Psychosocial Notebook - IOM Publications - International ...

Chapter 2 • Annie Lafontaine
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returned home, but afterwards we were to flee again. So this was repeated
several times. The last time in [...] we joined the column that was fleeing
and we were deported to Albania. It was the first column that entered
Albania.
They crossed the province of Kosovo more than once and, most of the
time, on foot. They walked from Mitrovica to some villages of the Drenica
region, from these villages to Peja, from Peja to Gjakova, from Gjakova to
Istog, then from Istog to Kukes in Albania. Elena’s young daughters were
on the verge of fainting from starvation, and though she managed to find
little pieces of bread in her bag, Elena and her family were left without
anything, like other victims of war. One night, they slept on the ground,
with nothing but pieces of nylon to protect them from the rain. There, with
neither shelter, food, nor people to help them, Elena and her husband were
powerless to care for their family. The next day, Albanian soldiers drove
them to Lezha. They had no choice in the matter. After nine difficult hours
of travel on the bad roads of Albania, a cousin of Elena’s husband took
them in. Later, Elena’s family went to Shkodra, to stay with her husband’s
brother, who had just arrived there from Kosovo.
As Elena narrated this long and difficult path of exile, the tone of her voice
never changed. She just added words one after the other, listing the places
through which her family had passed as if she had not been there, as if
others had travelled her path. The pain, in other words, was unspeakable.
She seemed tired, as if she had just returned from being a refugee. The
experience of displacement could be read on her face, between the dark
lines that deepened her eyes.
Though the pain was unspeakable, Elena did try to explain it by describing
two of its manifestations: a dream she had had about her daughter, and
the sickness that sent Elena to the hospital. The first of these occurred
while Elena lived as a refugee in Albania. Though she felt that she was in
a safer place, she could not feel “better” because all of her children were
not with her: “When I entered Albania I felt safe. But I was worried for my
older daughter who had remained in Kosovo”. Elena started to work in a
hotel owned by the family of the cousin who was housing her. In her
words:
She [the wife of the cousin] was always with us, trying to take the grief
away from us. [...] It helped me a lot [...] My daughters were there to help
out, also my husband, all of them. I couldn’t eat; I was crying all the time.
[...] Before I came back from Albania I saw my daughter in a dream... I
was scraping the foam from her lips; she was not able to speak... I stayed
lying in the bed for one week. I was afraid she was killed or starved to
death.