Getting bitten by the travel bug happened to me in a place I would not have dreamt of travelling to at all – Kosovo, in the former Yugoslavia during April, 2001. Why I ended up in a war-torn, United Nations soldier/peacekeeper-infested area (all 45,000 of them) as my first venture outside of Australasia is beyond me. But I loved every single second of it. I was working for an international firm, mainly on environmental management projects. A colleague in our UK office asked me if I was interested in working with her and a couple of other silly punters in the ravaged Balkan region. I thought to myself, ‘Why not?’ it sounded like a great experience to throw myself into one of the world’s hot spots. Within three weeks, I had been informed that I was leaving the haven of Australia , my comfortable place on the couch, for the unknown of a rubbled Kosovo that was under United Nations administration. Whilst it is a place that most people know about for the wrong reasons, its publicity factor punches well above its weight division for a piece of real estate only 150 kilometres long by 150 kilometres wide. My first image of Kosovo occurred when the Austrian Airlines flight from Vienna penetrated snow-bearing clouds to reveal a pure white landscape dotted with the burnt-out shells of crumbling brick houses. The arrival at the Kosovar capital, Pristina, was also eventful as it seemed to be the social highlight of the day judging by the hordes of dark-haired, leather jacket-laden Albanian men welcoming home relatives from somewhere not here. After having my passport checked by an UNMIK (United Nations Mission in Kosovo) soldier, I braved the crowded luggage carousel and searched for my handwritten name somewhere in the airport car park. A local Albanian man, Ali, was arranged to meet me and take my travel-hammered body to our accommodation in the city. He was hired as our guide and to provide us the word on the street. He was a small, dweeby guy, in his early twenties, with short jet black hair, coke-bottle glasses and brown gunky teeth that were revealed to me when he cheerfully said, ‘Hello Anthony, welcome to Kosovo.’ He bundled my gear and I bundled my severely 24-hour jetlagged body into the green four-wheel-drive for the scenic tour to Pristina. Ali drove me to a company-rented house in central Pristina, a city that had been blessed with the excesses of Soviet-style Communist Bloc apartments sprouting mushroom-looking satellite dishes. My first day was fairly uneventful as I tried to catch up on some much needed rest, as well as meeting with the Project Manager that night for dinner. ‘You’re going to work with both Serbian and Albanian people in the villages of Gracanica and Kisnica, just south of Pristina,’ she informed me. The project involved a contamination assessment from an extremely dodgy tailings dam [1] (sic dump!), a legacy of 40 years of lead and zinc mining during the Communist Era. Environmental management was not exactly a red-hot topic in Communist Bloc countries during those glorious Stalinist days, and based on my observations of the place, there were enormous environmental and social consequences because of it. This tailings dump had been strategically placed next to the Gracanica River , a couple hundred metres away from the two villages. This dump was acidic, so nothing could grow in it. The rain falling on the dump (or at that moment in time, the snow melt), caused the subsequent acidic leachate to piss into the Gracanica River, which eventually flowed through Gracanica and turned the waters where proud people used to swim and fish into fluorescent orange for a distance of almost 20 kilometres. During summer, the dump would become so dry that the wind would pick up the heavy metal laden dust and dump it on the houses. Some of the housewives disapproved of the dump because it would make their washing dirty, severely testing the claims of their washing powders, but others found some limited novelty in writing their name in the dust that speckled on their windows. The locals nicknamed the tailings dump ‘Jaloviste’ (pronounced ‘Yellow-vitch’) which roughly translated into English means ‘barren’ or ‘infertile’. Jaloviste looked like a 50-hectare plateau of yellow-orange quicksand set amongst the toy-looking houses of Gracanica and Kisnica. My mission was to help conduct an environmental monitoring program for water, food and soil with a South African-turned-Pommy bloke called Ryan. We were usually accompanied by translators and local people from both Serb and Albanian communities, to collect samples that would be sent back to the United Kingdom for analysis. At the time, Ryan was in his early twenties and I am certain he was stoked that he was outside of Pommy Land for work – it was his wish that the UK should not be his domicile and he desired to journey south of the equator again – forever. One of the locals we worked with was a Serbian man called Cedomir, or Cedda for short (unfortunately, pronounced like the cheese, ‘Cheddar’). Cedda was a former engineer, which unlike most of my engineer friends who are socially inept, was a hospitable, well-mannered bloke with a great sense of humour, considering his chaotic surroundings. He was the conduit between us and the local Serbian community which made our jobs considerably easier. I think he was also happy to receive some German Deutschmarks, the now default local currency, for his services – he was lucky compared to the majority of inhabitants in post-war Kosovo, as most people in Gracanica did not have a job. Whilst Australian Prime Ministers start talking about banana republics if our unemployment rate rises above five percent, a major achievement in Gracanica would be to have the employment rate reach five per cent – the ‘official’ rate. Cedda spoke some broken English and when combined with my genetically-inherited Italian sign language, we managed to communicate with each other somewhat effectively. The first words in English I heard Cedda speak were ‘clus…ter…bomb.’ Yes, two words that when placed together instantly grabbed my attention. That was an abrupt, but highly informative, way of telling us that this was quite the no-go area for our environmental sampling program… His life seemed dreadfully surreal to me. He had a wife with two young children under 10 – a boy and a girl, and lived in a picturesque brick house with a small vegetable patch trapped in the Serb enclave within Gracanica. His father and mother lived nearby and visited often, as there was not much else to do in Kosovo besides travel under armed guard to another Serb enclave. Cedda’s father was a lively character who insisted on visiting me in Australia at some point in the future (or he said something like that to me in Serbian) and did not mind a drink. He always wore a black cap that seemed permanently affixed to his white-haired head. Cedda’s mother, who I only met once during my time in Kosovo, was gentle-natured and quiet. She reminded me of my own grandmother who shuffled around the place. As with most elderly Serbian women in the area, her grey hair was covered by a colourful floral scarf. I felt sorry for Cedda because he could not move out of his Serbian enclave unless he caught a bus to another claustrophobic Serbian enclave, and was accompanied by an ‘armed escort’. I did not understand the significance of what an armed escort was until I witnessed one. When I did, it was unlike anything I had seen in my life before or since. His world was a prison compared to mine where I was able to move around freely without the fear of being blown up. An armed escort consisted of the following menagerie: two six-wheeled tanks at the front with armed U.N. soldiers on sitting on top of them, two large U.N. buses containing Serbs in the middle and another two six-wheeled tanks at the back, with more armed soldiers. However, this fortress-like escort was no guarantee they would arrive at their destination safely, thanks to the invention of high-powered grenade launchers. After seeing this heart-rending event for the first time, I was in culture shock for days afterwards. My tongue had also obtained gravel rash from scraping the ground. In between assessing the social status of the town, our sampling program would involve visiting around 10 to 20 households a day with Cedda in the Serbian area, but this was dependent on nothing happening between the demarcated Serb and Albanian sections – something not always guaranteed. A typical visit to a household would involve Cedda introducing himself and us token Antipodeans, trying to convince the residents that these foreign people wearing genuine United Nations dog-tags around their neck were really cool and were here to help. The same would happen in the Albanian area with Bakir, an Albanian local who could barely speak English but insisted on translating even though our Croatian translator, who could speak both Serb and Albanian, was more adept. Bakir lived with his wife and grandmother in a run-down house, and had a framed picture of President Bill Clinton in his living room. Bill Clinton photographs were hot property for Albanian Kosovars, as Mr President had played a major part in the decision to oust Slobodan Milosevic’s forces. Bakir would often serve us sludgy Turkish coffee after a long day of translating and sampling, and his grandmother would offer us sweets to complement our coffee-encrusted teeth. During these soil-and-water sampling days, Ryan and I talked to the owners via the translator, explaining that we were conducting a contamination assessment. Since I was the token Australian in the group, I answered questions on what life was like back home, and if there really were kangaroos jumping loose in suburban streets. Sometimes, we were all offered a cup of the Turkish coffee sludge to commence the environmental sampling festivities. However, visiting the numerous households would present itself to another problem that we had miserably failed to take account of – Rakija. Rakija is a home-made rocket fuel-like spirit that is thinly disguised as a drinkable alcohol – it reaches the methylated spirits end of the alcohol spectrum. One can feel their entire body warm up from the inside out after only one shot of the lethal stuff. I am sure I sensed it strip an essential layer of lipids from my stomach lining. Rakija is distilled from fermented plums and surely must be the staple diet of many Kosovars. Because both Kosovar Albanians and Serbs are hospitable people, this head-exploding liquid was offered to us every time we obtained a water or soil sample from a property. Twenty hits of Rakija from 20 properties and I was certain that I would become an unwitting casualty of war. I imagined my Rakija-pickled body being flown home to Brisbane via Qantas Coffin Class, complete with the mandatory draped Australian flag that falsely indicated my outstanding services for the country. How would the Prime Minister explain this sad state of affairs to my grieving family and friends? By saying that I was simply doing my duty? Archaeologists in 2,000 years time would have remarked at the excellent condition of my preserved corpse if I had accepted every Rakija shot offered to me. This was one of the first cultural issues I had to negotiate, but, with the help of Ryan, we somehow mastered the art of declining their offers politely by using the somewhat feeble/feasible excuse that we were working. I still possess a sacred bottle of Rakija that I purchased from the local Serbian Orthodox Monastery in Gracanica. Not surprisingly, it still has the urine coloured Rakija contained within it. The bottle screams character because the Rakija is contained within an old wine bottle that had the bottom cut off to have a wooden cross inserted and then the piece of glass glued back on again. The crucifix (devoid of a Jesus) floats around in the Rakija and there is a faded photo of the monastery stuck on the bottle which boldly states where this bottle originates. This bottle gives the term ‘home brew’ a whole new meaning. I have been cursed by many friends and work colleagues for introducing them to the ‘joys’ of drinking Rakija – I have heard the term ‘never again’ because of it. Amongst the attempts of dodging Rakija offers, if we were moving between Serb and Albanian areas, we had to stop at checkpoints manned by U.N. soldiers and depending on the tensions of the day, we were either let through without disruption or stopped to have our bodies and the car searched for potential explosive devices. The Gracanica area was patrolled by Swebat , or the Swedish U.N. soldiers. I wondered if the Swedish Chef cooked for them in their mess and I imagined my all time favourite Muppet character with enclosed eyes, bushy eyebrows and a large chef’s hat dressed up in army greens screaming ‘bork bork bork’ and talking gibberish whilst throwing around his bent utensils, but this somewhat wacky theory, sourced from my childhood, was quickly put to rest once I fixed my eyes on the soldier’s rather large machine guns. Their forlorn faces and upright stance meant they were in no mood for mucking around. What used to change the colour of my underpants were the times that Swebat detonated unexploded cluster bombs used in the NATO bombings in one of the nearby mining pits that used to support the Gracanica economy. The low frequency (but loud sounding) detonations used to make my skin crawl when I was out in the field with Ryan. The usually quiet rural setting would be interrupted by a single thunderclap of noise before returning to the country quietness again. But after a while, these explosions felt normal and I accepted the regular booms as part of everyday life in Gracanica. Just for fun, I checked out the night life in Pristina with Ryan and Ali on our days off. I endured many reality checks of my location as many beefcake bouncers searched us for weapons before entering a typical Communist Bloc former public building that had been transformed into the hippest place in town. Not even our U.N. dog tags would spare us this procedure. This was where young Albanians would escape their daily grind of thinking what lay ahead for their unclear future. We would also sometimes visit the secure compound that housed the U.N. soldiers, that also consisted of Camp Bondsteel , the U.S. military base that grew to become the fourth largest settlement in Kosovo. It was Little America , and consisted of many things American, including a dedicated Burger King eatery for the hungry soldiers use only. For the privilege of these visits to the camps, we were body searched and the car scanned via roving mirrors for potential explosives. On one weekend, we drove three hours to the charming medieval town of Prizren through a slushy, sleet-covered road. Prizren is located on the Bistrica River in the foothills of the Sar Mountains and is the spiritual home of many Serbs. It was the scene of a massive battle in mid-15 th century, when it was conquered by the Ottoman Empire . The old city centre houses many churches and mosques, most notable of which are the 14 th century church of Bogorodica Ljeviska and the 16 th century Sinan Pasa Mosque. It had been relatively unmarked from the fighting, but there was still the odd burnt house, and the Serbian Orthodox Churches, or what was left of them, were under armed guard. The most memorable aspect of this trip was the chitchat with a Ghanaian U.N. solider about halfway from Pristina to Prizren. He was supervising the clean-up of a recent truck jack-knife that had occurred due to the slippery conditions. His black face was uncomfortably juxtaposed against the white landscape. He looked extremely out of place, shivering and complaining, ‘T-t-this i-i-is the v-v-very first t-t-time I’ve s-s-seen snow!’ ‘Poor bastard,’ I thought, relaxing in front of the central heating. It was snowing when we finally arrived in Prizren, and we spent the day wandering around its cobblestone streets, watching trendy Albanian youths socialising in cafes, sipping warm supercharged coffee. We also made sure we took no photos of UNMIK infrastructure or vehicles for fear of ending up in one of their dodgy jail cells. After completing the sampling program after a month, I flew back to Australia , and Ryan back to Pommy Land . The saddest part of my trip was saying goodbye to Cedda and his family who had welcomed me into their disruptive lives, and it was just too easy for me to arrive and leave, but they would have to stay in their enclave, unsure of what kind of future Kosovo had waiting for them. Cedda’s last words to me were ‘I…hope…y-y-ou…have good life, if you come to Kosovo again, c-come v-visit us.’ I would make sure to visit him in the unlikely event I reached this part of the world again. However, the action in Kosovo was not about to cease just yet. The flight bound from Pristina to Vienna was delayed by three hours because the amount of passenger luggage did not match the amount of people flying on the plane. The Austrian Airlines jet was placed on the runway ready for takeoff when, inexplicably, it taxied back to the terminal. Everyone was totally confused: maybe the pilot had discovered a fault or maybe he had forgotten his bottle of Rakija at the duty free shop. At the terminal we had to disembark the plane onto the tarmac, whilst observing the specially-trained bomb squad German Shepherds sniff-out the German-like arranged luggage for ordinances. One by one, we identified our luggage to place on the baggage trailer and whatever was left behind was most likely distributed amongst the U.N. guards if found to be explosive free. I cannot begin to comprehend the social issues that I observed in Kosovo, and I probably never will. The one striking image that will never leave me was the undulating lush emerald green Kosovar landscape littered with the rubble of once-proud standing brick houses. After NATO had bombed Slobodan Milosevic’s forces, they left, leaving the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) to run amok in the power vacuum. The house rubble was caused by KLA members entering the house, placing a lit candle in the ceiling, closing all the windows, turning the gas on in the kitchen, and then running away like all buggery, waiting for the gas to reach the naked flame. The result was devastating, but it was such a simple and effective tactic. What was most disturbing was that the destruction was not limited to an isolated house – we saw entire villages wiped out. Cavity brick housing had taken on a whole new meaning for me. After seeing these horrific scenes, I was convinced that no-one had won this war. But, I saw resilience in the eyes of both Serbs and Albanians, and I sincerely hope there is a future for fledgling Kosovo and its people. I think my time in Kosovo developed a perverse taste for places that most package tourists would avoid. There was something appealing about experiencing something completely different to what I was used to – especially my surroundings and my values. My friends and colleagues may have thought I was a complete nutter for going to Kosovo, but the travel bug had definitely stuck its fangs into my rapidly expanding travel conscience. I was hooked for life. Even if the only word I had learned during my stay in Kosovo was Rakija. [1] Tailings is the waste produced by the processing of ore. Usually, this is stored in a tailings dam that is relatively leak proof, instead of in an uncontrolled pile.

Very strange city, we ended op in a small dust road in the middle of the city...