Vjeshtore Zeqiri
The interviewer: Once more…
Vjeshtore Zeqiri: I was in Drenica, at my father’s uncle’s when the war started. I stayed there for 2 months. Then my father came to pick me up. He came by tractor but when then on the way back we were on foot. It took him a while. I was too little. I had really missed my family and when I was walking on the way home I saw some corn – I would say hi to the corn pretending it was my family; I’d go like hello mom, hello grandmother, hello grandfather, and I was hugging all of them, all my uncles and other family members. When I got home, only my grandparents and my uncle were there waiting for me. The other had gone to my aunt’s in Gracka. From there we went by train, I guess it was in Rubovc – the train that took you to Macedonia. We went to Stankovec. We stayed there quite a lot. We then went to Norway. While in Stankovec we stayed in a tent and the American militaries brought us food and things. We would take showers with those buckets where we had to boil the water and take showers outside.
The interviewer: The children?
Vjeshtore Zeqiri: Yes, only the children because we didn’t have a place because there were only some tents. They would boil the water, would start a fire with whatever they found in the woods. From there we went to Norway. My grandparents and all my family went there but my father – he was in Kosovo. We stayed there for 4 months and then my grandfather decided to return because we didn’t know anything about my father during those 4 months; we didn’t know if he was alive or not. We returned to Kosovo, but they gave us passports that were valid for a year; they asked us to stay there and not return. They really tried to convince us so they gave us valid documentation to go back for a year. After we returned they then prepared my father’s documentation – we justified it like his daughters couldn’t go back there without their father. Then we got there back. When we went to school there they put us in a class with different nationalities, but not Norwegians, because we had to learn the language. There were different nationalities like Indians, Africans, Montenegrins and so on. They put us in the class with Norwegians after 3 months. They did this right after we learned the language.
The interviewer: Did you learn the language for 3 months?
Vjeshtore Zeqiri: Yes, we learned the language within 3 months.
The interviewer: Really?
Vjeshtore Zeqiri: Yes. And… oh, they put our story in a newspaper. I still have that newspaper.
The interviewer: Really?
Vjeshtore Zeqiri: Yes, they put our story in the newspaper since we had learned the language for a short period of time and… I don’t remember exactly how they called that class. So, yeah, there was a newspaper because we also had good behavior and that it all was because we arrived there after war trauma; it was about how the children managed to learn the language for a short time and learn about their culture – it was me, Lendita, and Floranda – that thing hadn’t happened before, for someone to learn the language within 3 months. So they put us in a newspaper.
The interviewer: The three of you?
Vjeshtore Zeqiri: Yes, the Norwegians did all that. I have that newspaper at home.
The interviewer: You should tell Rita, maybe she’ll use it.
Vjeshtore Zeqiri: Okay. And then, of course, we had to be in a class with the Norwegians. We would go to church every Sunday. They taught us about religion and Christianity…
The interviewer: Who took you there? The school?
Vjeshtore Zeqiri: No, we had to go to church… I had school till 12 p.m. and after 12… it was like a class when we had to do our homework about all the things we learned that day, I don’t how to explain it. We had to stay there for 3 hours. We did our homework; we also had to cook and practice stuff after school. And then the woman there and another one… I don’t know the Muslims call them the Imam… they would pick up all the children not only us Albanians but everyone there to learn about their culture. They gave us carrots and cabbage. This wasn’t obligatory but I remember we went there on Sunday; on Friday and Sunday – we went to church on Sunday and Friday.
The interviewer: Did your father know you were going to church?
Vjeshtore Zeqiri: Of course.
The interviewer: He didn’t say a thing?
Vjeshtore Zeqiri: No. The church was near where we lived. Most probably they wanted to teach children more about their religion. But, we didn’t know about it back then, I was young, 6 or 7 years old and I don’t remember what exactly was their intention. But, now I know.
The interviewer: Did they talk about the war in Kosovo? And, did you talk about the war?
Vjeshtore Zeqiri: Yes, but they didn’t know much about Kosovo they would refer to us more like Albanians, like from Albania.
The interviewer: Did you, the children, talk about the war in Kosovo with each other?
Vjeshtore Zeqiri: Yes… when we went there we were engaged in different activities non-stop and they didn’t let us think about it – this is about the second time we got there… Because on the first time we didn’t go to school at all; we returned after a month or something like that. Then, we went to school the second time we got there. We talked about the war when we were home, and the first time we went there the whole building had inhabitants that came from the war and that was the main topic. Everyone thought about their family in Kosovo. Everyone had someone back home. But, the second time we went there then we were engaged in different activities non-stop and it was…
The interviewer: To take your mind off of it…
Vjeshtore Zeqiri: Yes. We had activities from 7 a.m. and I was at school till 12 p.m. Then after school I stayed to do my homework till 4 or 5… I don’t know how to explain this in Albanian.
The interviewer: You said you went there without your father the first time, right?
Vjeshtore Zeqiri: Yes, without him. Only my father was in Kosovo. He stayed there to guard the houses. My grandparents, my aunt, my uncle, and my whole family went there. And, you know my aunt…
The interviewer: Which one of your uncles was there?
Vjeshtore Zeqiri: Risa’s father. He was there with us because the others were in Germany. He was single, one of my aunts was in Germany, and another aunt here had children. I remember in Stankovec I cried a lot because they came to ask us where did we want to go. We told them we wanted to go to Germany or Switzerland because my aunt’s husband was in Switzerland and my uncles were in Germany. While my uncle was in Germany, Hashim, Endrita’s father, came to Stankovec to visit us. He came to Macedonia because his documentation was all okay and he could travel. We wanted to go there but they gave us Norway as an option. My aunt’s alternative was Sweden so she was the first to go there. When we had to say goodbye I didn’t want to let her go, I was dragging her. Lendita had stayed with my aunt, and she got scalded when we were in Stankovec.
The interviewer: Why?
Vjeshtore Zeqiri: She was having soup or while they were preparing it because you didn’t have the conditions to do it through a gas heater – 6 or 7 tents would use one gas heater. No, it wasn’t a gas heater, in fact, it was while starting a fire. They had put a pot there and so Lendita got scalded. She had a hard time.
The interviewer: Were there any doctors?
Vjeshtore Zeqiri: Yes. Yes, but, it was like up the hills like in the mountains. But we had food because they brought a lot of tinned food from Macedonia.
The interviewer: When you went there the second time did your grandparents come too?
Vjeshtore Zeqiri: No, they stayed in Kosovo. Everyone stayed here only my close family got back there.
The interviewer: The first time you went there could they adapt there? Were they worried?
Vjeshtore Zeqiri: Us?
The interviewer: No, your grandparents.
Vjeshtore Zeqiri: Well, that was the reason we returned. My grandfather didn’t want to stay there at all. Plus, we didn’t know if my father was alive. Also, the same thing was about my cousin, in fact, my father and my cousin – his nephew. He couldn’t accept that. That’s why we returned. We stayed there for 4 months. And then, the second time… We first got a negative answer from Norway so we went to Sweden. We lived in Norway for another 6 months and again we got a negative answer. We stayed in Norway for a couple more days and then returned back home. But, we didn’t like it there at first – us, the children, at all.
The interviewer: And on the second time?
Vjeshtore Zeqiri: At all. Yes, we liked it the second time because the first time we were with everyone else. I guess you understood what I said. I also remember when we travelled from Skopje to Norway. From when we got in the car from home till we arrived there we were crying. We didn’t want to go there and we didn’t want to leave our grandparents alone. I kind of wasn’t emotionally stable, it wasn’t because of the war but because we had a special connection with the family. When they would refuse our request… which happened 3 times… if the answer would be negative twice, it was possible to get a positive answer on the third time. We were praying to get a negative answer because we wanted to come back to Kosovo. When we went to Sweden from Norway we were praying they’d catch us, because we passed the border illegally. We really wanted to come back to Kosovo.
The interviewer: Although it was still the war?
Vjeshtore Zeqiri: No, this is after the war.
The interviewer: Ah, so this was the third time?
Vjeshtore Zeqiri: We returned in 2003. It wasn’t a war but we wanted to come back. When we returned, as soon as I landed at the airport, I asked them why did you say it has gotten better in Kosovo because the roads were not fixed. This was the first thing I said. I didn’t know one of my uncles, Jehona’s father. I didn’t know him at all. I got to know him after we returned from Norway. I first thought he was Hashim, my other uncle, because he’d lived in Germany for a long time. When he returned we were in Norway. I didn’t get to meet him. But, when we returned here I told them why would they tell me the war was over in Kosovo because it didn’t seem over. They tried to tempt me by taking me to the supermarket and they bought me ice cream and other snacks. But, I still told them it looked like we were at war. The roads were not fixed, for real. When we got home, we didn’t have quite good conditions, and the yard was empty. We returned in April…
The interviewer: In 2003…
Vjeshtore Zeqiri: Yes, I don’t remember exactly but I know I told them why did they tell me the war was over because Kosovo didn’t get any better. Because that’s what they said back then, let’s return because it got all better in Kosovo. And that’s what I told them.
The interviewer: Did you see the difference between the schools?
Vjeshtore Zeqiri: Of course. I didn’t like it here then. First of all, I hardly got accepted into school here. Also, my friends there hardly accepted me in Kosovo, except Egzona. I could notice how the children would ask for material stuff for me to stay with them. They made me go buy things at the supermarket. For example, it was Shen Gjergj and Egzona told me in order to go with them, to the hills, I had to roast her seeds and give them to her.
The interviewer: They thought you were rich because you returned from Norway.
Vjeshtore Zeqiri: Yes, that’s what everyone thought. The teachers would call me Norwegian girl. The teachers from the 5th grade to the 9th grade. They called me the Norwegian girl. The children at school made me buy them chocolates or anything to stay with them. I always mention this story to Egzona that she made me roast seeds to go up the hills with her.
The interviewer: I think this is enough…
Vjeshtore Zeqiri: I think I should tell the first part of the story once more because I messed it up.
The interviewer: Can you tell us once more a bit more clearly about the beginning of the war? Why were you at your father’s uncle’s?
Vjeshtore Zeqiri: I was at my father’s uncles… we stayed there a lot because anytime my grandmother would go there we went, too – we had a nice connection. We stayed there for a month. So, when the war started, as they called it the offensive, I had gone there to stay as usual but then the war got me there. They couldn’t leave because the war started earlier in Drenica so there wasn’t a way to travel, the roads were all blocked. They once wanted to move to the mountains but they didn’t because of me. I remember they worried about me. I told them it’s fine because I am going to become a lion and… no I think I said a bear and that I would hide after the trees and shout, and then the Serbians would leave. That’s what I always said and they always remind me of this story. I told them I’d go whenever they’d go. Then, my father came to pick me up with a tractor. He left the tractor at some place because we couldn’t return by it, we had to walk underhand through the woods. It was the actual war. We were on foot. He came by tractor but I don’t where he’d left it…
The interviewer: It was only you and your father?
Vjeshtore Zeqiri: Yes, just the two of us. I remember every time we got tired he got me in his arms… you know… when we arrived home my family had gone to Gracka with the exception of my grandparents. They were waiting for me. I will never forget how they were hidden… We had a two-floor house and they hid on the roof. Because the Serbians… you know in front of my house there were the tanks, they were already in Poturovc. They had burnt down the mill. They were waiting for me and they got hid on the roof. On the way home, since I had missed my family so much – we walked through the meadow and I was talking to nature by the names of my family members. As soon as I got inside the yard I started looking for them. I then went up to the roof and saw them waiting for me. Then, by car, we went to my aunt’s. Then, from there, by train, we went to Stankovec. I will never forget the crowd on the train. My grandmother almost got left behind. Serbians let people get on the train as much as they could. Some of them had left their family members behind and some of other had gotten on the train. My grandmother almost got left behind but we got her through the windows because there was no way you got to get on the train through the door. It was so crowded for me and Gazment had to stay where they put the bags, the luggage. You didn’t have a place to stay. I remember a boy who was alone because his family couldn’t get on the train. The train wouldn’t stop. Serbians were on the train. He asked for the train to stop but that wasn’t possible. He cried a lot because he was alone.
The interviewer: Was he young?
Vjeshtore Zeqiri: Yes, perhaps 18 or 19 years old. I remember him because me and Gazi were in front of him. He cried a lot and couldn’t stop crying because he was alone.