Kosovo fieldwork: Tetovo, Macedonia/FYROM

Kosova/Kosovo fieldwork notes extracts

On the 7th of July, I took the night boat across from Bari to Durres, desperately trying to keep up with the news, but frustratingly limited to poorly parroting approximations of the Albanian words for "dead" and "injured" to other passengers and having them write the numbers on their palms. At the time, I was disappointed not to hear Tony Blair's speech, but my friends later reassured me that it had been unbearable.

I spent the day in Durres, nearly constantly followed by children who begged me, then took a night bus from there to Tetovo, not sleeping at all as I sat bolt upright and without a seat belt. On the bus from Tetovo to Prishtine, at 6.40am on the 9th of July 2005, I noted:

Tetovo [in Macedonia/FYROM] has PDSF [either non-party or misread PDSh - Partia Demokratike Shqiptare (DPA - Democratic Party of Albanians)] tags and Kosovo/Albania flag stencils everywhere. Every free space in the town square was tagged; many of the properties - commercial and residential - had stencils; material flags hung from phone lines, etc.; still, further out there was a stencil crossed out...

Unfortunately, we didn't stop, so I couldn't get photos of any of these materials.

Participants have been afforded anonymity. Formatting has been changed to make it easy to read in a blog.

Technorati tags: Macedonia; PDSF; Partia Demokratike Shqiptare (PDSh)/Democratic Party of Albanians (DPA); Tetovo.