Pristina – Christ the Saviour Cathedral
so it appears we’re staying in a prostitute hotel in south mitrovica. a three stars, no less. my brother’s girlfriend had warned us about every hotel except one at the outskirts of the town, but we still needed a cheap place to stay and all the decent hotels in north mitrovica had been booked by journalists and tv crews long before we arrived. with all our heavy bags, we finally check in at the hotel Jaffa, which looks comfortable — if not cheap — enough. it takes a full day before David confirms that this one is indeed a brothel, and accessorily, that the walls must be made of nothing more than thick paper. we finally understand, highly amused, why there are no single bedrooms, why our cab drivers always give us startled glances and make us reapeat our hotel name, why there are mirrors along the beds, or why men having coffee outside stare at us in such a weird way, every time Am?lie, David and I go out. that said, the hotel Jaffa is rather clean, the beds are huge and our gear is safe, which is all we could ask for.
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When she notices that we’re looking for our cigarettes, right on the porch of her house, F. is eager to offer us a last smoke. our short time in serbia and kosovo has taught us that offering cigarettes is like a national sport on both sides of the border, so we gladly accept, even Am?lie who rarely smokes.
“oh just throw it down in the garden”, F. laughs as Am?lie wonders where to put her cigarette butt a few minutes later. “you’re sure ?” “yes yes, go ahead, I’ll clean the garden later” Am?lie still hesitates. “come on, I have to clean it up anyway, I was just waiting for the Eulex to come”. we all laugh. “and when the Eulex arrives, will you wait until new elections to clean it ?” “of course !” f. roars with laughter. “maybe you should even wait for the new constitution before you decide whether you ought to clean it or not” we propose. her laughter brightens again the calm night around us. “yes, yes!! that’s what we do here anyway, there’s always something to wait before taking a decision.”
F.’s humour doesn’t surprise us that much, I guess you can’t be a catholic albanian and live in the serbian side of Mitrovica without a seriously high amount of humour in your blood.
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the huge Dodona park is only a few tortuous streets away from our guest house and the best shortcut to the center. it has also instantly become my favorite place in Pristina. the green little slopes covered with pine trees and the paved alleys are the calmest places in town and I enjoy my morning walk there. my mission is to find the best internet caf? to upload a video on our server before noon but for ten minutes, the breeze carrying the scent of pine trees and freshly cut grass tastes just like freedom.
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we cross the whole city by foot. usually, we take cabs, it costs us a bit more than one euro and it saves us a fifteen minutes walk. but this sunday afternoon, we don’t find a cab by the other side of the bridge since no taxi ever crosses it entirely, so we walk, exhausted, to our hotel in south mitrovica. I barely notice the people in the streets, the sun, the dust, the shops everywhere, even the mosque by the roundabout. my camera bag weighs a ton, and I can hardly follow the interesting conversation we’re having with Am?lie about Africa and NGOs. we’ve left the cameramen at the bridge, excusing ourselves the time of a nap. our infernal rhythm has finally gotten to us, the short nights of sleep, the tension, the endless plans for everything, the errands from one end of the city to another, the articles finished between 7 and 10 am, the pictures to classify.
I throw myself on our bed with a deep happiness and memories come back as I close my eyes. images of festivals, of naps between work meetings, of small hotel rooms where crashing on the bed provoked outbursts of happy laughter, of train or van trips, of calm nights of work to meet a deadline, of interviews, of work on the same subject but in a different way, articles and pictures… I’ve lived a bit of the excitment of this job already, only in a different context and with a different journalist.
lying on my bed in our hotel in south mitrovica, I’m incredibly happy and sad. it’s her birthday today. I fall asleep.
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for the first time since we’ve arrived in Pristina, we have a bit of time to get a closer look at the national library and the orthodox cathedral that seemed half destroyed the first time we saw it. the library architecture is too odd to be fully described, it’s a massive building, consisting of huge square blocks and about a hundred glass cupolas lit in blue at night, giving it the look of a spacecraft too weird even for Futurama creators. it’s also enclosed in what looks like wire netting. “simultaneously gorgeous and absurd” our city guide tells us, although I wouldn’t go as far a calling it gorgeous, bizarre will do it for me. in the same park also stands the orthodox christ the saviour cathedral, but as we get a better look, we notice it hasn’t been half demolished, it simply was never finished because of the war. yet, we won’t be able to have a glimpse inside, since it’s protected by barbwire, like every orthodox place in Kosovo.
am?lie and I spend some time trying to frame the whole, church and barbwire then we pursue our way to Agim Ramadani street and I look back at the two buildings under the declining sun, each one so strange in its way. this country is crazy, maybe that’s why I’m drawn to it.
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The Divine Comedy – Lost Property
