These past four weeks have been very intense, a little exhausting and honestly kind of amazing. I was very disappointed to find out that our trip to Kosovo was canceled this year, but somehow Anne still managed to create an online Peace Lab that was very meaningful, inspiring and something that really gave us students a lot to reflect on. I am beyond grateful to have had this experience and I don’t think I have the words to express how inspiring it is to have the chance to speak to so many people that really make a difference. We got a little taste of what it is like to be a peace builder while working on our creative projects.
I have to admit that my own project is one of the most challenging, difficult and beautiful things I have done in my time at AUC. When we were told that we were going to have to do a creative project, I immediately knew that I wanted to write a short story. Writing is a medium I have always loved, but unfortunately I haven’t been able to explore it as much as I would have wanted to. The second thing I knew is that I really wanted to write something that was focussed on women and I ended up deciding that I wanted to write about trauma as a result of sexual violence during the Kosovo war. I knew that this was going to be a very difficult topic and that it was going to take a lot to write this story, but all of these themes are very close to my heart. So once I made up my mind that this was something that interested me, there was no way around it.
In the end, I managed to write a 2,000-word short story and in all honestly, it’s not great. While purely looking at the end result I don’t feel the satisfaction of having written something that focuses on healing and creating a narrative on the transition from victim to survivor. Especially because I didn’t manage to talk to anyone in Kosovo, I felt like me writing this story was not my place and that there is no way for me to know that this project has the positive effects that I know fiction has. However, one important realization that I had
was that this was never the intention of my project. I was never going to write something that was perfect or even remotely good. There is no way that in the given time frame I could acquire the insight and the information that was necessary for me to write such a story. Even though I did tons and tons of research, the end result is just a draft and that is more than okay. Because in looking back on Peace Lab, I feel like I’ve really gotten a chance to see what it’s like to be part of a very big process: the process of writing and the
process of peacebuilding. Neither of these things are quick or easy. They take a lot of empathy, respect and persistence. I hope when you read my story, you keep in mind that it’s nothing more than a draft that encompasses many things I learned in this course. It’s not complete, but it does reflect my own learning and growing and hopefully it includes some things you can learn from yourself.
Hopefully, in a few years I can look back at my writing and see all the shortcomings that I’m now blind to. But in order to see where this story fell short, all I can do is listen and write even more. Throughout the past few weeks I realized that my project was merely a way for me to explore issues that I care about in a creative manner in a medium that I love. I learned so many things that I can’t possibly summarize in this blog post.
All I can say is that there is a lot of power in being willing to learn, listen, grow and explore and that this virtual trip to Kosovo really exemplified that for me.
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