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E-Mails from Kosovo, Part III
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. The Kosovo teen is being identified by the pseudonym "Adona" for security reasons.
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Hamill
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Finnegan says that with the collapse of the peace agreement and the mass movement of Serbian troops into Kosovo, he has been trying to keep in closer touch with Adona. He received the following e-mails from her just days before the NATO attack on Yugoslavia.
Dear Finnie,
At the moment I am writing to you, just from my balcony. I can see people running with suitcases and I can hear some gunshots. A village just a few hundred meters from my home is all surrounded.
I have prepared my bag with necessary things: clothes, documents, and money...in case of emergency. Only the past few days, there have been so many new forces, tanks, and soldiers coming inside Kosovo. Yesterday, a part of my town was surrounded and there were shootings happening... I am waiting with no patience for the news.
Take care. Adona
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Finnegan says he felt relieved to know Adona was OK and wrote her back immediately. "I feel very emotional imagining that I might never meet Adona face-to-face ... also to think of the fear that she must be going through," he says.
Dearest Finnie,
As long as I have electricity, I will continue writing to you. Right now, I am trying to keep myself as calm as possible. My younger brother, who is nine, is sleeping now. I wish I will not have to stop his dreams. He is just a child. I really have to go now. There is more news coming in. Thank you for your moral support. Thank you very much. I hope to hear again from you.
Adona. Kosovo.
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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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