Moshe's Journal Kosova/o 1999

Extract from Kosovo/a Journals
Stories from Clowns Without borders expedition in 1999
© Moshe Cohen 2003

Barcelona Airport, August 14

I have a huge argument with the police at the security gate x-ray station. The green uniformed guardia civil man refuses to visually inspect my film insisting that I pass it through the x-ray machine. I explain that the machine lays a fine film on the film that lessens the contrast, but he won't listen. In a belligerent voice he tells me that he is sure that when I am in London, Paris or New York, I shut my mouth and don't argue following the instructions; but that here in Spain, since it is ONLY Spain, I think I can get away with anything.

An expletive escapes me (oh F**k it all!) which changes his demeanor along with the color of his face as he tells me that I am crossing the line and that perhaps I would like to travel in a couple of days and visit Spains' prisons in the meanwhile. "I am not some security guard, I am the Guardia Civil" and gestures to his three green uniformed companions who are all sitting down in slouched positions watching the conversation with mild interest.

I am obviously just a pain in his painfull ass that he has to sit on too much every day. We rehash the many sides of the story a few times as I place my film in the lead covered protective velcroed envelope that I bought in Berkeley. The instructions say to have the film visually inspected whenever possible. I wouldn't have been so adamant except for a customer's story while I was waiting in the store's line to buy the item:

He explained how he had bought all this film-200 rolls- for some people in Rome and they had explicitly told him not to use the lead bags, to make sure that the film was visually inspected at the airport. They said that sometimes the x-ray machine will literally cook the film inside the bag as if it were a microwave oven.

I don't know what to think. No one else has ever heard such a story and yet it has me slightly paranoid. My envelope goes through the machine. The film comes out the otherside. No popping popcorn hot melted anything as I inspect the film pulling the grey stuff to see if it is still free within it's casing. I breath (I’m doubting you can buy black and white film in Kosovo) then scold myself for being so uppity and combative. Surely in the days to come I will have far more serious tests and demands on my patience requiring calm undestanding.
Meanwhile I'm in comfortable Swissair leather seat headed for Zurich and then Skopje, Macedonia with tired 6am wake-up eyes. Unsettled feelings, not fear, nor excitement. Yesteday in Barcelona, Tortell (president of CWB) half joked that I'm going to visit hell and I guess in some ways he is right. When I had dinner with Tante Melitta in Amsterdam, she thought that it was good to be going there but that these were undeserving people. Harsh and violent they did not warrant the attention. Considering the brutality and the cruelty I can't say she has it all wrong. Tortell reminds me that it will be 'duro' (harsh) and I don't doubt it. Perhaps it will be me seeking to take refuge in the children's love and hopeful innocence rather than the other way around.

The Japanese video documentary brother and sister team, Hiromi and Chieko Yamagami, that I met in Mexico City, will be flying in tomorrow. They intend to make a segment for Japanese TV on my activities and Clowns without Borders. In the last e-mail exchange they told me that they intend to follow me back to Barcelona as well as San Francisco. Should be interesting.

The Kosovo crisis has been relegated to the middle pages of the International Herald Tribune. The front page however is filled with world turmoil : the Chinese are threatening military action against Taiwan ("Threat Gathering Momentum"), the Russian vow widespread assault in the Caucauses following the Islamic uprising in Dagestan. There's a large article on the consistent and continued bombing of Iraq by Britain and the US ("Planes waging little noticed war"). The Indians and Pakistanis are attempting to stop the huge escalation following the latest Kashmiri conflict and the downing of an Indian plane over Pakistani airspace. Or was it a Pakistani plane over Indian airspace?
The neo-Nazi who attacked the Jewish Center in Los Angeles called a postman he murdered "a non-white victim of opportunity." A Columbian radio announcer, a famous humorist, was assasinated by gunmen on a mortorcycle pulling up alongside his Jeep Cherokee. Well known for his humanitarian efforts to promote peace and dialogue with leftist guerillas it is unclear who would want to kill him yet the article speculates that it is these very efforts that got him killed.
Meanwhile in middle America and many other places, the talk shows rage on.

Ten minutes to Skopje, with screaming 6 month old twins behind my seat and brown farmland below. Harvested wheat fields I imagine, alternate with bright green patches. Mountains to the south of my window perch and Greece somehwere further below. The plane is full of people speaking some Slavic tongue that slips right by me.

Military equipement, helicopters, trucks, all over the airport. German flags flying, KFOR stenciled everywhere on camouflage green. Huge temporary hangers looking like inflatable circus tents house mystery aircraft. A “United States of America” jet on the tarmac-is Colin Powell in town?. A shabby white building has 'UN', black paint stenciled all over it. A fuel truck with Serbian letters, an Austrian Airlines jet and one marked VIA are the only signs of civilian activity.
The rush to get off the plane is in retreat as a police officer with cool sunglasses is refusing the unloading. Word comes over the loudspeaker that the passport control building is full and that we must wait. The large helicopters, with their drooped blades looking like unhappy kitchen implements from Gulliver's house, remain idle, dormant. As we land one can spot camouflaged airplane hangers hidden under smooth mounds of grassy turf to blend in with the surroundings. Pockets of tents and sandbagged empires of camouflage all around them. The policeman, clearcut with sky blue shirt and chewing gum attitude handles his walky talky with importance as he glances continuously at his watch. This is his moment of power, he is controlling our destiny.

Kilometers of trucks lined up waiting to cross the Macedonian border along with a whole mess of cars stacked up. A policeman asks us if we are humanitarian aid. The jeep is covered in ‘Medecins Sans Frontieres’ stickers, but he has to ask before waving us through. The huddles of dusty Yugoslav cars are not getting the preferencial treatement. It looks like they will be waiting a long while.
The border guard, however, is another story. He slowly checks all of our papers before launching into a stern lecture for my driver's benifit, a Kosovar named Hajrulla, nicknamed Lali. Another pion seizing his power moment. It's an obtuse story about needing a Macedonian judge to give him permission, as a Kosovar. There is some definite animosity barely hidden as he lectures our driver. What do the Macedonian’s have against the Albanians? No time to study the history. He then lets us pass.

WE advance some 200 meters before reaching another line, that of the NATO army-KFOR- checkpoint. The diesel fumes accumulate as we wait behind a British camouflage truck. A slick silver sedan with the NBC logo on the dashboard whizzes by in the other direction. A waiting truckdriver asks us in broken English if we have something for stomach pain. "My stomach makes problems the last two days." He has recognized the ‘Doctor Without Borders’’ stickers but none of us are doctors. He shrugs off with a smile. We are surrounded by lines of trucks and a group of joking drivers, who share water with a policeman. There’s a refrigerated fish truck from Holland amongst the mostly Macedonian trucks. There are a few US Army truck cabs sans trailers, a long line of empty bedded French army trucks, perhaps some twenty or thirty. All are moving past us in the opposite direction. Looks like the military convoys have the priority.

We finally pass through with a solemn nod from a German officer. As we drive away, the long line of trucks waiting in the opposite direction continues for quite some time. We pass cheerful kids on a farm tractor, several makeshift stands selling cartons of cigarettes which are all stacked up like sandcastles. Brands that I have never heard of amongst a few familiar Western ones. A British truck loaded with truck tires, another with tank treads, and then many more move past those who wait. Little kids roadside wave as we pass, some flashing the peace sign. Stop and go traffic perfumed by diesel fumes. Welcome to Kosovo.

Kids wave continuously. I put on a clown nose, to Lali's delight. He tries it on and laughs. 10 Red Cross semis, all with white canopied double trailers pass in the other direction. I put the clown nose back on.
My first Albanian word :Ouill (Water)
First series of burned houses. They are surrounded by other red brick two story farmhouses still standing, some with satellite antennas attached to the balcony railings. I wave at a teenage girl playing with a toddler. As our eyes connect, she gives me a head twisted smile full of incredulous unbelievability. It’s the clown nose of course. Am I the first clown entering Kosovo? We pass a brick factory in full production with a truck loading bricks. Three kids wave, I wave back, their eyes and mouths wide open as they recognize my red nose, look at each other than back at me pointing. They start to run after the car for a moment.
Men building a new house right next to the remains of another that looks like it was bulldozed, spines of the roof sticking out amongst crushed red roof tiles. It is a recurring sight. Piles of rubble, broken cement in clumps. Ruins. That and anonymous white Mercedes on the road with no license plates.

There are building materials piled along the road on the sidewalk. People buying and selling. The town is Furizi and the main street is full of people walking, talking, sitting at small cafes and a few larger terraces. The scene is vibrant with life. I make eye contact with as many people as possible. This was not part of my traveling plan, but the response to the nose is incredible. A gang of kids follow our car as we move with the slow traffic through town. They are enjoying the moment immensly. Smiles and waves mostly, a few grim resentful replies. Soldiers laugh. I do small magic tricks for the gang of kids playing my mini harmonica. I feel like the pied piper. Teenagers mouths drop in surprise. Young men at the sidewalk cigarette stands laugh.

We pass by a large collection of parked cars and men in a field all talking on cellphones. The Herald Tribune had an article about how the Iridium satellite cellphone company is filing bankruptcy. In Kosovo, they are the only phones that work. Or so I'm told. For whatever reason, this hilltop must have coveted reception. We pass another smoldering house. No one is looking twice. There are numerous horse drawn farm carts on the road carrying loads of dried hay. We pass a Greek KFOR army checkpoint.

The story from Lali who lives in Gjakova:
"I and my brother, we were convinced we were going to die. But we were going to do something before we died. We were waiting for arms, but they never came. We were living like animals trying to survive. There were lots of abandoned houses. During the day we would hide and at night we would search for food, sometimes sleep. Once we sent our family to Albania we were no longer afraid. Once you accept death, all fear leaves you."

Meanwhile the radio plays a steady diet of American pop hits. I pull out my ukulele and play a tune. "You play ukulele, just like Marilyn Monroe,” Lali comments to me. “ ‘Some like it hot’ with Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis." Lali knows his stuff better than I do.
The road to Gjakova is full of potholes and cars wiggling around them. Fields are taped off with red and white striped caution tape and signs stating "MINES". We drive out of the Macedonian mountain range into a big valley where you can see high mountains to the South and the West, one way to Montenegro, the other to Albania. In the midst of the valley is smoke and fire. Is this one of the reprisals against the Serbs I’ve been reading about I wonder. It turns out to be a farmer burning the haystubs in his field.

I realize that I am still palming the mini-harmonica and the Swiss two franc coin in my hands that I was using way back when the group of kids was tailing our car over an hour ago. Night is starting to fall and there are layers of pink clouds in the sky as Van Morrison sings about "days like this." As we pass landscapes of burned out houses, a thin crescent of new moon hovers in the sky.

"Cheapness and beauty
Tickery and lies".....repeated lyrics of some sour song on the radio.

Sunday, August 15th, Prizren

Fallimdérit Thank you
Skopersé You're welcome
Meer Good
Si Chu Hesh What's your name
Dit a na meer See you later

Ten year old Granit, son of the landlord downstairs, brings me sliced watermelon to this midlevel apartement. He teaches me a few words of Albanian. This is Payasos central, Richard ( circus artist, circus technician, truck owner and driver) and Paco's(CWB logisitician) headquarters on a dusty side street somewhere in maintown Prizren. Marvin-Gaye croons on Richard's CD box which is positioned on the Turkish style carpet on the floor. Couches covered with marroon animal print blankets line two of the four white walls laced with indoor ivy vines.

There are several gold framed kneedlepoint pictures supporting the centerpiece rug hanging, a gaudy still life on brown shaggy carpet with multicolored tassles hanging. Bright yellows and reds depict a stilllife: two apples and a candle with brass holder next to a glass oil lamp and overflowing basket of fruit. The backround is a kaleidoscope of enlarging auras: grey at the center, than canned pea green, yam orange, sultry beige and thin brown arc above the tip of sleek curved oil lamp.

One of the kneedlepoints is a village scene with a very shapely peasant woman walking back from the well along the river, white swans floating nearby. Her eyes glance, sugestively with stretched lip, white teeth smile. arms lifted to balance a Macedonian earthen water jug on her shoulder, with a red scarf and white flowers in her hair. What seems to be a bunch of white grapes hang between her breasts. White sheep follow her traditional country costume, with the town and ivy covered brick bridge behind, all in tiny squared knitted woolen thread.
Couches seem to be the central theme of my room, as well. Couches line two of the four walls. All the couches slide out to make beds. The couches in this room are embroidered in light puple baroque flowered, thick harsh velvet fabric suggesting Bulgarian to my mind. This fabric only peeks out protected by polyester animal print blankets. The other rooms have sheepskin style white rugs covering them.

There is a Krishnamurti book on the round table in the kitchen dining portion of Payasos central, an all in one apartement room. A Newsweek magazine that I brought lies next to it. The headline is all about the new rage in Cosmetic surgery and features a photograph of a pretty dark haired woman whose face has a series of symetrical purple lines, rows and circles presumably pre-surgery. In much smaller print, a banner headline reads "Targeting the Serbs". They are selling the fickle American public a magazine while trying to maintain some level of dignified journalism.

Three girls in bathing suits play on a second floor balcony of the three story beige apartement house across the way. It is hot and dry and their playful noise is interupted by a helicopter passing over, a chop chop chop combined with jet engine whine. The second I have heard in the hour since I've been here.

"Asphalt"
The key word in last night's very informal security briefing. Paco then gave me some Deutchmarks and had me sign a receipt. That was the sum total of it. There was a discussion about the "Save The Children" directive not to wear humanitarian T-shirts at night. Another directive is not to drive in Kosova at night. Obviously night is regarded as unsafe. Is it unsafe because that is when any reprisals on the Serbs might take place? Or simply because the Albanians tearing up the roads are such bad drivers (many without driver’s licenses ). Not to mention that in this state of anarchy there are no policeman. I have no real clue.
"Asphalt", Paco repeats. That is all I have to remember for the next three weeks. Only safe play areas certified by UNICEF or "Save the Children", and asphalt. That is SAFE. Assuming that I want to keep my body intact. There are UNICEF full color brochures and large posters under the couch picturing large cluster bombs, grenades and unexploded mines. A drawing on the poster shows two teenagers walking down a forest path unaware of the string, stretched across the path in front of them, attached to a bomb behind a tree. The main drawing is of a sneakered foot beveled over the portruding button of a landmine in the ground. Large blockletters in Kosovar red read out warnings.

The floor is also littered with CDs, folders, spraypaints, vacuum cleaner and transparent jerricans of water with bright orange spiggots. It would seem that occasionally there are water pressure problems. Schedule as of now

Monday Aug 16
10:30-11 Brick Factory in Gjokova/ A collective center
5pm School : Mustafa Bakyri
Tuesday
leaving 8am show inaugurating " safe area"
7pm Prizren-Lecke Dukajni
Wednesday
PEA-Safe area
7pm Prizren Collective Center
Thursday ??
Friday
Dechan 10am
Prizren 7pm kino Bistrita
Saturday
7pm Kino BistritaMonday Aug 16th

In a Shish kabab house in half destroyed Gjakova.
Wild kids. Bully throwing big rocks at little kids. Eating a hamburger without the meat (fried egg, cheese, tomato, shredded cabbage) with some type of Albanian music pumping loud. Hot day. More information than I can write down.

Richard has been explaining a lot of the past 10 weeks that he and Paco have experienced. It starts with their driving from Barcelona to Albania in his truck, arriving in the refugee camps just as people were starting to return to Kosovo. Bad timing plus mayhem in the camps. A froup of volunteers in Spain painted the truck full of Clowns Without Borders logo’s leaving one side completely white so that Richard and Paco would be able to show movies for the kids. In a dreadful fit of miscalculation, the hopeful humanitarians discover that no one want to laugh at early Charlie Chaplin and all the silent classics that they have brought. The kids are all clammering for the latest Hollywood blockbusters.

Richard has lots of stories about UNICEF and all about the numerous NGO's (non govermental organizations) present. The list of names decaled onto new 4x4 jeeps is forever constantly expanding. Fleets of brand new vehicles, all the charities in the world seem to have jumped on the Kosovar bandwagon.

We played this morning for a group of displaced refugees who are making their home in the buildings of a brick factory. Beautiful grassy hills rise behind, all covered with anti-personel mines. They are little devices the size of your thumb designed to injure not kill, just to blow off your foot. Some are metal some are plastic, so that metal detectors cannot be used in demining, only dogs that can sniff out explosives. We are a team of ten now, 4 young Albanians working with Richard, actors, to present the anti-mine portion of the show. There is also Paco and Fatmir(our translator). Chieko and Hiromi have arrived from Japan and are videotaping the whole experience.

Trash dumped down the hillside leading to a mountain stream winding down the road. Richard tells me it is like this everywhere, that they think the water will just wash it all away. We discuss whether it has always been like this, or just recently. Another question to ask someone.

The constantly expressed factor is the Serb repression of the Kosovar Albanians which has been going on for some ten years now. Albanian kids not allowed to go to school (later I find out only the Secondary schools) is the most prominent fact. It would seem that it has been rather harsh recently. The result is a general sense of pride and purpose in people's walk wherever you look. They own their country now. They feel liberated, mixed with deep sorrow, shock at the destruction and loss. Combine that with a severe hatred of the Serbs and you have quite the complex emotional mix. It will not change anytime soon. That is the feeling one gets. Ethnic hatred seems to be an intractable part of the Balkan life according to Richard and my memories from Croatia in '94.
1st show Brick Factory 150 people

Second show in echoey gym with 4-500 over-excited wild kids unable to calm down. I walk into pure mayhem that finally becomes focused. The kids are all screaming and excitedly talking to each other carefully observing every step I make. I adjust my gameplan to the noise level. Do less not more. Keep moving slowly until their curiosity sucks in the silence. After all how many people walk into their lives wearing a wildhoundstooth suit with three derby hats stacked on top of his head.
Rule number one in the clowning department: got to play the moment. I abandon my plan to play the stand on my suitcase routine, an intimate affair that ends with my playing a tune on a one inch harmonica. It is clear that the kids won’t be able to hear the harmonica. Throw those five minutes out the door into the muggy grey heat. I move right into taking off my hats after which I plan to do hat manipulations. Things have quieted down considerably, I play an exagerated self-importance as I take off the first hats. The kids are chuckling. I take off the third hat, reveal my baldness. Big explosion of laughter and hoots. You can be sure the unexpected will produce big laughs.

Rule number two in clowning. If something is getting laughs, keep playing it. So I ride the wave, grabbing my hair from either side and pulling it straight out and give up a strong facial expression. Bigger laughs. I start in with a wing flapping motion to my hair and moving like a bird. The kids are in hysterics.
I leave after my multiplying sponge ball(magic) routine with the volunteer to let Richard and the young Kosovar actors do their anti-mine education piece. That is the plan, the message part of the show placed where they will be attentive. The goal is to make sure the kids understand the danger of land-mines and understand the safety precautions. The word “Asphalt” starts ringing through my head.

I have taken a theatrical refuge in a nearby classroom but I hear the noise level jump up a notch. I peak out to observe. The noise keeps increasing as the focus dissapears. The young actors are not very strong and neither are their voices. I'm not sure about their message as it is all in Albanian but when it is time for my second entry, chaos has taken over again. Not only are the kids being noisy (greatly amplified by the gym's cement accoustics) but they are no longer sitting calmly. They are moving in front of each other to get closer to me.

My 1/3 of the gym stage has all of the sudden become a small circle and I am unsure what to do. The ‘Save the Children’ monitors, including the big burly guy with the whistle, are unable to control the situation. At one point I go around the circle pointing and insisting that everyone sit down, which they do. The noise level is still way too high and by the time I come around to the beginning of the circle, the kids are standing again. I go into a frozen, head bowed standing position, closing my eyes and prayingfor the powers to come into action. I’m hoping that the close contact we had previously will allow them to get the message. After a minute, the noise level comes down, the monitors move in to get the kids to back up again and I am able to continue the show, albight with a high density sound factor that prohibits my whistling tube routine-they won’t hear it. Even my large harmonica which I play while juggling cigar boxes is inaudible. The kids seem to love it anyway.

After the show, I am escorted by the monitors back to my classroom/dressing room. Excited kids are pushed back, I’ve achieved something on the order of rock star status. Temporarily in that moment. Changed and packed up, I walk the halls of the school to the sportsfield area where we parked the truck. The kids are all out there and I am quickly stormed, something of a small stampede as I make my way to the truck. I start to shake eager hands but then there is something of a human crush. I jump up onto cab steps and from the protective height of Richard's lorry I shake 1000 small hands, smiling, meeting their eyes as much as possible asI grasp the young hands. That becomes my post show mantra: connect. It is a warm moment and despite all the chaos and the sweating heat. I feel gooood. Even though in my attempts to communicate during the show I just ruined my singing voice for the next few months.

We drive back to Prizren, 35 kilometers of heavily potholed road, a slow ordeal in the extreme heat of the over 100° wave. Exhaustion from the outpouring of energy at the show has sunk into my bones. And it is only day 1 of performing. What a beginning.
Back at the house in Prizren we are greeted by Ailetta, Abdul the landlord's twenty eight year old niece. Later that evening she shares her stories of refuge near the town of Pea during the war. How she hid in a field for two months when the Serb paramilitaries would come to the village. They come back to the village most every day. They would choose a house at random and kill whomever they would find. 30 people over 2 months. "One day they killed 6, another day they killed 7." All the memories, fear and terror are still very present in her sunken eyes.

I ask her if when she was a little girl all this hatred existed. She said no, she had many Serb friends, that it started about 10 years ago when Milosovic came to power.

Driving in Kosovo is another experience not to be found on many parts of the planet. No one enforcing laws, no police, no driver's licenses. Half the cars have been taken from now refugeed Serbs. No license plates, no papers, which is the situation of the VW Rabbit that Clowns Without Borders has rented from Abdul for a month. Anarchy rules in a country bordered by rounded forested mountains on several sides, rocky snow capped jagged peaks on another and dotted densely throughout by red tile roof farmhouses, at least half of them burned out. Beautiful mountains, all mined. Trucks, cars, tractors, travel dusty streets, cars parked wherever. Horse drawn carts abound.
Discussions yesterday with Salvador and Nina, the occupational therapists of Clowns Without Borders working with the Doctors Without Borders, on a mental health project, in Gjakova. We examine how to help the kids release anger, sadness and fear through physical movement. I suggest using Tai-Chi style work combined with voice and promise to create exercises for workshops with the teachers and students. The goal is to release all their post traumatic stress before it becomes a disorder. That will be my main work for two of these three weeks.

List of Humanitarian Logos decaled on the sides of all the white four wheel drive jeeps on the road.
Samaritan's Purse Relief. Save the Children. IOM (INt. Organization for Migration). DFID ( Dept for International Development U.K). MAG (Mine Action Group). Minaapeerest Mining. Hammer Forum E.V. ACT ( Action by Churches Together). UNHCR. Medecins Sans Frontieres. Humanitarian Cargo Carriers (Convoys of big white trucks). THW. ECHO(Mine Clearing). World Vision. Coopi Rehabilitation Center. Fondation Baptista Tirani. US AID. MERCY. OCSC (European Union). Red Cross.

Names of the young actors working with Richard: Tenzilla, Vissara, Fatlin, Dritone. Name of Paco and Richard's translator: Fatmire.

Tuesday August 17th

Mid-day show today opening the 'safe area' in the little village of Huur. The 'safe area' is a demined area designating where it is safe to for children to play. Today the safe area is the playground of the village school. Unhappily it seems that the Serbs mined a lot of places before they left, including many schools. Save the Children coordinates the designating and the inaugural ceremony, a fleet of three white land-rovers making the journey to Huur, plus our big Payasos truck.
Stiff hot sun, broiling. The stage is two farm tractor beds backed into each other, with a piece of wood stuck in the gap in between. A big un-explained hump in the middle of one of the tractor beds is covered by two carpets. The audience is seated on school benches, chairs and desks in a large tiered semicircle filled in by many others standing. Litlle kids get up successively, 7-12 year-olds, and give fervent dynamic recitations of poetry, some that they have written.

A young teenage girl starts a poem, "Victima" she cries, then freezes and is unable to speak further, She is brought back a little later and speaks in a shaky voice. Most however speak with conviction in clear strong voices that suggest patriotic fervor. A teenager uses her fist, arms and posture to reinforce her speech, "Massacra", like a poster child for a nationalistic movement.
After the show we are invited to eat with everyone, which seems to be half the town, inside the school. We are served fish which I choose not to eat after having seen the mounds of trash dumped into the river. In the middle of lunch (tomatoe salad, fried chicken and a traditional layered pudding bread) we hear a big boom. A bunch of people look out the windows but nothing to see. I discover that it was an episode of 'Balkan' (as Tim from STC puts it) fishing. They throw a grenade in the water and harvest the dead fish killed by the shockwaves downstream.
Wednesday August 18th

Waiting for Save the Children and Orchan (Director of the Young Actors) to come so that we can go to the hospital and ask permission to play with the kids there. I am pushing this idea following my experiences with the Funny Bones Doctors in San Francisco. Orchan supposedly has the connections at the hospital, as well as the language skills.

Big chaos this morning as we prepare to go to the town of Pea to do a show in a Collective Center. Richard has gone to ask Tim (Save the Children, USA) for directions and comes back in a fury. Nothing has actually been planned as expected. Tim has prepared the list of all the places we( myself and next week Pepe Viguela, clown from Spain) are meant to play. However he has not contacted any of them, nor confirmed any shows. Richard is fuming as he explains the situation. Save the Children told our logistician, Paco, that they would do the footwork, and then provide us a list with places, dates and times. They have only provided the list but have failed to do the logistics work. To make the contacts and arrange the performances. This is from an office with six Albanian secretaries with laptop computers, and umpteen cars with drivers, all of whom sit around half the day with little to do.
So the shows on the schedule don't really exist, the people listed don't know we are planning to bring performances to their towns and don't expect us. Richard and Paco, in a huff and a puff, explode out the door on a logistics mission to set up the shows, planning to spend the day driving around Kosova scouting potential locations and hopefully set up dates and times. We will meet again at 6pm to go do the already planned evening show at a Collective Center.

When Richard comes back in his fury, I'm in the middle of the paper maché clown nose project. Dritone has joined me at the dining table to shape a nose with strips of newspaper dipped in a white glue solution that I bought in Amsterdam. The other young Albanians prefer to laze around, read magazines and watch the satellite TV. They are unresponsive to my offerings, like teenagers in most part of the world, MTV is far more interesting than clown noses.

Richard, however, throws quite a fit and demands in no uncertain terms that they all make noses. There is a storm brewing in his head. Just as the young actors saunter over to the table to receive unwanted instructions, Richard walks back into the room, even more upset saying that now the landlady wants everyone out. It would seem she has rented us a place to live, not an office for CWB. Indeed at this point there are nine of us in the house including the actors. So the noses are abandoned and a grumbling youth squad is off.

There is a stuffed purple elephant and a thin striped sailor's hat teddy bear on the bookcase in my room, just below huge fat medical books in some foreign language which I believe to be Serbian. Dr Beram's study is where I am sleeping. The influx of foreign coin perverts all sense of local economy. The Belgian Red Cross are taking over renting Abdul's house next month. They are moving because the landowners where they are now want to double the rent to 3000 DM ($2000). It reminds me of stories in Croatia in '94, exorbitant prices that locals could never pay. The humantarian money machine pumps up the local economy, then dissapears. Then what?

Wonderful show this evening in the small camp of displaced Albanian Kosovars in a complex right next to the bus station. Some of the poorest people we have seen yet, stuck in dim nowhere land. It was a magical twilight show, the kids were completely enthralled and most of the elder people as well. Yoowho was joyful and I felt the same afterwards. The 40 odd kids all followed me back out to the car where I shook a forest of small hands looking at each of them gently in the eyes. Some kids kept reappearing for second and third handshakes with mischievous twinkles in their eyes. This becomes something of a game between us that continues until we have to leave.

Earlier I took a walk downtown followed by the active video camera manipulated by Hiromi with Chieko assisting. I took on the task of finding one the Albanian Kosovar hats the old men wear, a white conical felt. Before the liberation it was quite dangerous to wear the hat I am told, that you could be found dead the next day.
It is market day and many street sellers, customers and cars fill the main cobblestoned street of Prizren. Midday with the dry heat hovering above 95 if not 100°, every ounce of canopied shade a thankful experience. We buy sponges, scrubbers, honey, a pirated Santana CD as we ask directions to the hat store, playing with the videotaping situation all along the way. We finally find the hat store 'Elegante' close to the bottom of the long main street that runs into Prizren's old town across the river. We pass the small domes of the long closed Turkish baths and past several minarets, made of old stained stone. We are quite near the bridge that crosses into old-town, a spot constantly guarded by a German army post.

Inside the store, a man with scissors is surrounded by two or three long stacks of the white felt hats and several generations of customers and sellers. Two much older men sit on chairs at the back watching the whole scene, one smoking a cigarette, the other leaning on a cane. I try out a few hats, one way too small, a few almosts but nothing quite right. The man helping asks the older man with the scissors to come over and he takes one of the hats and cuts off a small amount of the felt of one hat and gives it to me, now it fits just right.
Good natured comments with the young sellers (they are all related, a family business, the man with the scissors is the father and hatmaker) leads me to ask if they would find it offensive if I were to use the hat in a clowning situation. This is translated for their father who says he sees no problem with that, that there is a Kosovar comedian who does just that. He then looks over to the two elder statesmen who smile at the sugestion.
So I try on a too small hat and start performing in the clown butoh vein to general laughter. Slow movements, a mimed ‘stuck’ moment. I turn to the old men in their grey/black country clothes to discover that they are enjoying it immensely. I focus in on them turning the laughter screws a bit, and then a bit more as I watch their wrinkled faces twist into hysterics. One of the two cannot stop and it is an immense moment of joy as I dissappear a coin in slow motion and pull it out from an ancient ear.

This evening driving back from the displaced camp, in cobblestoned twilight with the old Prizren nestled against the rolling foothills, smoke rises. As we get closer, its clear that four houses on the hillside, close together are burning, red flames glowing in the darkening sky. On the street no one seems to be paying it any attention, as if it is just a normal occurence, a simple fact of life.
The teddy bears know nothing of it, neither do the books even if written in Serbian. I am in my room with the foldout couch covered by sheepskin rugs. Outside the wind is rustling the leaves with softenend swoops of carressing sounds. My pillow calls and I am ready to follow.
Visited the pediatrics ward at the city hospital today. A somewhat ancient communist building project with ward names painted in black block letters on the yellowed white paint above the doorways. There are easily ten kids to a room, mostly very small kids, 2 or 3. a few teenagers who are shy at first, but watch willingly after I move on to the next room through the windows separating the rooms . A couple of live wires, good fun, livening up the place. One nurse gets into the clown act with me, chasing me after I followed her around . We have a great time.

There is no equipement persay. Some antiquated drips on simple poles, one nurse is wearing one latex glove that looks like it may have been used several times. I go to wash my hands but there is no water coming out of the sink. Not enough pressure to push it up to the third floor,. Only one land mine victim, a 12 year old boy, one leg amputated at the hip, uses a wheelchair that's locomated by hand lever pulling. The boy is digging his wheels and cruises around me before stopping, working on his mastery of his physical situation. I do a few magic tricks changing a small coin into a larger one , then back again, finding the coins behind his ears, then dissapearing both coins at once only to sneeze them out my nose. My standard opening line, so (not) to speak. I blow some bubbles his way, he digs it and opens a smile, albight briefly.

Afterwards, as I reach into the pockets of the borrowed doctor's coat to retrieve my toys, I discover a pair of lacy woman's panties. The nurses and chief doctor start laughing. The doctor really starts losing himself in laughter as I egg him on with questioning glances and shoulder shrugs asking him to explain the panties' presence.
Warm handshakes all around and we are off. We find a running water sink on the first floor as well as regular bar of soap. No super-duper anti- bacterial soap in sight.

8-19 Thursday

9am show this morning for some 200 kindergarden kids in a school near our house. I improvise a lot with stuffed animals that line the room's shelves, sounds and songs. A German NGO has been helping the school and the stuffed animals, all relatively new, accompany children's wood furnishings and other school items. The Japanese interview a mixed Serbian-Albanian couple who are bringing their child to school for the first day. I wonder how it must be for them and wish I had been there to hear the interview. Fatmir (our translator-driver and Paco's all around assistant) tells me how he sees his dead cousin everywhere. Yesterday at the village, today at the school. He tells me he does not feel like laughing. I tell him I am there for whoever wants to laugh, and for the kids. He tells me "it's good", and that being around us helps.

As I leave the school, the kids, little three to five year olds, all chant in unison, hands clapping in rythm, "NATO NATO NATO..." with a long 'a', Naato. Fatmir and I laugh about the absurdist irony. The kids occasionally burst into spontaneous mantra when they see a helicopter fly by or a convoy I am told. Abdul reminded me last night, as did Orchan (the director of the 'Save the Children'mine awareness project) that the Albanian Kosovars really love NATO. That the last ten years have been extremely difficult. "I have suffered greatly" Fatmir tells me.

Van Morrison sings on the car radio, searching for a philosopher’s stone. Lots of farm tractors on the road, and army vehicles of all descriptions, from tanks and bulldozers to water trucks and jeeps. German , Italian, Dutch.... alongside regular cars : Mercedes, Volkswagen and smaller non-descript Yugoslavian cars. Many shiny new vehicles from Germany, Switzerland and Austria, many without license plates. Cows graze in a lush green meadow amongst purple and yellow wildflowers. Red tiled roofs nestled amongst rolling hills.
In Angola and Cambodia, cows are used to detect anti-personel mines by sending herds of cows into fields.

Richard went up near the Albanian border, a heavily mined zone to inaugurate two new safe areas with the 'Save the Children' gang. Very hot yesterday, very hot today. The frying the egg on the sidewalk might work, if you can find a sidewalk. Orchan decided they should do the second show in the new safe area, in the hot sun, rather than inside the cooler school. Richard, already exhausted from one show in the sun, refused and left. He later heard that the people of the village also refused to sit in the sun, well over 100°. The furious Orchan watched his big show production dreams evaporate and there was no show at all.

We drive right past Gjakova and head towards Pea. Richard is telling me Laurence's (Belgian Red Cross) story how people now don't just want a new door for their house but they want it in blue. Just why I am not sure, perhaps that was the color of their old door. In any case it sounds a bit demanding. The Red Cross chief also talked about putting up Santa Clauses on top of mosque minarets. Richard wasn't so sure that it was meant as a joke. Another Christian NGO has been attempting to distribute bibles to the muslim Albanians. I'm a great revelation yesterday as Fatmir explained that in Albanian, the word is Kosova, not Kosovo. I'd love to get the word out to the International press but they probably already know and just don't use that word. Perhaps it would be a ‘political mistake’.
Last night's show was in another displaced person’s "collective center." A modern one story motel with weird aluminum pyramid sequenced siding. I played in the parking lot with the sounds of the Prizren-Gjakova main road behind me and a soft mountain sunset beyond the audience. A whole village has been regrouped here, some 150. Another 23 had been killed by the Serbs. The kids and young men sit in the audience on the parking lot and off to the side on the grass under some trees. Some large circles, one of women and small kids, another of younger women. Two old men with the traditional white hats sit on a curbside gazing past the scene. With my plastic squeek hammer, I go over to the women's circle and bop one woman's head to good laughter. Continuing my routine, I move towards another woman and with a big build-up, I postition the hammer above her head. I bop her husband's head sitting right next to her. More laughter explodes. On the third shot with an even longer build-up, I approach a boy sitting by himself and postion the hammer above his head, Pausing while building up the vocal sound attack (Yiaiiii...). The hammer in a surprise move, bops me instead. Generous laughter.

Through another Italian checkpoint. two tanks parked diagonally on either side of the road and the three soldiers in camouflage gear and stylish sunglasses. Two are motioning with their hands for us to slow down, the third a little behind them is telling us to speed up. We pass by, one soldier points and chuckles at my clown nose. I am not wearing the nose constantly when we drive as I did that first day. However, I maintain a ready stance, the nose easily accessible when the opportunity arises.

Another military outpost with three tanks stationed "Battalione San Marcos" stenciled over the camouflage in black. We have been following an Italian jeep for the past 10 kilometers that has a reinforced roof with a circular metallic manhole and pivoting support frame for an anti-aircraft weapon. We are bouncing up and down on this cobblestoned stretch of road which has been going on surprisingly for many kilometers. Who spent so much time, so many man hours building this road laying it down, stone by stone?

Passing through Detchan, famous as a KLA stronghold where the war has been going on for 2 years. The Serb repression was especially heavy in this area. We pass several fully equipped Italian army patrols with machine guns casually slung. Richard tells me that it is heavily mined around here : "You will start seeing more yellow tape." A farm tractor with father driving and gleeful boys in the tractor bed hanging on with their smiles.

Piles of burnt rubble and broken bricks are neatly stacked along the side of the road. We pass through a village that is almost completely destroyed. The front of some houses crumbling, probably bulldozed, others black coal chared beam frames remaining. Other modern house shells, windows smashed empty, and rows of black holes of fire bleeding onto the white stucko outer wall. The school, our performance destination, is surrounded by strands of yellow tape with the repeated word "mine" stretching across. It is in the little village of Naber Djari which we reach driving through quiet country backroads, hanging willow trees along a stream, past small idealic ancient villages. More piles of broken rubble.

Show for 100 schoolkids, schoolteachers and a few other villagers.
The show feels special, not the performance as much as the location. It is by far the lushest spot I’ve seen, plants, trees, streams. Green grass instead of dusty dirt terain. An absence of modernity. The schoolhouse with it’s brick façade stands alone surrounded by earth and country. None of the cement structures devoid of personality that I have grown used to these past days.

The structure of the show is the same. First the local kids get up and read in their Sunday best. Their poems and little speeches reflecting the moods that inhabit this liberated country. Moments of bravado and others filled with sadness. The schoolteachers stand by proudly with constant attention to the formalities, earnestly concerned that the moment be filled with ceremony.

We are honored guests for their tortured celebration. I don’t think the kids see it that way but some of the adult’s eyes betray the irony. We are surrounded by plastic yellow tape stretched between quiet trees. The ‘mine’ cautioned reminds no matter which way you look. We can’t walk down to the little river nearby. Only a small part of the grass lawns is available to joyous play. Even though the gathering is meant to be a celebration, the event is a little stiff. I’m looking for all the chance moments to generate laughter.

During the speeches I have noticed one teacher acting something like a military officer directing traffic. I jump off the stage and go stand next to him, trying to straighten my clothes as if to be able to pass inspection. This creates generous bursts of laughter from another teacher. I play up my stiffness to the hilt. My laugh generator is enjoying the parody immensly which has a ripple effect amongst the others. As more laughter is erupting, I change tactics letting go of my rigidity, rushing to the instigator’s side who is recovering her composure. I stand next to her pulling back in my military pomp. Then I give her a sideways glance that breaks her self composure and she loses herself in laughter and as she does so do others. It’s a magical moment that pulls the whole audience into a joyful spirit. The barriers have been broken down.

My volunteer for the magic routine is a live wire. When asked to imitate my motions, he does so with precision. There is a glint of mischief in his ten year old grin which I challenge. I offer up a complex series of arm motions with sounds, he plays them perfectly. The audience is full of joy mixed with catcalls of his name encouraging him on. I do a series in slow motion including some undulating hip motions. He does his very best to compy in full earnestness. The audience is eating it up, the two of us are having a great time. He understands his complicity in the laughter and is ready for more. A moment of celebration, everyone is swept up. Only a moment in this cacaphony of emotions, but a good moment.

There is little time after the show to enjoy the hospitality being offered in this old-country oasais. We are on a short schedule.
In the evening, show at the Prizren open air cinema , the first of three, for some 300 people. It’s an outdoor ampitheater with long curved rows of wooden seats. The space slopes down gently to a raised concrete stage. Even though the show is free, the house is perhaps half full. The director of the cinema is very excited. It is the first event there in quite some while. I end up changing in the projection room where two huge projectors stand idle.

Journals

Emilia's Journal Nov. 2003