Jose) from the U.S. EPA were in Kaçanik for the day. They came down in the morning from Prishtina with one of the Peace Corps staff. They were in Albanian last week and Kosovo this week. The EPA came, because of the new Peace Corps initiative regarding the environment. Gjethi and CEDE (Thom's group and another volunteer's group) were in charge of the agenda for the day. Shortly after they arrived, we went to the municipal building to meet the mayor and he talked briefly about trash management and other improvements in Kaçanik. Then we headed to Handikos (another non-profit) to use their conference room. CEDE presented about the environmental work they do. Their biggest project was identifying and closing down illegal dumping sites. Gjethi presented the work that they do and then Jose and Lek asked a few questions to both groups.
After that, we had lunch at Guri i Zi. We stopped at a dump site on the way to Guri i Zi to show Jose and Lek. This site was for clean construction waste, but there is illegal dumping there of other types of waste. We had a pleasant lunch at Guri i Zi and then we went back to Handikos where Thom and Matt presented their anti-litter awareness campaign. Lek and Jose liked their idea and made some good suggestions.
The last part of the day involved a short drive to Ferizaj to the Reks plastic recycling facility. This was really interesting as we got to see the process by which this facility takes used commercial wrap and plastic bags and recycles them into pellets. These pellets are sold to companies to make plastic bags. It was interesting to see how this company is keeping this type of plastic out of landfills.
Photos from Reks
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