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E-Mails from Kosovo, Part I
In January, while the world heard reports of a massacre and renewed fighting in Yugoslavia, a 16-year-old girl began e-mailing her experiences of living in the middle of a war zone to Finnegan Hamill, a high school student in Berkeley, California.
We reproduce in this piece unedited excerpts of the e-mails. The radio piece that accompanies the story was produced by Youth Radio in Berkeley. Adona's identity was not fully revealed by Youth Radio
for security reasons.
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Hamill
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 LISTEN TO THE RADIO PIECE |
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For Berkeley High School junior Finnegan Hamill, it all started, he says, when he had the week off from hockey practice. At a meeting of his church group, he met a peace worker recently back from Kosovo who had brought with him the e-mail address of an Albanian girl. Adona, 16, was the same age as Finnegan. She had access to a computer and wanted to correspond with youth in the United States. Finnegan decided to e-mail Adona; the next day, he received the first of what was to be a series of letters from her. He says it was to change the way he saw the world.
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Hello Finnegan.
I am glad you wrote to me so soon. About my English, I have learned it through the movies, school, special classes, etcetra, but mostly from TV. I can speak Serbian as well, Spanish and understand a bit of Turkish. I love learning languages, but I don't have much time to learn them.
You never know what will happen to you. One night, last week I think, we were all surrounded by police and armed forces, and if it wasn't for the OSCE-observers, God knows how many victims would there be. And my flat was surrounded too. I cannot describe you the fear...The next day, a few meters from my flat, they killed this Albanian journalist, Enver Maloku. Someday before there was a bomb explosion in the center of town where young people usually go out.
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Hello Finney,
I guess you're ok. And don't worry, your finger will get better soon. Well Finney (I like calling you that) did I tell you that I am not a practicing Muslim and do you know why!...because, if the Turks didn't force my grand grandparents to change their religion, I might now have been a catholic or an orthodox...and I think religion is a good, clean and pure thing that in a way supports people in their life....thanks to religion, I think many people are afraid of god or believe that there is another world after we die, so they don't commit any crimes. Personally, I agree with Decartes when he says that god is imagined by the human mind.
And just to tell you. You are not making me bored with your e-mails at all, I love reading them. I love to hear about the life there and I am really happy that I have a friend somewhere who I can talk to (woops..write to).
Bye, Adona.
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Finnegan says that while Adona may not think much of organized religion, she is very political. He says she's part of an organized youth movement that blames adults for keeping the war going. Adona, Finnegan says, is looking beyond this war to the future -- and an end to the killing and hatred that has become the only thing most teens in Kosovo know.
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Dear Finnegan,
How did you pass on your exams? About the music, I love listening to Rolling Stones, Sade, Jewel, Cher and others. (Bon Jovi, Beatles) and REM (my favorite). I'm not dedicated strictly to one kind of music, yet I like dancing as well. You don't know how I am longing to go to a party, on a trip or anywhere.
I must tell you-it is scary sometimes, when the situation gets really tensed, the whole family comes together and we talk about how and where we will be going in case of emergency, where we can find money, what do we do, who do we call for help, where do we keep our passports and other documents. We also have bought warm clothes in case we have to flee our homes and go to the mountains or elsewhere. And we're all prepared for the worst and taught that life goes on, no matter what
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....About the NATO thing, you know I feel they should come here and protect us. I wish somebody could. I don't even know how many people get killed anymore. You just see them in the memoriam pages of newspapers. I really don't want to end up raped, with no parts of body like the massacred ones. I wish nobody in the world, in the whole universe would have to go through what we are. You don't know how lucky you are to have a normal life. We all want to be free and living like you do, having our rights and not be pushed and pushed. Finnegan, I'm telling you how I feel about this war and my friends feel the same.
Bye, Adona,Kosovo
P.S. Send me photos of you, I will be sending some of mine as soon as the scanner gets fixed.
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Editor's Note: Finnegan Hamill reported the radio piece. Adona's e-mails are narrated by Belia Mayeno-Choy.
Youth Radio is a nonprofit organization based in Berkeley. Student-produced pieces and commentaries can be heard on KQED and KCBS in San Francisco; on National Public Radio; and Pacifica National Network. Youth Radio also contributes sound online to "Digital High," a service of the San Jose Mercury News, and commentaries online to "Youth Voices," a project of Brandeis University.
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