After just under a month we have decided to bring our Kosovan adventure to a premature conclusion. We have thoroughly enjoyed our time in Prishtina but it has become increasingly clear that we aren’t achieving very much and maybe we could be better spending our time elsewhere.
Our main problem has been the language barrier. The hospital staff and medical students had basic conversational English, but very few of the patients did. German was much more widely spoken and despite my linguistic pedigree (GCSE Grade B – 1997), it was insufficient to really talk to patients or staff at more than a superficial level.
The other main problem was the notable present of many doctors. In contrast to Gulu, the hospital often had more qualified doctors than patients and a significant part of the doctors’ working day was spent drinking coffee and smoking. The care given was of a reasonable/good standard, but there was a lack of ambition to improve things further.
When the proposed ‘tooth fairy’ research project failed to materialise, we realised that there wasn’t much benefit from us staying in Pristina and we have travelled home. We took the opportunity to spend a weekend exploring rural Kosovo. Away from the bright lights of the big city, rural Kosovo is pretty grim. The majority is flat, land-mine ridden terrain that is used mainly for growing cabbages. The mountains in the Rugova valley were beautiful and we enjoyed exploring the old towns in Prizen and Peja, but the scars of the Serb-Albanian conflicts are still pretty fresh.
We have now returned to the UK and are hoping to find some paid employment over the Christmas period and then to get involved with a new project in the new year before we fly off the Zambia in February. We’re not quite sure where or what – but we hope to know soon!
