Fran Hesser, a free-lance journalist from Montana, reported from Kosovo for six months while serving alongside her husband, a physician assistant, in the International Medical Corps, a volunteer relief agency. This is her final dispatch; click here to see her Kosovo Journal starting in February 2000.


A father plays with his child in a pond at a fish restaurant near Prizren.

GNJILANE, Kosovo (CNN) -- Our tour of duty is over and we leave Kosovo with our emotions asunder. We want to go home to our loved ones, but it is hard to leave the people with whom we have worked, whom we have taught, and from whom we have learned in this beautiful but sad province.

Kosovo is a land of vivid differences, from social customs and modes of transport to politics, religions and views of the future.

Country people live as their ancestors probably did centuries ago, working small farms by hand and dwelling in mud and stone houses without running water. By contrast, people in the cities and towns show a high level of sophistication, especially the young. Many have traveled or lived in other countries. They are exposed to foreign movies and television. They dress in up-to-date styles and enjoy modern conveniences.

This summer the colorful peppers, tomatoes, fresh cherries, apricots and grapes provided a welcome relief to the monotonous diets of winter. People were enjoying the outdoors, ignoring the danger of land mines.

On a visit to Prizren we stopped at a charming fish restaurant built over a white-water stream. Children played in the water, and if anyone could grab a fish from the stocked pond, they would get a free meal. No one managed the feat while we were there, but we were elated to see young parents playing with their children in the cool water.

People think about children differently these days. Young Albanian couples -- perhaps foreseeing a promising future in a liberated land -- are marrying and having babies. Our pre-natal clinics were always crowded with Albanian women. Serb women, facing perhaps a less certain future, apparently are not as sanguine. Statistics show the birthrate among Serb women in Kosovo is now .9 per 1,000, according to a Serb physician I talked to who preferred not to be identified.

Festering hostilities


Families cool off in a waterfall during a July picnic in Hogosht.

One university-educated Serb woman told me she feels trapped. Yugoslav-Serbian authorities want Serbs to stay in Kosovo, she said, because they expect to be in power again. They would like to leave, she said, but no other country will allow them to immigrate.

"We're considered international terrorists," she grimaced. "We have no place to go."

Life is tough here for ethnic Serbs now. They cannot travel without escorts from the NATO-led Kosovo Force -- KFOR. Their lifestyles have changed markedly. They used to have important jobs; now they are prisoners in their own villages. The situation breeds bitterness that could mean trouble.

By contrast, ethnic Albanians enjoy a freedom of movement they have not experienced in years. Before, when they traveled, they expected to be harassed by Yugoslav-Serbian police and military, or so I was told. Now they can travel freely throughout the province, except for having to pass through KFOR checkpoints.

On the Fourth of July we took our staff to Hogosht for a picnic and a romp in the cool waters of a waterfall. A crowd of young Albanian men was there sunbathing and swimming. Few Albanian women in the rural areas go out in public like that.

Our Albanian staff brought varieties of traditional delicacies. We brought a barbecued goat prepared by an elderly Serb couple we had come to know well. Our Albanian staff members warned us no one would eat it because it was prepared by Serbs.

It was delicious. Not a bite was left.

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