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Albania and Kosova Diary

Week Three

Diary Introduction

TUESDAY 12 OCTOBER 1999

Two more sessions with Save the Children.Workshops and shows for 90 children in the morning at a school in Bec, and then afternoon workshops and shows for 200 children in the grounds of a school in Carrabreg.

Working with Save the Children has been great and having their translators has really helped us run more workshops than we could on our own. The Balkan Sunflower volunteers, at least 6 per session, have been tremendously useful and helpful too.

I reckon we have done workshops and performances for well over 2,000 children now, and there are masses more gigs to come. Must do a tot-up soon! The children are really loving it, lots of volunteers have been trained up and lots of equipment left for them to use, so the project is really going very well, and is tremendously worthwhile.

The team have been working tremendously well under quite difficult and tiring circumstances. There are so many awful stories of the atrocities that have gone on, and we are very harrowed by it. The family we are staying with in Gjakova have just heard that one of 3 male relations who have been missing for more than 80 days is definitely dead as his clothes have been identified. It is so sad. They still don't know if the other 2 are in prison or dead.

Here in Gjakova 40% of the houses were burned and there was a great deal of killing. In Peja, where we are going next, 90% of the houses were burnt though there was less killing. All very tragic, but the Albanians and Kosovans are noble people and very brave. They are still very sad, but there is a feeling of optimism in the country despite the sadness, and one can only hope that the future will be brighter for them.

WEDNESDAY 13 OCTOBER

We set off from Gjackova by van to Peje at about 7.30 a.m. After reviving cups of strong expresso coffee we went and had a meeting with Save the Children with whom we will be running some workshops and shows here. Then we went on to meet the Peje branch of Balkan Sunflowers. Again, their house is tiny, and already very overcrowded, so they have found a tiny separate flat for us to stay in.

In the afternoon we go with Save the Children to Baran where Save the Children have created one of their “Safe Areas”. These safe areas are places which are now definitely free of landmines, and Save the Children have been running different activities to encourage their use - wonderful work.

We had hoped to do workshops as well as shows, but the secondary children have been invited as well, and as there are 400 children and young people between the ages of 6 and 18, we cannot even manage parachute games, and go straight into the show, which goes down tremendously well.

Then we return to Peje and visit the old Blind School where there are many refugee families with about 45 children. We give out clown noses, do the show, do facepainting and give out balloons.

THURSDAY 14 OCTOBER

We are going to do a show at the Vaso Pasho school in Peje. First Kofi Anan (the head of the United Nations) was going to re-open this school, then he wasn’t, now he is! Are we going to perform before he arrives, or after he has done his speech? Chaos rules, men with walkie-talkies confirm constant changes, then it appears Kofi Anan will be late, so we do our show to about 600 as the warm-up act! It goes down very well.

Have to cut a bit at the end as the secret service guy say he is on his way. We are tremendously well placed on the top of the steps where Kofi Anan will give his speech. His cavalcade arrives and a helicopter hovers overhead. As Kofi Anan mounts the steps, Charlie is blowing up a balloon for a child - and it bursts! A severe shock for the secret service and policemen! Wonderful speech by Kofi Anan who has a wonderful presence, and a lovely return speech by a young teenage Kosovan boy. I get a grin and a handshake. Lots of good photos.

In the afternoon we go to the village of Jabllanica e Madhe, a few kilometres out of Peje, right by the foothills to do a gig under the auspices of the European Children’s Trust. A lovely little village, with many burned out buildings. They were just rebuilding the pathway to the school. A very well behaved crowd of about 350 awaits us and do a very successful show.

The show now runs as follows: Daryl and Charlie present the Silly Billy wallpaper sketch (must rethink this for the future, as am not convinced everyone knows what wallpaper is), Jamie does his Booper the Clown show, Devilstick The Clown does his juggling and circus skills show, and then the Silly Billies present their charming sketch "The Cleaner and the Ballerina" ending in the balloon dance. A lovely chanting thing has been started by Paddy at the beginning of the show and at each changeover and the end. It is an echoing call, and eventually we have huge crowds singing "oh, oh, oh, oh"with the other half of the audience singing "Boomchacker, boomchacker". Doesn’t work well on paper, but works very well in real life! A nice break where the audience can participate.

FRIDAY 15 OCTOBER

We go with Balkan Sunflowers to a school in Peje. We had hoped to be able to do workshops here as well as shows, but there are about 600 children, so can’t do anything except the show sadly. We perform at the top of the steps and the children stand at the bottom. It would have been better to seat them really - there were huge crowd surges as though it was a pop concert.

The teachers were sitting at the top of the steps as though on a dais and weren’t a lot of help. Paddy and I have to descend into the crowd to try to exert some sort of control. Show goes very well though and is much enjoyed.

In the afternoon we are meant to go to Strellc with Save the Children, but they are still caught up in a meeting and are unavailable. We decide to head to Strellc anyway, but when we arrive nobody knows that we are coming. We grab a few passing children and start to play parachute games, word spreads and soon we have 40 children or more for parachute games and at least 80 by the time we do the show. These impromptu events sometimes feel the best, on the edge, yet intimate. We were working in the grounds of the school by a tree which had been burnt and near the graves of people killed in the conflict. Some very moving photographs. Although this village is directly on the main road between Gjackova and Peje, it feels very forgotten. Many, many burnt out buildings, and the children very poor and needy. The sports master from the school turns up and we leave him a parachute so that he can continue the games with the children. A lovely afternoon.

SATURDAY 16 OCTOBER

Our last day in Peje. We do a big show (after a drama group and a singing group) at a new cinema/arts complex that the Balkan Sunflowers have just opened. Lovely audience of about 500, and the show goes down tremendously well, despite appalling lighting.

SUNDAY 17 OCTOBER

We drive to Prishtina early in the morning and then catch the World Food Programme flight back to Tirana in Albania. We have to pay $57 each entry tax to get in to Albania again, which is not good for our budget at all. We wonder whether we will have enough money to get through the trip. When we arrive back at the Balkan Sunflower Hostel there are already 22 people staying there, we make 28 and there are more to come! Oh well, just 4 more nights, then home.

MONDAY 18 OCTOBER

On Monday afternoon Jamie and The Clown take their shows back to the orphanage that we visited last time we were here, and the rest of us go out to Bethore again to work with the children there. Lots of games with the Balkan Sunflowers volunteers and then hand out badge papers, and the children all design a badge, which we take away to make up.