Monday, February 18, 2008

Nevermind the weather - Boston is not so bad...

Considering that I could be living in Kosovo, if I had been born to different parents and all.

I happened to randomly know a few people from the area. One of whom stayed with my folks for a time. She's a lovely girl, quite humorless and anti-American when she first arrived, but considering what she'd been through it was kind of understandable.

She told us of how she and her family were forced from their home by Serbs and given only a few hours to get out. She had to leave behind all her personal mementos and take only her diplomas and identification. I can't even imagine that. I doubt that I would have the presence of mind to have that kind of forward thinking as my world was falling apart around me.

When they were finally able to go back, there was a Serbian family living in their house. Most appalling was the fact that they were using all her and her family's personal items, from their clothes to their toothpaste!

This is like something you read happening during World War II, not in the past ten years.

Another time, while she was living here, one parent fell gravely ill and she had to fly home on short notice. Well at the time, since Kosovo didn't really exist, she had to go through all these Byzantine procedures to get her visas and flights approved. And then getting a flight to Pristina was a whole other nightmare, because really - how do you book travel to a country that doesn't exist, especially when you are traveling on a NATO passport.

So today as I was reading about Kosovo declaring independence, I thought of her. On the one hand I am excited for her, for her people. On the other hand, it seems like something awful and violent is coming down the pike.

It is a situation that I can the many sides of, but which I cannot understand.

Which makes me exceptionally grateful for my simple, cushy American life where the big national news is whether or not Obama ripped off Deval!

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