Common wor(l)ds
The gate
As I sit at the gate and hear the announcement for the delay of my flight from Athens to Tirana, my fear of flights is starting to build up. Passengers who have already lined up for boarding go back to their seats murmuring, while I pull out my phone in an effort to keep my mind busy.
Across from me, a woman reassures her son in slightly-accented English that it won’t be long before we take off, while he responds with the comfortable eagerness of a native speaker. As I smile sympathetically she explains to me that they have been in a long flight from Canada and her son hasn’t gotten any sleep —they are one hour away from seeing their family after a long year. We start chatting and she asks me details about my trip; I explain that I am going to Prizren along with my camera to do journalistic work. She doesn’t seem to know where the city is.
“Prizren?”
“Yes, in Kosovo.”
“Ah, Ko-so-va”, she says, and I can see the reserve in her eyes.
She asks her son whether he would like to be a photojournalist. After a brief glance at my camera bag he responds: “No, it is dangerous.”
2. Arrival
An hour later I am getting in the car that will take me to Prizren. Three hours later, I am at the DokuFest hospitality centre filling out a form for my guest pass; four hours, I am staring at the ceiling of my hotel room; five hours, I am meeting Iliriana with whom I have been exchanging emails for my itinerary during my stay in Prizren. She is sipping coffee along with two Cypriots, Alexia and Stephen, who are also participating in the Connecting with Europe program. She greets me with a warm, disarming hug.
By the next evening, I have already been to the DokuFest opening, I have marveled at the beauty of the city and have met the rest of the journalists: Samuel from Slovakia, Iulian from Romania, Zarka, who is originally from Bosnia and now lives in Belgrade, Feliciano, an Argentinian who lives in Spain.
3. The conversations
Time blurs in Prizren.
I cannot recall my week in Kosovo in a linear fashion; my memories are scattered, gleaming impressions in a setting where time is otherwise irrelevant. I remember the overwhelming feeling I had as I sat down to write on my second night there, which quickly left me as I stopped to listen to the contrasting sounds of my surrounding: the call to prayer, the pop songs blasting from the bars across the street, people engaged in lively talk beneath my window; then I remember Eroll, the director of DokuFest, discussing corruption —this year’s DokuFest theme— with Zarka and agreeing that it is a subject on which Serbs and Kosovars can find common ground.
Then there’s Feliciano’s puzzlement as he noticed that Alexia and I spoke English to one another instead of Greek; Samuel’s reflections on the split of Czechoslovakia; Iliriana’s story from Mitrovica during the war; and our long conversations on nationalism with Denion and Rudina.
From the castle, I photograph the city and talk with a Serbian journalist about Ivo Andric — one of my favorite authors. He seemed surprised that I knew about him. Then I find myself with Eli and Stephen in Bellobrad, Opoja, where the call to prayer sounds more introspective somehow, being offered grapes and Turkish coffee by a most generous family, all the while discovering common words of Turkish origin in Greek and Albanian —like musafir and merakli . The quiet conduct of the people in Bellobrad comes in direct contrast to the international crowd of Prizren during DokuFest.
Along with coffee in the morning and beers at night come discussions on visa policy, the European Union, cultural heritage and the Ahtisaari Plan, recognition of Kosovo and identity issues. Amidst documentaries and panels on corruption, the Balkan vortex (to borrow Misha Glenny’s term) unravels.
4. Reflection
And then I recall my brief discussions with Georg, the Swiss journalist, on my family background and my Swiss grandmother, which, paired with so many cultural elements around me that seem very common to my Greek upbringing —from the music, to common words, simple gestures and the food— stir my inner thoughts on my own identity.
I grew up in Greece in the 90s, the blooming age of the European dream. I am sure there was one point in time when I could have been, or rather I was, the lady at the airport looking in reserve when she heard I was going to Kosovo or her son who thought my trip was dangerous. It seems to me that for Greeks, back then, being European meant that we would have to silence our Balkan identity, which was linked to unrest and economic regression —or perhaps this is just my naive perception. For a brief decade our problems seemed to be behind us, as we fervently entered a new era.
Change, however, for a country or continent, for better or for worse, often comes when we are not looking. Much of the awareness of ourselves and our surrounding is alarmingly dependent on the headlines and, thus, we missed the news of an economic disaster coming our way and we were shocked by the general rise of the extreme right, of racism, separatism and prejudice. But, surely, the seeds must have been there all along, only we didn’t realise how fragile the balance is.
Ours are gravely burdened times; the need to listen and comprehend, to ask questions and tell stories, to create dialogue and find common ground is becoming more and more urgent. In that respect, Prizren was that space where, for a week, in August, all of this was possible.
5. The return
I am in Tirana, at the airport checking in for my flight back home. I am travelling with two Greek film directors whom I have just met. We are approached by a family with four children —the parents seem very concerned.
Amidst broken English and gestures we understand that they are asking us to help their eldest son catch his connecting flight from Athens. They are Egyptian immigrants in Albania and Akhmet is travelling alone for the very first time to visit family in Cairo —he doesn’t speak English. The mother is looking at me with eyes full of unease: “I am afraid” she says. As we ease her fears in gestures and leave for the gate they are waving goodbye.
Akhmet is sitting next to me in the airplane and so I conceal my own phobia and try to distract him as he is clearly scared during take off. I think of Stephen, the Cypriot, and how much better he would be at communicating with gestures —I try to follow his advice and Akhmet seems to understand me. As we land and we help Akhmet get on his flight to discover his own heritage and identity, my adventure comes to an end.
In the coming days my mind is still in Prizren; I am listening to the call to prayer in the dark during a sleepless night, taking a walk early in the morning to capture the city waking up, checking my schedule to see what time I have to meet the rest of the group for our next interview.
*The story has been written during a visit to Prizren, Kosovo and Dokufest, organized and supported by the Kosovo Foundation for Open Society and its Connecting with Europe project.
