We're on our way!

By Oscar Brown

Hey there and welcome to the Kosovo blog!! For the next month or so, we will upload daily posts to this blog written by us, the students, about our experiences on the Peace Lab field trip to Kosovo. We are here to learn from government bodies, international NGOs, and local activists and stakeholders about ongoing projects and methods of peacemaking and peacebuilding. In our free time, we will also be working on fieldwork projects, which look at specific peacebuilding tools in practice with the aim of producing a creative final product. My name is Oscar, I am Irish/American and a second-year student at AUC focusing on International Relations, Political Science, and Public Policy. I am excited to guide you through my/our experiences of roughly the first 24 hours, including our arrival in Kosovo!

At 2PM on Tuesday morning we all met at Schiphol Airport, thus beginning our 12-hour journey from Amsterdam to Pristina. Since our first flight to Vienna didn’t start boarding until 5:10PM, we had a lot of time to get through passport check and security on our way to finding our gate. We even had time to grab a hearty (although not so tasty) snack together. This already started the process of us becoming more acquainted with one another and becoming a succinct unit. 

Already exhausted, I passed out for the entirety of the first flight, only waking up briefly around the midway point to chug some water. The landing in Vienna was a little rough, abruptly jolting me awake. We quickly disembarked, after which a few of us got dinner at an outrageously overpriced buffet-style dinner place. This layover lasted around 3 hours, so we took our time leisurely eating, chatting, and playing cards. Finally, after 2 further rounds of passport checks, we began boarding our flight to Pristina. At this point, we realized that in line with us were around 15 uniformed service members on duty with KFOR that would be joining us on our flight. Seeing these soldiers, combined with the growing number of people around us speaking Albanian, slowly started to turn what we had read on the pages of our textbooks into a reality. While I was exhausted at this point, my excitement for what was to come only grew along with the feelings of disbelief and gratitude that I’m allowed to be part of what I hope will be an awesome and formative experience. 

On the flight to Pristina, I was lucky enough to sit in an emergency-exit row with extra leg room. My initial plan was to repeat what I had done on the first leg and sleep for the duration of the 1-hour flight, but then I heard the young man sitting next to me ask where I was from. We thus struck up a lengthy conversation — his name was Bleron and he was a Kosovo Albanian from Eastern Kosovo who worked for a large bank in Austria. He proceeded to tell me about the various places in Pristina he likes to visit in his spare time, providing me with a rich list of local recommendations, including bars, sports-viewing locations, restaurants, parks, and clubs. 

After landing, we realized the airport was named after KLA-martyr Adem Jashari and were surprised by its modern design. At baggage claim, after a final passport check, we found the KFOR members retrieving large metal cases from the conveyor belt. We speculated that these may have contained anything from clothing and food to military-grade weaponry — their demeanor was rather serious. We then hopped on the charter bus, taking us to our hostel in central Pristina. We finally arrived at around 2:30AM.

The next day, we left for our first meeting around 11AM. Along the way, we happened on a large military parade commemorating 25 years since the end of the war. 

After a brief presentation by Alice about the organization, we travelled to our first meeting with the Center for Social Group Development (CSGD), which was located in a hidden, unmarked location off the street. They presented themselves as the leading LGBTI+ rights advocacy group in Kosovo, working to increase the queer community’s visibility and societal acceptance. 

They spoke about the paradoxical relationship of increased public participation and allyship resulting in greater overt hate. They highlighted the 2012 arson attack at their community outreach facility as a turning point in their activism as they decided to either go all-in or quit their work. They decided to redouble their efforts, slowly growing their movement from smaller events to much larger Pride marches with participation in the thousands. We students had great admiration for their perseverance and determination despite facing direct and indirect attacks. We thanked them very much for their time and made or way to they next meeting. Alice will pick up from here, outlining the rest of the day, including what we learned from the Council of Europe.