On Monday November 4th, we had our first chance to show visitors from the USA around Kaçanik. Some of you in District 6250 Rotary Youth Exchange, may know of the Neader family as all three of their children did exchanges. Their older two children, Cameron and Ashlyn, exchanged twice, while Macy was in Taiwan during the Covid spring. She finished her exchange through the summer, as Taiwan did fairly well during that time period and she was safer in Taiwan. The Neaders were in Kaçanik on the last day of a trip around the Balkans and had to pass through Kaçanik to get back to the airport in Belgrade (and that is a story for another time). Ashlyn was also with them as she now lives in Vienna, Austria, and had flown to meet her parents for the end of their trip. It was fun to show them our community and to take an impromptu tour of my school. They stayed at a nearby Bed 'n Breakfast (Hangjik) and arrived at about 1:30 pm. We showed them around and then we did the Kosovar thing and went to a coffee shop to warm up and visit.
So with our trip to Istanbul, visitors from the USA on Monday, and a Tuesday afternoon in Prishtina for a Peace Corps / US Embassy event; I was looking forward to a fairly quiet weekend. The hiking trip was to Skopje and when we leave Kosovo for non-medical reasons, we have to use a day of vacation. This we did not want to do, so we opted out of the hike.
Since the weather forecast for Saturday, was sunny, but cool; the guys from Thom's organization decided it would be a good day to paint picnic tables that they had placed some years ago along the hiking trail to Ljuboten Peak. We met the guys at 9:30 am and headed to Dubrava, where there was a guy with a 4-wheel drive vehicle to take us up the gravel and dirt roads to the picnic tables. We met him at 10 am and were on our way to paint tables shortly after. This guy goes up to Ljuboten quite often and was willing to give us all a ride along with the materials we needed to paint and fix the tables.
We took the short drive from Dubrava to the gravel and dirt road that would lead to the picnic tables. This first part of the road is used by many people that drive up to villas and the picnic areas near the peak. It was decided that we would start at the farthest picnic area first. As we started up a particularly steep part of the road, the guy shifted into lower gear and the vehicle stalled. Then we started rolling backward, picking up speed as we were rolling down the hill. The guy turned the vehicle against the slope to slow it down as the brakes were not working and this caused the vehicle to roll. So yes, we were in a rollover crash in a remote area of Kosovo on Saturday. Fortunately, we all were able to climb out of the vehicle which landed on its side.
So once we extracted our most important belongings, we did the Kosovar thing and had coffee. Thom and I had brought thermoses of coffee and that seemed like the best thing to do in the moment. After having coffee, Thom contacted the Peace Corps and our driver contacted his friend, who made it to us first. They righted the vehicle and then one of the guys (a mechanic) drove the busted-up vehicle with no brakes (using only the hand brakes) down the mountain to the main road. Crazy!!
The Peace Corps was great. As we did not want to get in another vehicle to drive down, we started walking. About halfway down the dirt and gravel road (where the grade was much less steep), the Peace Corps driver (Arsim) met up with us in a 4-wheel drive vehicle to take us back to Kaçanik. We had only a few minutes to grab an overnight bag and our passports as the Peace Corps medical officer (Mimi) from Skopje was coming to get us with a driver to take us to be checked out in a hospital in Skopje. Right now, we share medical officers between Kosovo and North Macedonia Peace Corps and Skopje was more convenient.
At the hospital, we were checked well and had full body scans. We were both fine, although Thom has a very slightly fractured rib. Once we were released from the hospital at about 9 pm, we went to the very, nice hotel that was arranged for us. We got checked in and found a nice Mexican restaurant for dinner. On Sunday, we were sore, but we did not feel too bad. We took a self-guided tour of Skopje. It is a very nice city and we enjoyed our stay.
I returned to Kaçanik on Monday, so that I could be in school on Monday afternoon and Tuesday. Thom stayed through Tuesday as he was already scheduled to be in Skopje for his flu and Covid vaccines and for a pre-scheduled appointment. We were impressed with how well Peace Corps took care of us after our mishap, but I hope we never have to test the system again.
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