Last Letter from Pristina - 7 March 2006
Friends:
I will be leaving
Kosovo – after almost two years. I have decided to take on a new job – a new
adventure and a new challenge. I will be a Senior Protection Officer with a
program called Procap (Protection Standby Capacity), being jointly launched by the
Norwegian Refugee Council and the UN Office of the Coordinator for Humanitarian
Affairs (OCHA). I will be one of a core team of 10 senior people, on permanent
rotation in the field – sent wherever we are needed. So, I don’t know yet where
I will be based or for how long. Just that I will take on my new
responsibilities after Easter – with some briefings in Geneva.
I will be sad to
leave Kosovo in many ways – because it has been an interesting assignment, with
some really great people. Where, in the normal course of a normal job in Canada would I
be sitting down each day with people from different areas of the world, and
from totally different walks of life -- from generals to police commanders,
from lawyers to judges, to engineers and firemen. It is rare to meet someone
here who does not have an interesting story to tell – who has not grabbed onto
life and adventure with both hands.
The work has been
hard and sometimes frustrating, but never dull. And if those who are “the salt
of the earth” are actually gritty, why should we expect those who have nothing
to behave like bourgeois middle class Europeans? Still you want to take them
and shake them when they refuse to realize that continuing to live in
lead-polluted camps is killing their children.
I am haunted by
all the beautiful Roma children who have so little to look forward to – because
they are getting no education, no dental care, minimal health care, no
training; because at 37, a Roma woman will likely as not have had 5, 6, 7 even
9 children, and she has neither the strength nor the ability to look after them
properly. I am haunted because, with respect to the Roma in northern Kosovo, we
are only talking of less than a thousand people – and still we can’t find a
solution that is humane and empowering.
There are, of
course, a lot of things in Kosovo I won’t miss when I leave. I won’t miss the
ear-splitting cackles of blackbirds hanging from the trees in the early hours
of the morning or dumping their yellow and white blobs all over the car you
just had washed the day before. Nor will I miss the mud, the smog, the
blackouts, the water shortages. Or the absolutely insane drivers and insane
driving conditions – a tank, a horse-drawn wagon filled with wood, or a tractor
– all overtaken on a blind curve by someone in a Mercedes heading (I’m sure)
for the cemetery. What has been trying has been the petty bureaucracy one is
forced to encounter in an organization as large as the UN – and some of the
really petty people who make your life miserable because that makes them feel
like they are big people. But you get that everywhere in the world.
And, there have
been some really great deals here in Kosovo – the 50 cent coffee (I’ve even
gotten to like a “makiato”), the 3.50 Euro lunch I have at “The Istanbul” (chicken
doner and black tea), a glass of red wine for 1.20 Euros; the movies at UNMIQ
HQ for only 1 Euro. Of course, the real bargain has been the Staff Recreation
Committee (SRC) trips to Greece,
or Belgrade or Montenegro; and
the fact that you can fly to Istanbul
or Prague or Vienna for a weekend.
So I am sorry that
this chapter of my life is closing, especially as the reconstruction of the
Roma Mahala will only start this season. On 23 March, the SRSG will come to a
ground-breaking ceremony to mark the start of the construction of the first two
apartment buildings and the 57 houses that we have funding for. And if that all
happens this season, I will be pleased to have contributed something to
improving conditions for the IDPs in Kosovo. We’ll just have to see what
transpires after I leave.
Meanwhile, to stay
in touch, please use my personal email: lauriewiseberg@gmail.com.
Hopefully, my new post may bring me in
touch with some of you who I have not seen for a long time. With warmest
regards
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