As we walked along Vushtrri’s main thoroughfare, we spoke of the bar that he—like all young men in Kosovo—wanted to open. He envisioned a live music venue emulating the western rock clubs that he himself dreamed of playing. The sidewalk was crowded with teenagers, parked cars, vendors and old men deep in conversation. We stepped into the road, and the driver of a passing car nodded his head to the sound of Albanian techno folk. My friend shook his head and sighed. This, he suggested, would be his biggest challenge. The citizens would love his bar, he thought. It was the villagers who were responsible for spreading throughout Vushtrri.

We drank coffee on the patio of his favorite cafe, but only one. I had many things still to do. I said goodbye and drove to Mitrovica.
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My bees were doing well. As far as I could tell. They were darting from the hive to the garden and back. They seemed to be doing what bees did. We sat on the concrete porch and drank çaj with her father.

The road to her home seems to consist of more potholes than even ground. The walls along this road are half-built and decaying. It didn’t used to be like this, she sighed. Before the war this was a beautiful neighborhood. That area over there—she pointed—was public land: a beautiful park. Only citizens lived here then, before the war. But it’s not the same now. It’s not the same since the villagers came.
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I drove us to the foreign council’s office to inquire about educational opportunities there. We presented our identification at the gate. The walls were lined with bookshelves. The modern furniture and well-organized literature appeared to be more displayed than used. Three young Albanian women greeted us when we entered.

I spoke with them about scholarships and courses as my friend stood silently beside me. I read a brochure and indicated to her those points that I considered to be of most importance. She lowered her eyes and seemed to shrink into herself, uncomfortable in front of these three women in their neat, modern casual office clothes, with their loud and confident English, in their antiseptic office waiting room. In Mitrovica, she is one of my most cultured friends, proud and inquisitive. The three citizens behind the counter in Prishtina never addressed her directly. Just another needy villager.
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We use ‘citizen,’ he said, to mean ‘a person from the city.’ He said this knowing that an American might be confused by this distinction. I know, I told him.

We’re still unpacking boxes from the move, and I need to get home to help my wife. I had many things still to do.

She leaned a photo of the bridge against the mirror in the hallway. We both felt happy about this reminder of Mitrovica, our favorite city in Kosovo.

 

I should stop saying ‘Prishtina’ as if it were an insult, something I learned to do over coffee and beers in Mitrovica. Prishtina was where all the headquarters were. Headquarters that never seemed to appreciate the true situation elsewhere. (Spend money on projects that get our name in the paper. Share racist talk with colleagues while a Serb works in the next office.) Not just the headquarters: the government. (Pass the parts of Ahtisaari that we agree with. Talk to the community leaders that we agree with. Give more speeches about rights, and none at all about obligations.) Not just the government: the citizens. (Post on internet forums about “those troublemakers up there.” Fail at concealing the desire to use a heavy hand over petty issues like license plates. Don’t mind a little violence in the village. Serves them right.)

Many young villagers loved their capital city, but I hadn’t met any in Prishtina yet who loved their villagers. I left Mitrovica regretfully and sadly, distrusting the internationals and citizens at the headquarters, and then, suddenly, we lived in Prishtina.
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Framed photos leaned against the walls where we would hang them later. Framed prints already on the wall are dedicated to two children long grown, “from a friend of your father’s.” The surrounding streets and alleys are distinctively European: quiet and verdant, pretend country in the city, but without the messy villagers. “We can’t believe our luck,” we tell the landlady’s daughter. She agrees. Her childhood home. The framed prints are dedicated to her.

You’re lucky, she says: not too many villagers have moved in around here. It’s still mostly citizens.
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They used the word ‘citizen’ in the same way that ancient Athenians did—to mean “a person of the city”—and they use ‘villager’ as an insult.

 

At the same time, their most popular national hero was a villager.

But they say ‘villager’ the same way I say ‘Prishtina.’
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I drew the line at Arbëri, the neighborhood I associate with the excesses of international and local snobbery and misguided policy. I did not want to live alongside the foreign embassies and offices that issued so many directives here—so often to the detriment of our favorite town in Kosovo. In fact, I hated Arbëri, did not care if it was—as the foreigners said so often—so cute! I hated it, and we moved into a house on the other side of Prishtina. I declared independence from Arbëri, and felt confident that I was much better than they were.

My back hurt. Climbing stairs and lifting boxes. But the bath in a real bathtub with plentiful hot water helped. Twenty-three hours of electricity a day heated the water. I put a load of laundry into the machine and walked down the road into the city. There is a cafe I’ve had my eye on. A place to sit at the bend in the road across from the school, where endless traffic streams past into the heart of the Prishtina. I walked past the homes of our neighborhood, where the laundry on balconies was concealed behind shaded curtains so that we would not see each other’s underwear. Nothing like the village. But still others hosed their driveways with rationed water, generators hummed and construction workers hammered and banged everywhere. The same as in the village. I took a seat outside the cafe. The coffee was no better or worse than in Mitrovica or Vushtrri. It was the same, made by the hands of citizens or villagers. Black SUV’s jumped the curb to skirt the traffic jams and carry very important people to very important places. I hated them.

The eggs I bought in the store were smaller than the ones from the village, and the bread was less sweet. I suppose that it doesn’t take long to forget the village ways. At home, I sat on the terrace and watched the bees, legs already laden with pollen, forcing their entry into half-closed flower buds. They struggled and pushed, until the petals finally gave way and then folded shut over them. Then the bees could not be seen, and the buds pulsed and wobbled, possessed.

 

Blackbird is an American blogger living in Kosovo.