Walk around Pristina, Kosovo cut short by bad air quality

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(the article below accompanies this video)

All I knew about Kosovo for many years was that it was on TV a lot in the late 1990s, when Bill Clinton oversaw some kind of military action here. But I didn’t know the specifics. Now that Masayo and I made it here from Serbia, maybe it’s time to find out.

It turns out that Serbia considers Kosovo to be one of its provinces, but Kosovo sees itself as independent and more of a friend to Albania. So while Serbia and Kosovo were fighting it out, Clinton and thus the US military sided with Kosovo. Kosovo loves America for it.

Some countries recognize Kosovo’s independence; others don’t. My country, the United States, does. Signs of the locals’ fondness for America are all over the place in Prishtina.

We planned to walk around the grey, dirty, beleaguered-looking city today, down George Bush Boulevard to Bill Clinton Boulevard to see a statue that a local organization had installed of beloved President Clinton.

Prishtina is dusty and kind of chaotic: roads aren’t laid out straight, and cars honk and swerve everywhere. We walked on crummy sidewalks (where there were any), peering through the dull air at derelict-looking buildings (though there were some nice buildings and cafes and things too).

Little did I know, a demonstration against the government here two days earlier had ended in tears — specifically, tear gas — and the usually-bad air of Prishtina was even worse.

After a high morning BG of 214, we had a delightful large breakfast in the hotel dining area — omelettes with tomatoes and cucumbers and olives, yogurt, rolls, olives, a bowl of fresh fruits… and our first America-style coffee in many countries! Stomach, enjoy. Humalog, do your thing.

I don’t know what did it, but my BG a few hours later was 353. SIGH. I took a jab of Humalog, and Masayo and I set out, wide-eyed innocents looking around our new city.

I am not too sensitive to bad air, and it was Masayo who first pointed it out to me as we strode down Xhorxh Bush Boulevard: Prishtina was particularly foul. I figured it was the pollution from the cars and buses; we were outside under a drably overcast sky, and while the sidewalks were full of pedestrians, there were touches that gave Prishtina a sense of civic decay — such as the once-proud University of Pristina sign with several of its letters missing.

(NOTE: The name of the city is spelled both Pristina and Prishtina; I use the latter since it reflects the actual pronunciation.)

At the Cathedral on the corner of Xhorxh Bush and Bill Klinton we turned right to walk down the hill towards the statue of the latter. Masayo was getting increasingly light-headed, but she persevered and soon we came across the statue.

Clinton stands with his hand up, clutching in the other a paper representing the order to send troops in to help Kosovo. In front of an apartment building in an ugly part of town near the bus station, he gazes out at a wide, multi-lane highway full of dust and cheap little shops. It was more like the outskirts of a Thai town than a European capital.

As we headed back, Masayo began to get much worse, finding it difficult to walk straight and even collapsing on a bench for a few minutes. People must have thought she was on an afternoon drunk.

Growing worried, I wanted desperately to get a taxi to take us back to the hotel and stop her suffering, but I couldn’t: we hadn’t converted our Serbian dinars into euros yet and I had no local currency. (Every other shop in Serbia is a currency converter; not so here.)

So we had to walk.

Eyes watering and out of breath, Masayo made it as far as she could before collapsing for the last time. I caught her by the arm and picked her up, carrying her “bride-over-the-threshold” style the last block to the hotel.

She struggled up the stairs herself, with some support, and collapsed into bed, gasping and wheezing with her wet eyes tightly closed.

I tried not to freak out. I knew her system didn’t like fumes from traffic but I’d never seen her like this. However, she refused my multiple offers to call for a doctor.

She’d sleep a while, breathing somewhat better, then wake up and start gasping again. Over the afternoon, though, she improved noticeably, and an hour and a half later was sitting up and eating cereal, though obviously not well.

Chatting online with my family in America, my sister posited that Masayo was responding to the lingering effects of tear gas. I hadn’t thought of that, but the more I thought about it the more obvious it seemed. It was only about 36 hours earlier that the police had used the chemicals, right where we were walking, during a demonstration by ethnic Albanians against a government minister who had insulted them and in favor of nationalizing a Kosovan mining company.

Poor Masayo, I thought, checking my BG: 138. Some good news for the day. Unfortunately, after taking Humalog and eating cereal, I had an extra bowl because I was hungry, which landed my BG at 234 later. All my fault.

She rested, and later (understandably) didn’t want to go out. I fetched dinner from the market across the street (finally going to an ATM for euros): cheese and crackers, cashews, cookies, and pizza. This is what happens when you leave me in charge of dinner.

Afterwards my BG was 148; I was glad I’d wrestled it down from its highness earlier, but mostly I concentrated on looking after Masayo.

We learned one thing, though: stay abreast of the news when traveling. If we’d known about the problems Prishtina had two days earlier, we may have skipped our visit here entirely.

According to internet new stories, a government building in town was damaged, with broken windows and stuff, during the riot. I want to go take some riot-porn photos of it tomorrow, if things work out that way. It feels run-down and tense, but I think Prishtina is safe enough now, and it might make for some interesting pictures.

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