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Albania and Kosova Diary

Week 1

Diary Introduction

TUESDAY 28 SEPTEMBER 1999

We left Glastonbury at 5.00 a.m. to drive to Heathrow for our 7.55 a.m. flight to Tirana in Albania via Budapest. The team consists of me, Arabella Churchill, the Director of the Children’s World Charity and our new sister-organisation Children’s World International; Paddy Hill, our Chief Play Leader; Charlie Miller, Playleader; Daryl Webster, Play Leader; Peter Simms, aka Devilstick The Clown, a juggling and circus skills performer and workshop leader; and Jamie McGruther, aka Booper the Clown, performer and workshop leader.

WEDNESDAY 29 SEPTEMBER 1999

Safely arrived yesterday, and staying with the Balkan Sunflowers in their hostel in Tirana, the capital of Albania. There were many thousands of refugees from Kosova here during the conflict, but the large majority have now returned to their homes. While we are here we will be working with some of the remaining refugees, and with a Balkan Sunflowers project in the village of Bathore, a few kilometres outside Tirana, where there is great poverty, no drainage, and very little in terms of play for the many children.

In the afternoon we pay our first visit to Bathore, and play parachute games with about 60 children and then present a show for about 150. These are very needy children and we are very glad that we will have the opportunity of working with them for 3 days now, and then for a couple more days when we return from Kosova.

THURSDAY 30 SEPTEMBER 1999

We travel back to Bathore and run more parachute games and shows. It is incredibly hot and dusty here, and the children are very demanding, unruly and difficult. But they love what we are doing and we love them, so it is intensely rewarding.

FRIDAY 1 OCTOBER 1999

During the day, performances by "Booper the Clown (Jamie) and "Devil stick The Clown" plus games and workshops for 100 kids, at the opening of the Balkan Sunflowers Community Centre; and then parachute games, face painting and shows in the evening for 30 "Street Children" at an orphanage.

SATURDAY 2 OCTOBER 1999

Back out to Bathore again for more games and shows. Very good control in the circle , but chaos rules at the end as we try to give out balloons equitably. Said fond farewells. We will be working with these children again when we return from Kosovo - they really need it!

SUNDAY 3 OCTOBER 1999

1st day off. Time to sort out the freight, which is officially now in transit to Kosovo and once released from the customs house in Tirana , must be taken out of the country within 24 hours. I spend the day at the airport with Johnny, our excellent translator, confirming and reconfirming the details. Also at the airport is a German truck that has been promised to Children's World for the trip across the mountains to the town of Pristina in Kosovo. This is a time of anxious worry. Trucks can take up to 15 days to clear customs - this has taken more, and is clearly not going to be released in time for our journey tomorrow. So we set about hiring 2 vehicles to get our freight and us across the mountains.

MONDAY 4 OCTOBER 1999

Vehicles late arriving, more hassles about the freight at the airport. Eventually on the road about 1.00 p.m. We were told we should arrive in Prishtina before dark if possible, but it will obviously not be possible! Oh well, we will survive! The journey over the mountains is incredibly impressive - mostly very arid and desolate and majestic, but with little areas of cultivation and animals. Absolutely beautiful. The roads are in a truly dreadful state, full of potholes. The drivers are so proud of their vehicles that they avoid every pothole - unfortunately this means that one is sometimes on the wrong side of the road when another vehicle comes directly towards us from around a corner, and that sometimes one wheel is almost off the side of the road over a huge drop!

About half-way there we are suddenly stopped by a roadblock. 10 men in black masks appear, sticking Kalashnikovs through the windows of the vans! It turns out they are police but wear masks as protection against retribution! Our mouths were hanging open for some minutes - it was the masks in a way that were more alarming than the guns! Eventually reach the border about 10.00 p.m. but have to wait until the Customs men have finished their dinner before we can leave Albania. Through into Kosova quite easily. One immediately sees the presence of N.A.T.O.'s KFOR Forces - tanks, guns, sand bag stations everywhere.

Arrive in Prishtina about 1.30 a.m., and the map we have been given is completely inadequate! Spend a lot of time driving around and trying different flats that we think are right. Guns fire in the distance at times. Eventually rescued by Rand, the Balkan Sunflowers co-ordinator for Prishtina who leads us to the flat they have found us, and we sink into bed about 3.00 a.m.