Psychosocial Notebook - IOM Publications - International ...

Chapter 2 • Annie Lafontaine
received financial support, and was obliged to go “home” to whatever had
become of his former life. His return to Kosovo made Suzana very happy.
In her words:
I had problems in my family… I was [during the years she was studying
in the 1990s] sad because of my brothers...they were away...and sometimes
I felt... “why should I study”, ...[there] is a saying in Kosovo that
goes “if my brothers are not studying why should I, as a girl study”... you
know... I thought like that and I wanted my brothers to be here and [I
wanted] to study with them... because my elder brother stopped studies
and he wanted to go out of Kosova.
The absence of Suzana’s brothers was a great source of pain for her, not
only because she missed them, but also because it changed her social and
familial position. She felt obliged to stay with her parents in the absence
of their sons. While her only sister married, Suzana remained by her
parents’ side. Even at the age of 29, she felt responsible for being with
them, despite the fact that most girls in Kosovo are married by then, and
living with their husband’s family. Because her brothers were not present,
Suzana felt she could not marry, at least not until their return. By the summer
of 2000, her brother did return from England, but not being able to
find a job that would satisfy him, he immediately thought of leaving again.
After eight years spent abroad, he could no longer bear the life of Kosovo:
a small salary, the constant proximity of the family members, the absence
of the “order”, both material and political, that he had found in England.
The economic and social constraints were too rigid for him. In Kosovo, he
had the choice of pursuing a good salary (1,000 DEM a month), as a security
guard with an NGO (a job that did not interest him), or trying to find
work at a restaurant, as he had in England, for little pay. For him, the
Kosovo that had survived the war was no better than the Kosovo he had
left behind. He therefore left again, and his renewed sudden absence
pushed his mother to a breakdown that led to physical sickness, which
again prevented Suzana from marrying.
Collective suffering
Suzana never tried to leave Kosovo in search of her brothers. In her words:
“I wanted them here… I never dreamed to go abroad even I had chance to
go… but I didn’t want, I wanted to be here and see what [was] going on”.
On March 28, 1999, Suzana was forcefully expelled from her home, along
with her parents and cousins. Together, they drove to the Macedonian border,
trying to escape Kosovo. They were made to wait there, in the Sharr
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