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Unlike Arben, Merita, Lindita and Arvenola [age: 23, 14 and 15 respectively],
three young sisters, were not able to complete their studies in
Kosovo. The three of them had been residents of Lecco for many months
at the time of this report, and had lived in Italy since the mid-1990s. Each
of them had either joined their parents in Italy or accompanied one of them
during the progressive emigration of their family, which began in 1990.
Today they are well adjusted to the local social life, have continued their
studies or found jobs and have friends who are both Italian and from
Kosovo. The younger ones, in particular, would like to pursue more activities
and closer relationships with their new acquaintances. This is one of
the reasons they find life in the province of Lecco too simple, and prefer
Rome, close to which they had lived for a number of years.
Gjolek [age: 24, male] lives in Lecco with his family: his father and
mother, one brother and one sister. As a family, they adhere to the Catholic
faith. Gjolek told of the hardships of being 18 in Kosovo in the early
1990s. He attended the eight years of obligatory school, and then two years
of the so-called “parallel school” organized by Kosovar Albanians. At the
time, he was still obliged to serve in the Federal Army, but was increasingly
subject to harassment and violence. In the summer of 1999, he
returned to Stubla with many other Kosovar Albanians from the Lecco
area, accompanied by non-governmental associations, to bring help to the
Albanian population and to families living in the surrounding Serbian
villages.
Margherita [age: about 35] lives and works in a mountainous area in the
pre-Alps surrounding Lecco. She, too, has been in Italy since the early
1990s. Though her family is Catholic and originally came from Stubla,
Margherita is from Pristina. The only one of four brothers and sisters to
attend university, she grew up amid the student conflicts that raged
throughout the 1980s, until she was forced to abandon her studies just
before she could obtain her degree. Today she is married to an Italian citizen,
with whom she lives and works.
Rimini, Northern Adriatic Coast
Psychosocial Notebook, Volume 2, October 2001
Some Roma families from Kosovo have managed to settle in Rimini, on
the northern Adriatic coast. All of them are of the Islamic faith. Among
these families is that of Rexhi [age: 42], from Vucitrn, who was forced to
flee his home by armed members of the Kosovo Liberation Army in the
summer of 1999. He carries with him memories of a peaceful life, of a
time when relationships were good between all communities, Albanians,
Serbs, Romany, Gorans and Turks, and when there were many occasions
to meet others. The situation changed during the last decade, when, espe-
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