Kosovo Refugee

I just had a very eye-opening conversation with one of my co-workers, “Lily.”  Lily grew up in Kosovo and was deported to Macedonia during the war in 1998 and moved to the U.S. in 1999 through a U.S. government program. She still lives here but goes back to visit every year- she gets incredibly homesick for her country.

I must say, it is one thing to read all about the Kosovo War on PBS.org but quite another to meet and talk to someone who survived such conflict firsthand.  

When Lily talks about Kosovo, I witness such pride in her Albanian roots and nationality. She wishes that Kosovo were a part of Albania but is glad they are not a part of Serbia (even if Serbia does not recognize this fact). She says now it is safe and there is no visible conflict, but day-to-day interactions can still be awkward. Albanians very much stick to their areas; as a result she has never really traveled anywhere else in the Balkans besides Kosovo and Albania. Just the other day on vacation in the Smoky Mountains, Lily met a young Serbian woman who was renting her cabins. When she found out that Lily was Albanian, she immediately grew red and looked embarrassed. The brutality inflicted upon Kosovo was only 15 years ago- people still remember.

Having lived through experiences like Lily did made her stronger, she says. She is a lot more focused on the big picture and understanding tough decisions need to be made.  Whether or not it was good that the UN stuck to purely aerial conflict is up for debate. Because the Serbians were aware they were going to get bombed out of Kosovo in a short amount of time, they took advantage of that time to make a sort of last-ditch effort that included even worse brutality and mass killings than they had been doing up to that point. Since they knew they were going to lose it all anyway, they killed with reckless abandon. This really bothers Lily, but she also recognizes that if we had sent in ground troops, the battle would have probably been a lot longer and might have ultimately ended up in more deaths. She is glad the conflict was resolved quickly but saddened at the price Kosovo had to pay.

One thing that bothers Lily is how all of the rich ancient history associated with the Balkans gets completely lost in light of the last 100 years with conflict and socialism. She feels that all of the recent history overshadows the deep cultural significance of her home country. Her name, for instance, was the name of the Illyerian queen in 280 B.C.!! ! If you ever travel to Albania, she recommends spending time on their beautiful beaches (mountains in the background) and exploring Durres, a modern city with a huge ancient structure in the center.

Advice from Lily includes: Given our intervention in the Kosovo War, people in Serbia may not be so thrilled about Americans, so don’t necessarily broadcast that you are proud to be an American in Belgrade. In general, however, the Balkans are quickly Westernizing and are embracing tourism- it is still such a novelty that they are not sick of tourists just yet, as people in Italy or Paris probably are. Also when in Sarajevo be sure to try the Burek (meat/cheese/spinach pie) with plain yogurt. She says that there is such great variety in food in the Balkans and there are a lot of foods that we have here but taste so much different (better!) over there because of where the ingredients are sourced. Will I be sampling Balkan pizza? You bet.

I am so glad I was able to hear such a unique perspective firsthand before our trip to Lily’s side of the world. Her testament is beautiful, and she left me with some simple but wise words: “Not all Serbians are bad.” After experiencing such tragedy in her life, she courageously developed this mindset that yes, what happened 15 years ago was awful, but she shouldn’t hate an entire people as a result.