Coming home

(By Henriette Hoogervorst)

Coming home from an experience as Kosovo is quite estranging yet oddly normal. The first two days I was in denial to be back, as one could say. I went home to my parents and recreated the Kosovo feeling on Thursday night at Chiaras birthday party where nearly the whole Kosovo crew was present. It was wonderful to see most of the people again, like coming home or taking a warm bath. Nonetheless, (and I knew this moment was coming) I rolled right back into my responsibilities and life in Amsterdam on Friday. Dormfest was around the corner so I found myself on Friday night cutting and defrosting, what felt like, a million pieces of trout and my Saturday and Sunday were filled with Dormfest preparations and clean ups. On Monday I was faced with the piled up stock of work that I had created by slacking on my tasks and focusing on my capstone; transitioning the new AUCSA board, catching up with emails, and finalizing the final AUC graduation/capstone things where among the tasks that I found myself doing.

            Because I had been focusing on my Capstone a lot of work (especially AUCSA) was not finished or in progress and as I am writing right now three things have popped in my head that I still need to do before the end of this week. Due to all these distractions I had not thought about Kosovo a lot up until Wednesday when I wanted to start writing my final project. I went over my blog entry and notes/diary and found it difficult to get back into it. All the experiences seemed so long ago. However, Thursday and Friday were really nice because we were able to evaluate and we were able to talk to each other, who all went through the same emotions. Kosovo really was such a unique experience that it is hard to explain to friends and family. We met so many amazing people like Bardha and Enver but also some of the students and people of Qesh. Thursday’s class brought me back to Kosovo and made it all very real again and I felt motivated to write my project. What I hope to have created is a publishable article about the experiences I’ve had in Kosovo that changed my mind and understanding of the region. However, while writing it I have been struggling with different issues. I find it difficult to put on paper and into writing what I experienced. It has to be written very playfully and I want people to be interested in reading until the end which I found to be a very difficult task. It is important to keep reminding myself of the fact that I am just handing in a draft. Okey, but enough about my project I finally want to share one more experience that I believe many of us have had in one way or the other:

            When we arrived in Amsterdam I my parents were so kind to pick me up on the airport and take me and my sisters out for dinner. Near the end they asked to see my pictures of Kosovo. I did not take much about 4-5 per day but I think I talked about it for an hour or so until I realized that most of them had zoomed out (although my mom was trying to focus but I believe more for me then the actual pictures haha), at this point I had only shown half of my pictures and the realization kicked in that Kosovo left an impression that was really hard even impossible to translate and communicate and something that I should maybe not try to do in this way. It reminded me of summer camps that I used to go to when I was a kid and my parents asked how it was because I was never able to explain how fun my new friends where, what I experienced, what I learned and I believe my experience of Kosovo is quite similar. I am very grateful for the opportunity to join on this adventure; for me it has really puts things in perspective and made me look at my life in a different light. Thank you for everyone who was a part of it!