Chasing pavements

You'd be surprised the things you can get excited about. Take pavements, for instance. I'd never been a big expert on pavements before, myself. Don't get me wrong - I like them. New pavements can look clean and pleasant. Interesting patterns can be made laying bricks and slabs. And of course I played games skipping over the cracks as a child (I even had somewhat sweaty teenage dreams of Jeff Buckley doing so too). But I'd never taken much of a personal interest in the matter of concrete and pavements, y'know. Never even thought about it from a County Council, Health-and-Safety point of view. Never really had a need to. Until I moved to Kosovo.

They're not big on pavements around here. They're not big on pavements anywhere outside the the sanitized environment of the Western world, if we're to be honest - most poor countries have much more important things to worry about: unemployment rates, stagnant economies, getting international recognition of your country, ethnic conflict, funneling back-handers, misusing donor funding, that sort of thing. And usually I don't have much of a problem with this. I don't complain about the water being turned off at night or lack of public services or the fact that there are potholes everywhere because I know that this is a poor country and putting up with it was part of the decision to live and work here.

What I'll complain about though, loudly and enduringly, is paving a road with smooth, beautiful new asphalt and then digging it up again six weeks later. Or digging things up when there are no funds and no foreseeable opportunity to re-pave it again. Or even when funds are available - digging up a whole street in one day, then leaving it a mess for months on end, rather than working on it slowly on a section-by-section basis. I think all three of these scenarios have taken place simultaneously on my street, which has more or less been in a state of constant chaos since I moved into my apartment in May. It was a spectacular mess when I first arrived, but it was asphalted beautifully not long afterwards. Then they started tearing out chunks of it (usually right in the middle of the road where it disrupted both lanes of traffic), supposedly to lay manholes. Once laid, the large squares of dirt surrounding the manholes were not filled in, leaving the street looking something like a chess board, alternating black and brown squares, albeit not quite in such neat patterns. Not long afterwards I came back after a weekend away to find that the new asphalt, laid only six weeks before, had been scraped away from the entire street, leaving only a hard bedrock behind. They've been working on this ever since, ensuring a harmonious judder of clamouring drills, engines, generators, diggers and shovels outside my window at early hours of the morning all summer. Very early hours. And 'all summer' includes weekends. Plus providing the source of the heavy dust that films over every surface in my bedroom, whether I leave the window open or not.

Then the pavements. It was mostly mud outside my front door when I first arrived, wet from the spring rain, so my landlord had laid a few bricks to use as stepping stones so we could get in and out of the building. A month later they dug a vast trench the width of pavement, too wide even to take a running jump over. Some shipping pallets (the kind they use in warehouses to lift vast cubes of stacked boxes) provided a drawbridge into the building for a few weeks at that point. They did come along and fill that in lately, but the street was still a mess of rocks and gravel at that point.

So imagine my surprise when I came home from work one evening last week to find... astoundingly... a clean, wide sweep of perfectly paved pathway outside my house. No notice, no warning, no sign that morning when I'd gone to work that anyone would come and work there today. And now, suddenly, unexpectedly, pavement! REAL pavement! My landlord was standing outside the front door, clearly as astounded as I was to see this unprecedented development, and urgently sweeping it, brushing it, and watering it down (naturally), as if to make sure that it was real and wouldn't get up and walk away from us.

He doesn't speak a word of English, but speaks Serbian, of which I speak almost nothing. Still, the two of us stood there, looking at the literally solid ground beneath our feet - 'literally' solid for the first time - beaming broadly and saying Dobro! Vrlo dobro! Super dobro! Which was the one and only piece of Serbian vocabulary in my possession which I could use to express my pleasure - Good! Very good! Super good!

And went inside, laughing at myself and blushing at quite how pathetic my excitement about the whole thing was. The street itself's not paved yet, the dust is still clouding up my room and making my balcony practically unusable, and the raised-manhole obstacle course is still in effect in the middle of the road. True too, no sooner did they lay the pavements than people started parking their cars on them so that people have to walk on the street regardless. And how long before they dig the pavement back up again? Who knows. But its a start. And makes me feel less like I'm literally chasing pavements on my walk to and from work every day, which is always an improvement.

View from my balcony of our street with its brand spanking new pavement.

PAVEMENTS!

(Note: for added authenticity, see the manhole obstacle course in the centre, and the stretch downhill where the road, typically, has been watered down)

Acquainting myself with Ramadan

Highly recommend having a look at this collection of photos from around the world depicting the beginning of Ramadan last week; some really beautiful pictures here.

Its the first time I've lived in a Muslim country during the Holy Month of Ramadan. While I would have considered myself to already have a reasonable understanding of the practice and meaning of Ramadan, seeing my neighbours and colleagues integrate it into their daily lives has been new. Its easy to forget that Kosovo is a majority-Muslim country: society here is extremely secular and there is little visible sign of religion around the city. This is particularly the case compared to Sarajevo, which I always thought of a pretty secular place itself. Its quite rare to see women wearing the hijab here (at least in urban areas), and the lack of historic buildings generally means there is nothing like the beautiful Islamic heritage, architecture and decorative influence so prominent in Sarajevo. From almost any location in Sarajevo you seemed to be able to hear the call to prayer from two or three different mosques intermingling at sunset, but in Pristina the call and the practice of Islam itself is something that almost needs to be sought out.

Which I suppose is why it was interesting to realise over the past week how many of my neighbours and colleagues are fasting, because over the past three months I never perceived any sign of their faith. I mean this of course not in a way intended to indicate any judgment on my part; simply that I find it intriguing how Kosovo society has closely integrated faith into life in a way which is quietly and discretely expressed, and it does lead me to wonder whether there's any relation in this to Kosovo Albanian's long history of living as a minority in a country (Serbia/Yugoslavia) which was majority Christian.

Most of the building I live in is occupied by my landlord, his family, married children, wives and grandchildren; it transpired last week that I'm one of the only two people in the building not observing the fast. Nor do they expect me to, of course, but its still interesting to see and hear the gathering for iftar (the evening meal which breaks the fast) taking place every evening.

Ramadan also throws up all sorts of little observations and dilemmas which are unknownst to us back in Ireland. For instance, half the restaurants and cafés around town (especially those near our office) have closed for Ramadan because as business is significantly reduced anyway, its as good a time as any to take summer holidays. More seriously, I hadn't ever thought about the sleep deprivation that accompanies the fast; because of daylight hours this time of year the pre-fast meal has to take place at around 3.30am, so that sleep as well as eating patterns are profoundly disrupted. How to politely inquire after the well-being of colleagues who are clearly exhausted and falling asleep at their desks by 3pm?

How to remind myself not to cheerfully announce loudly that 'I'm off for lunch now' or complain after my return that I'm sleepy because I ate too much? Is it impolite or simply immaterial if I eat in front of people who are fasting - is bringing breakfast and coffee to my desk off-limits for the month of August? It's not that I mind, but I'm almost as afraid that I'll offend my fasting colleagues more by making a big deal out of their observance than by impolitely enjoying a croissant in front of them in the mornings.

Especially during summer, observing the fast must be a daunting challenge for which I have huge respect (extended daylight hours, no water despite temperatures in the mid-30s). All very intriguing cultural differences, and all make me consider the contrast with home, where its so in fashion these days to complain and feel so uncomfortable about the Catholic Church's requirements regarding behaviour and conduct, few of which are ever observed regardless.

Kosovo quirks

I think its about time I memorialise some of the particular quirks which I think I'll forever associate with life in Kosovo. Here are some the daily features that make Ireland in hindsight seem effortlessly convenient.

Watering the Streets

Pristina has a severe problem when it comes to maintaining its roads and streets. Either streets are neglected long enough to slide into decay, are poorly built and paved with substandard materials in the first place, or are dug up for works/pipe-laying/redecoration/other arbitrary reasons and simply never repaired afterwards. Apparently one of the very first acts of the Kosovo government after declaring Independence in 2008 was to dig up the streets for a comprehensive works programme; three years later this is still ongoing and many of the roads have been left in a state of 'temporary' chaos ever since. Potholes, sinkholes, uncovered manholes, loose gravel and eroded concrete are a problem everywhere, resulting in clouds of dust and dirt rising magestically before and after the passing traffic (which itself, in its chaos and aggression, is another of Kosovo's charms).

The local solution to this problem? Watering the streets to keep down the dust. A common sight every day in Pristina are the men simply standing outside shops and houses with a hose, patiently spraying the street with the tender care that people usually reserve for watering their roses. This might seem like a simple and clever solution, but it drives me mad for plenty of reasons. Its not so much the unintended foot-wash you receive as you trudge through the puddles in your sandals, nor the fact that the water only seems to do more damage eroding the streets and washing away the gravel they lay over the potholes, but the fact that millions of litres are thus wasted in a city with such severe water supply problems that the service has to be turned off at night. Yet this practice is applied even on roads with nice pavements and road surface, where dust is not a problem. And its extremely common to see the streets being hosed down at night when the sun has gone in, the traffic has died down, and the thirsty day-time dust is no longer a problem. I think of the nights I tried to run a shower only to find an empty tank, and I cringe.

Thirsty nights

Yep, there is no water supply in Pristina between 11pm and 6am, seven nights a week, 365 days a year. At the moment some neighbourhoods are also having cuts mid-afternoon for the duration of the summer, mostly because the water pressure is so low that a supply cannot be pumped uphill. Watering thirsty streets becomes less of an innovative charm and more like short-sighted uselessness from this perspective.

My first nights in Kosovo were marked by the violent gurgling of toilet cisterns and water tanks at 6am, as newly-refilled pipes knocked inside the walls and dripping taps sputtered. Apparently flooding is a common problem in apartment buildings because people don't fully close taps during the hours without water, only to awake with over-flowing sinks or baths a few hours after the supply is restored. This also frequently soaks through to neighbours' apartments. Lately I've adjusted to sleeping through the morning sloshing and splashing, which arrives about an hour after the first call to prayer from the mosque nearby, but since then I've also moved into an apartment which has a water tank that keeps the toilet flushing overnight. Never have I been more grateful for the foresight of this provision than I was last week during a 12-hour dose of food poisoning which ran its violent course over an extremely long (and otherwise water-less) night...

No street names

Its not that Pristina's streets don't have names, its just that no one uses or even knows them. During the 1980s and 1990s, local Kosovo Albanians stopped using official street names because most were Serbian-language or referred to Serbian religious or military heroes. Then the war happened, huge population upheavals took place, much of the city was destroyed and rebuilt (a process that is still ongoing as small one- or two-storey buildings are chaotically knocked down and replaced with taller ones that can be subdivided into apartments) and most street names were changed by the new Albanian authorities. The result is that street names are now simply meaningless. It is not possible to give a taxi driver an address (i.e. a street name and number) because he simply won't know where to take you. Much less to try to have mail delivered to your house - the staff of my Organization have post sent to them via our HQ, which is located in a major European city, which then forwards items to Pristina once a week via the equivalent of the diplomatic pouch.

The accepted system here is to navigate by landmarks. Upon arrival in Pristina, it is imperative to learn the name of a hotel, shop, park, office or institution near your apartment or accommodation and to explain it accordingly to taxi drivers (another Kosovo quirk - there's little to no public transport and the entire city moves by cab). Approximately four or five roads do have commonly-used names (Ramadani Street, Police Avenue, Nana Teresa Boulevard, Bil Klinton Boulevard), but these themselves are informal nicknames rather than official titles and they refer only to the city's few main arteries. Beyond that, you have to get more creative. Everything from government buildings to particular statues to cafes or something odd like a DVD shop can be used for directions; its not at all unusual for directions to involve "going through that carpark which looks like a dead end" and then "going upstairs over that kebab shop with no sign on the door". I recently heard someone explain something in terms of its relation to "Chicken Corner". This was indeed a place where they sell chickens.

To get home, I tell drivers to take me to a gym called Life Fitness. If they don't know it, I explain that it is located next to a park which is called either "City Park" or "Italian Park" depending on who you're talking to. If they don't know the park, then I mention "Slovenjia Sport", a clothes shop on a corner 200m away, which closed down about a year ago but which is still a navigable landmark. Simple, no?

Taxi drivers who rely on passersby for directions

Despite the scientifically-perfected landmark navigation system described above, none of it is any guarantee that a man with a car who claims to be a taxi driver will have any idea what you're talking about. The number of taxi drivers in Pristina who simply don't know where or what anything is is staggering. I took an unlicensed cab driver from the airport a few weeks ago after he offered me a good price. The problem was that I think he'd literally never been into the city before. It took an hour of telling him to go "left, then right, then right again" in my worst Serbian (which he also only spoke a few words of) before I eventually made my way home. Are there really taxi drivers in other parts of the world who don't know the main streets of their own city??

Babies

Albanians love children, and family is everything to them. Kosovo has Europe's youngest population (I've heard different statistics but apparently about 25% of the population is under 25 or 30, with another 100,000 people graduating and joining the labour market each year). The young people crowding Pristina's streets are themselves all engaged in the process of marrying young and having babies. Most girls (women? Do I have to start calling myself a woman yet?) my age already have children, and the sheer numbers of young children everywhere in Kosovo simply cannot go unnoticed. Even in central Pristina, only a street or two away from the main artery, children are playing in the middle of the road at all hours of the day and teenagers are crowding the benches and parks in the evenings, checking each other out and flirting. Older children are looking after younger ones, and you never see siblings having a fight. Large numbers of young, happy, smiling children is of course a developing world cliché, but perhaps it is more startling here because for all its chaos Kosovo still feels more like Europe than the Global South.

Its a stereotype of Kosovo which is always worth a giggle. I recently flew back to Kosovo from Vienna after I was rerouted from Croatia because of a cancelled flight. I immediately knew that I was approaching the right gate because the area looked more like a creche than an airport lounge; the flight was delayed for a full 45 minutes because of the chaos on board as all the families simultaneously fought to swap seats so they could group their children together with adults. I'm almost certain I was one of the only people on the plane who either didn't have responsibility for a child or indeed wasn't a child.

For me however it also highlights some intriguing contrasts with home. For instance, a German colleague whose wife and young children moved to Kosovo with him told me that Pristina is far more geared towards family life and the infrastructure needed for children than most western European cities; landlords will choose tenants with children over younger, single candidates apparently - something entirely unheard of at home, where landlord don't want the wear and tear caused by children. Restaurants welcome infants with open arms, often having a small playground outside.

In the end, it is of course a lovely thing, a wonderful thing - large happy families out to lunch on Sundays; groups of girlfriends doting over their friend's baby as they gossip over their coffee in the afternoons; ten-year-olds protectively guarding their three-year-old siblings with a big smile of pride on their faces. I think one of my favourite sights is my landlord, a middle-aged workman who lives upstairs with his family and his married son's family, doting on his infant granddaughter with a big, goofy, child-like smile. She giggles at him hysterically and then runs to hide when she sees me coming. She is only two after all, and I guess spooky girls who don't speak Albanian look rightly strange. As of course, do 25-year-olds without husbands or children, or any interest in either. But that's a cliché of a different kind, no?