Daily Trip Report - July 29, 2003

Jill Wechsler -

In the morning, I went with Arben's family to a spot near a stream where they go to swim and picnic. It's a patch of land in the countryside that doesn't belong to any person, but also isn't a government-owned park. It's just there, and people know about it, and lots of people use it. It looks like there used to be a snack stand with a sink and some storage area, and there is also a spot to play volleyball. There's also a pretty elaborate wood and metal bridge. So, it looks like someone was responsible for taking care of the area at some point.

In the afternoon, I rode the bus back to Pristina. The inter-city buses are similar to Greyhounds here in the US, minus the air conditioning. One of the ones I rode had a television showing traditional Albanian song and dance.

When I reached Pristina, I took the new book from Luan to get copied, then met Liridon at an Internet cafe to work on teaching him to make a website. We had planned to use Microsoft Word, but his friend told him about FrontPage, and the internet cafe he goes to a lot has it, so we used FrontPage. When we finished, he seemed ready to make simple pages and updates. He has e-mailed me a few things for the student association website since then, which I will forward shortly.

After that, I met a Hope Fellow named Fitore Berisha Lekaj. She has assembled a group of university students to paint a mural on the side of the Faculty of Philology, so I met her there. She is very enthusiastic and positive. Her project focus is youth action, so she has been spreading the word about the Business and Leadership Center - many of the young people she has spoken to about it are excited and are looking forward to any chance to work with it. I promised to keep her updated as things progress. She also spoke about how important it has been that she had the Hope Fellowship program director in the US (Elizabeth Robinson) encouraging her not to give up when she faced a lot of challenges with her project. And she says that when we come to Pristina again, we are welcome to stay at her place.

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