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Struggling in the cities

A grandmother takes care of her granddaughter in Gnjilane.

The pastoral beauty of such places as Hogosht contrasts with the overcrowding and pollution of the towns and cities.

Gnjilane, formerly a quiet town of 30,000 residents, now has an estimated 80,000 inhabitants. Many people moved here after Serbian soldiers of the Yugoslav army burned their homes. Most have no jobs and little hope. Few factories were here even before the war, and most of those were destroyed in the NATO bombing in 1999.

In Kosovo's largest city, Pristina, the population has more than doubled -- from 200,000 to well over 400,000. The streets are overcrowded, housing is hard to find and living expenses have soared.

The only people with money to spend are those with relatives working -- often illegally -- in countries such as Switzerland or Germany, or people in the thriving illegal drug industry. Many houses are being built. Some people drive expensive cars. Most of the cars are not licensed and many are rumored to have been stolen in other countries and driven here.

Other people are struggling just to get by. I met teachers who speak five or six languages who were working as common laborers. A cobbler who fixed a purse for me earns the equivalent of $10 a day and sends most of it to his family still trapped in Serbia.

Such poverty was once unusual here, especially among ethnic Serbs when Yugoslavia was in control. Jobs were plentiful under communism. Many people told me they once had two homes and worked only a few hours a day.

Before the war many of the rural health clinics were staffed by 10 to 15 people who mostly sat around drinking coffee, or so I was told. Now thousands of health care workers are being laid off. Despite the need for health care, money to pay for it is scarce. The United Nations Mission in Kosovo is funding clinic care, but no money is available for additional workers.

"We need jobs," one young Albanian man told me. "Without them, people sit around in coffee houses all day and get bored. When people have too much time on their hands, they get in trouble."

Dreams burned out

Trash accumulates on "garbage hill" in Pristina.

Water and electricity are in short supply. The province's sole remaining power plant, which is outside Pristina, is aging and held together with Band-Aids, figuratively, if not literally. It quits constantly. Few people pay their bills. Attempts to restore order are met with casual indifference or outright hostility.

In Kamenice, water was out for weeks to homes in the higher elevations of town. There was not enough pressure to get there. A town leader suggested raising the minuscule fee for water to force people to conserve. His plan was loudly voted down as "communistic." Freedom of choice does not extend to consideration for neighbors.

Garbage is piled up everywhere. Dumps burn constantly. The rancid smell fills the air when the wind is blowing from the wrong direction.

Housing is at a premium. The United Nations estimates that 100,000 Albanian homes were burned by the Yugoslav-Serbians. Most are still in ruins.

Driving around the countryside, I saw a few homes being restored. As long as only the inside burned, and the walls and foundation are sound, a home can be rebuilt. New homes are being built with huge concrete pillars and floors -- filled in with red brick blocks made in Serbia.

Even before the war, home insurance and mortgages were unheard of. There still are no banks in most areas. People built homes as they could afford them -- taking 20 to 25 years, often with money earned in Switzerland or Germany.

Those dreams of a lifetime went up in smoke during the war. Few people have the money to rebuild, and foreign aid organizations have rebuilt only a small percentage of the houses.

Many people are still living in tents or with relatives. A woman who came into our clinic in Livoc told me she and 26 other members of her extended family were living in a three-room house. Only one man had been able to find work.

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