Kosova Expedition
August 13-September 3, 1999
Report by Moshe Cohen
Participants: Moshe Cohen, solo, and with Pepe Viyuela
(psf-Spain)
Through Payasos Sense Fronteras(PSF), in conjunction with
Save the Children and Medicos SinFronteras (MSF(Doctors Without
Borders))-Spain
Activities
19 shows (4 with Pepe Viguela) in schools, newly opened safe
play areas, collective centers, the Prizren open air cinema,
and the Gjakova Palace of Culture .
6 Doctor Yoowho visits, 5 to Gjakova Hospital and one to
Prizren Hospital.
3 Workshops with teachers on using Qi-Gong, Mime and Clown
Expression Movement to relieve post-traumatic stress.
3 Resulting Workshops with Teachers and Students.
Near-Continuous Informal Clown Nose presence.
Overview
The expedition was divided into two sections reflecting that
PSF is cooperating on two projects in Kosova, one with Save
the Children in Prizren, and the other with MSF-Spain in Gjakova.
The first 8 days were spent in Prizren followed by 12 in Gjakova.
The project in Prizren focused on bringing shows to various
areas and incorporating mine awareness sketches into the performances
The project in Gjakova with MSF is focused on relieving post
traumatic stress in children as part of MSF´s mental
health project. The six month program involves two occupational
therapists from PSF (Salvador and Nina) working within the
MSF structure to use all forms of occupational and art therapy
to help the children work through their fear, hatred, anger
and other resulting wounds. 4 groups of clowns will visit
Gjakova and perform in schools and areas where the program
is in action and will offer workshops within each groups abilities.
I was the first clown to visit Gjakova as part of this program.
Pepe Viguela a great clown from Madrid, who does routines
with a guitar, a chair and a stepladder, came to Kosova a
week after myself and arrived in Prizren just before I left
for Gjakova and then showed up in Gjakova a few days before
I left for home. In that short time, we were able to perform
four shows together, two in Prizren and two in Gjakova, which
was great fun.
Log
Kosova had to be the most demanding conflict zone that I
have visited, and much more intense once centered in Gjakova.
The first segment in Prizren involved much travel to perform
in different parts of Kosova. We often traveled in the Payasos
Sense Fronteras truck (Richard´s lorrie that has been
painted with PSF logos) that had traveled from Barcelona originally
to the refugee camps in Albania. Both Richard, an English
Circus artist (trapeze, acrobatics) and Paco, PSF logistician,
had been working together first in Albania and then in Kosova
for the past two and a half months. Together we worked hard
all week under extreme heat wave conditions to the joy of
many people. Certain shows bordered on complete chaos due
to the extreme excitement of the kids. Other shows were warm
and tender. When we traveled to the inauguration of several
'safe areas', schoolyards generally that had been demined,
we were part of a ceremony that included incredibly fervent
speeches by kids full of words like massacra and victima followed
by strong patriotic singing. The security measure given to
me the first night was 'asphalt' and for three weeks beautiful
rolling hills and the steep inclines of Albanian mountains
beckoned but remained off limits. Prizren however was safe
and in town life seemed quasi normal and the small oldtown
was very full of young adults in the evening bars , cafes
and the streets full of conversation.
Gjakova provided a very different experience as the MSF
office and house, an oasis, was right in the destroyed old
town. The destroyed rubble had been cleared out of the houses
and all that remained standing were the side and back walls
of the structures, rows of once white walls lining the streets.
Blackened holes where windows once lived constantly punctuated
the landscape. On market day, Monday, some of the merchants
returned setting up tables in front of their shops and selling.
This was a great contrast to Prizren which was bustling on
market days and all the stores on the main street were full
of merchandise for sale with displays and mannequins set up
on the sidewalks.
Working under the umbrella of the Medicos sin Fronteras(Spain)
was a very different experience from the usual PSF expedition
as MSF is very well equipped. A fleet of 6 Toyota land cruiser
and other 4 wheel drive vehicles, plus a local staff of drivers,
secretaries and translators to support the 'team' of seven.
Everyone uses big fat walkie talkies, radios, with a 20-40-kilometer
range to keep in touch. I was driven to all my gigs and called
on the radio to get a ride back. As opposed to the week in
Prizren, while in Gjakova I never left the city.
The work in Gjakova (pop. 40 000) proved very fullfilling
and demanding. The shows were in the elementary schools that
were yet to be in session. Therefore annoncements were placed
on the local radio to tell where the shows would be taking
place. In some schools I played for maybe 100 kids whereas
others I would be overwhelmed by 300-400 kids. My last show
in Kosova was a show at the municipal theatre with Pepe. It
was free to the public and standing room only (605 capacity)
. The show was very lively and well received despite being
mobbed on stage by kids just as the show closed with Pepe
and I singing my "Going down the Road" song at double
time rocker speed with Ukulele and Guitar. (Pepe by this time
had lost one string to his guitar and was unable to find a
replacement string in Kosova.)
Hospital Visits
The visits to the Gjakova Hospital as Dr Yoowho were greeted
with great enthusiasm by both hospital staff and patients.
Regular visits were established every other day during my
presence in Gjakova. Dr. Yoowho visited both the pediatrics
ward and the rehabilitation clinic. In pediatrics, I did performances
in an open space with the children sitting on nice little
wooden chairs and relatives and nurses created a circular
standing audience. Pepe Viguela accompanied me one time and
together we created a wonderful show for a large group of
patients, parents and nurses. After the show I would then
conduct room visits to both the small two person rooms as
well as the larger eight bed units, focusing on the rooms
with mothers and younger sick children. I also visited the
rehabilitation clinic with both mine victims and broken limb
type patients. The children and adult patients were in mixed
rooms, 4 to a room thus I found himself working with both
several young kids and several young men with revolutionary
clothing hanging on the chairs by their beds. The situation
worked rather well although the last day an agressive new
male patient with a foot amputation (mine) made the energy
on the edge and slightly threatening. I slipped in occasional
side conversations of non-verbal nature to the men to indicate
that the purpose of his visit were for the children. Aside
from the show elemet of the visits, Bubbles, music and magic
were the big successes. Due to the depleted physical condition
of the hospital ( the Serbs stole most medical equipement
and destroyed the rest), the clown doctor visits seemed essential
to the mental health of the young patients. There was no apparent
child-life program established at the hospital. Note that
due to severe shortage of any hospital equipement, some typical
clown doctor material was elimated (such as blowing up latex
gloves).
Workshops
As part of the mental health program established between
Payasos Sense
Fronteras and MSF-Spain, I cooperated with occupational therapist
Salvador, and created a series of workshops designed to relieve
post-traumatic stress and work with children in mental health
prevention.
The focus of the work was a combination of Qi-Gong style exercises,
corporeal mime work, and clown movement expression exercises
developed by Moshe. The work was first taught to the teachers
in a series of early evening sessions in the MSFoffice/house
garden. The work stressed developing safe methods to express
some of the difficult emotions resulting from the conflict
with both physical and verbal expression. Mime techniques
were taught to allow teachers to conduct storytelling sessions
with the children. The program emphasized physical balance
and with the Qi-Gong, a sense of harmony. I began and ended
the sessions with circle rituals. The teachers and Moshe then
cooperated to teach three sessions to the children at one
school on the large outside playground. The children were
eager and fully engaged in the workshop. The sound of 120
children being wolves howling at the moon brought many neighbors
running to peer over the school fence to see what was happening.
The teachers expressed the opinion that this work was very
important and directly touched the children.
The Situation
Kosova ( Albanian for Kosovo) is a country currently full
of a sense of liberation, pride and optimism amongst the Albanian
population, as well as a physical reality full of destoyed
houses, extensively mined territory and continued effects
of the war including Serb house burnings, blockades of Russian
army units and continued hatred expressed in both directions
.
The level of destruction of houses and stores is most extensive
in the Pea and Djakvica region, the statistics are in the
60% range and the entire historic old town of Gjakova(a UNESCO
historic site) is now a skeleton of former shops and homes.
Reconstruction aid desperately needed before the upcoming
winter is not arriving due to many factors and word was out
that humanitarian assistance and food deliveries would slow
down too before the onset of the extreme Balkan winter. It
is generally agreed amongst humanitarian groups that aid will
not arrive before 2000 due to a combination of factors :bureuacratic
elephants in slow motion, financial blocks on USAid prior
to the new fiscal year, and extensive difficulties at the
Macedonian border where supposed thousands of trucks are waiting
to cross into Kosova. Other entry points are not viable, Albania
because it is unsafe, rife with mafias and bandits, (I met
several people whose cars had been hijacked at machine gun
point) and Montenegro as it is still part of Serbia.
Prizren was not destroyed at all by the war whereas Gjakova
was heavily hit by the Serb paramilitary units. Almost the
entire old town was burned to the ground the same night that
the NATO bombings began. The population was chased out and
told to leave. Many refused to leave (60%) and hid in their
basements living in terror that the Serb paramilitary units
might be knocking on their door next. Reports from the villages
that I performed in were similar with paramilitary choosing
new targets most every night. In Gjakova there were UCK(Kosova
Liberation Army) reports of 500 cases of reported rape by
Serbs. Woman were rounded up whenever they left their homes
and brought to this one house. The Serbs when done would hand
their victims over to a group of gypsies for similar treatement.
AS this information came from the UCK (KLA) information center
it may be a little tainted but probably not by much. There
is little doubt however that victims rounded up nightly both
in cities and in the country were murdered. The Serbs also
undertook a heavy anti-personel mining campaign that included
mining and booby trapping places such as wells and schools.
The level of cruelty, terror and fear that the children have
suffered through is extreme. Many have seen cadavres and often
much worse including decapitated bodies of other children.
The repression has been going on actively for the past ten
years as Albanian activities were severely limited by the
Serbs. Secondary schools were closed to Albanian children
resulting in private home schooling. Albanian men traveling
outside the country for work (Germany, Austria, Switzerland...)
were not allowed to reenter the country. References were made
to Albanians being unable to farm their land although I did
not get more information on that score. References were also
made to restrictions on use of Albanian language and celebration
of religion but I do not have accurate information. I was
told that wearing the traditional white Albanian felt hat
was asking for serious trouble.
The country is a United Nations/military protectorate and
KFOR(NATO) tanks, lorries, soldiers and conveys are present
everywhere , in the towns and highways with checkpoints all
over. Curfew is in effect from midnight to daylight. Some
of the Italian soldiers wear feathers on their helmets, the
German army seemed obsessed with washing their trucks, jeeps
and tanks. Travel on the highways is slow due to numerous
potholes on many sections requiring extensive zigzag piloting
skills. There are no police, many cars have no license plates,
many underage and unlicensed drivers leading to some concern
for traffic safety. Probably a good thing that no-one is fixing
the potholes.
There is no intercountry or international telephone service
nor any postal offices or services. The only form of communication
is satellite telephones although word was that mobile phones
were working again in the Pristina area.
My visit occured during a window of time when the Kosovars
feel empowered. The political realities are not simple and
it remains unclear if Kosovo will become an independant Kosova
or remain part of Yugoslavia/Serbia, if Kosovar-Serbs will
return and how the relations between Albanians and Serbs can
or cannot improve. While I was there, the Yugoslavian Dinar
(currency unit) was officially decomissioned leaving only
the DeutchMark (german currency) as legal tender. Nothing
dramatic is likely to occur before the elections planned for
next April.
Conclusion
The presence of clowns in Kosova was, is and will be an asset
to generating a positive environement for the children and
their parents. The longterm project in Gjakova, the first
in PSF history, is a very strong new direction for PSF in
finding ways to relieve the psychological tensions that stem
from conflict. One wonders when and if humanity will ever
find a way to create harmony on the planet. For the moment
it seems like a farfetched dream. Yet I have no doubt that
pushing toward light and laughter remains the best pathway
available, bringing humor to the forefront of the moment.
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