Sister City...

The municipality of Kaçanik has a sister city agreement with the municipality of Moosseedorf, Switzerland.  The relationship is in part due to Remzi having lived in Switzerland for 40 years.  Four representatives from Switzerland were visiting Kaçanik this week.  Gjethi did a presentation for the group at the Cultural House and Thom and I were invited to be at the presentation.   The presentation was in the House of Hope in the lowest level of the Cultural House.  The House of Hope provides language and other classes for people of all ages.  The group has remodeled the area and it was really quite nice.  

Sister city of Moosseedorf near Bern, Switzerland

The Group Photo at the Cultural House - House of Hope

Valon presenting to the group while Sami translate

After the presentation, we were invited to a special evening event and dinner with the group.  The group had a tour of the vocational school first, so we went to have coffee with Valon while we waited.  I didn't know for sure what was going on for the evening, but as is so often the case I was pleasantly surprised.

We had coffee at the Balkan Petrol somewhere between Kaçanik and Ferizaj.  Yes, it is a gas station, but as is often the case, the gas stations here have restaurants / bars / cafes.  These establishments frequently have the best coffee around.

After coffee, we headed back to the Cultural Center where we were treated to local musicians and dancers performing traditional music and dances.  There is a theater in the Cultural Center and it was our first time to see a performance there.  It was a really nice show.

Then we headed to the Restaurant Lipenci for dinner with the Swiss visitors, the guys from Gjethi, Fatima from Handikos, and several people from the municipality.  It was a wonderful night of interesting conversation with Nora (a young lady originally from Kaçanik).  Nora lives in Prishtina now but does work for the municipality.  She got her masters in Vienna and speaks English, Albanian, and German.  She often spoke all three languages during dinner as there was no common language among us.  Dinner went on until after 10 pm with lively conversations enjoyed by all.

Photos of the traditional dance and music