Psychosocial Notebook - IOM Publications - International ...

Psychosocial Notebook, Volume 2, October 2001
…and while we were passing through one of the main roads, I said: “Oh,
don’t you think that this part of the town has became too rural, that it’s
full of peasants here?” [And she replied] “Oh, you are quite right,
because it’s really like that!”. I had noticed that already, but now I had it
confirmed by her. I mean, it was never like this; you have people without
any taste just taking the pavement as if it were their own, or putting
these containers [the kiosks] wherever they like. The town, the architecture
of the town is really disgusting.
Neither the places nor the people are considered familiar any more. “There
are a lot of new faces around, a lot of faces I have never seen before”, said
Vladimir, while Biljana gave an example of feeling uncomfortable in the
massive presence of “extraneous people”:
A few evenings ago, I was in a bar with some friends and I wanted to go
to a friend’s flat to pick up something. I passed by a cafe which had some
live music on, and it was pretty nice. I had just a quick look inside and I
didn’t know probably 70 per cent of people, I knew just a few of them.
And I used to know all the youth of Mitrovica. There are too many... for
such a small place, north Mitrovica is definitely now too small for so
many people.
The gap between town and countryside appears even wider if we consider
the younger generations. To the youth in Pristina, the war left in its wake
an array of potential and new professional experiences, which made them
increasingly different from young men and women of the same age living
in the villages. The labour market has changed completely, the massive
presence of international organizations having strongly influenced its
structure. 12 New skills, from foreign languages (especially English), to
computer proficiency and an ability to drive are in great demand. This, in
turn, even further marginalizes the youth of the rural areas, “Because in the
villages, for example,” as Ardita said:
There have never been organized English courses. You know, now all the
organizations are looking for local staff, but people from the villages are
not ready for this. Even if they came to live in Prishtina, they could not
work with foreigners, but just to sell cigarettes… or phone cards.
In her comments, Ardita mentioned the work generally considered typical
of people living on the fringes of society, and thus let it be understood that
the gap was not just a matter of differences in salary but also of professional
fulfilment, something that became the privilege of the younger
generation, only provided they were already adjusted to or living in the
capital.
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