Kosovo Trip

23-25 Sep James travelled to the new country of Kosovo. It is N of Albania, SE of Serbia and W of Macedonia. He travelled with his boss and he got to spend 4 hours of quality time with his boss in theVienna airport...............yeah. Fortunately, his boss is a great guy so it was spent working and ummmmm eating!!!!!!!! We traveled to the Pristina International Airport if you can call it that. Very small only a max of 2 planes on the ground at one time. The difference I saw between Kosovo and the rest of Europe was all the villages looked poor and empty - No flowers, no curtains, no shutters - just black inside the windows. We arrived and drove the 45 minutes to the American Base there. The roads were awful. The drive was educational and sad. The country has 60% unemployment. The ethnic makeup is approx 80% ethnic Albanians and 20 % others. The native language is Albanian. The religious make-up is 92% Muslim, 5% Eastern Orthodox and 3% Catholic. The Muslims are leftovers form the days of the Ottoman Empire where they were forced to covert or die. You would never guess they were Muslim by their dress, actions or anything else. most are not practicing Muslims either. There are Zagot Menorites/Mosques in every town - really looks out of place. The place is very poor. Many broken down cars in lots used for scrap or parts. Power goes on for about 3-4 hrs then off for 3-4 hours. Two main reasons - the power grid cannot handle the increased need for power and people cannot pay the power bills. The Serbs that controlled the area did not improve it much because of the Muslim population. They don't have enough schools and teachers so the kids go to school in two shifts a day. It will take alot of industry to go into Kosovo and get people employed before they can raise the taxes to imrprove the infrastructure. Organized crime and drugs are big problems there. They have alot of Kosovars working on the American base making $4-5 an hour. Not much but it is the labor rate for there and they are thankful for the job. All the people I talked to stated that the workers are very good and efficient. Those that speak English learned it on their own from TV or radio. The US Army also employes about 250 translators for different languages because they ahve a multinational unit there with Ukraine, Polish, German, Belgium, Hungarian soldiers. It is really a unigue mission there on engaging the population and working to make a difference and keep the peace. Store Front in small town small town - notice the kids "playing" Middle of main town in the area