UNMIK on AIR

December 3rd 2003

Osojane’s youth – life in an enclave

(By Andrea Saula)

 

 

Osojane – a Serbian enclave in western Kosovo. The muddy and sometimes impracticable roads rarely bring visitors to this small village between Klina and Peja/Pec. A region targeted for the return of minorities but where the process is still beset with problems. Some 350 to 400 people came back to the village of Osojane in August 2001. Some basic needs were satisfied after a while under the auspices of the UN administration, UNHCR and numerous NGOs, but life is still far from normal, especially for the young people.   

 

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The streets always seem dark in Osojane but there’s nothing much the streetlights could highlight really - two restaurants and a youth center that is expected to be opened soon, the only entertainment options for Osojane’s youth. They don’t feel safe enough to move freely out of the enclave, they say, and since they are not directly connected with another enclave, they are stuck in their own. Osojane is the center of the world for the people who live there. It does however have a primary school and a high school. This is how 14-year-old Dejan describes his everyday life.

 

Dejan: It’s OK, but a bit boring. At 8 o’clock in the morning I go to school and I come back around 1 o’clock. I learn a bit, sometimes I play football during the day, in the summer when the weather is all right but now we have nothing.

 

Aleksa is a teacher at the local high school. He was one of thousands of Serbs who fled Kosovo in 1999 but decided to return in 2001. This despite the fact that he had found a job in an oil company Belgrade and in a way had learned to handle his “refugee life”. Adjusting to life the big city wasn’t that difficult, says Aleksa, but the need to return to the place of his birth proved stronger. He decided to come back to Osojane and to work with young people.

 

Aleksa: I think that they are living in the constant expectation of something to happen. What are they waiting for? For a better tomorrow, for something good to happen, something nicer. Their lives are limited in many senses. They are on their own.

 

Nika’s place is where most young people hang out…but the sense that these people are in kind of permanent limbo is very palpable. Most of them don’t want to talk, they’ve done this too many times, they say, to journalists and international officials, but little has changed in their lives. What’s to say, they ask, we don’t know what the future will bring, we don’t even know what the present holds, our options are non-existent.

Their choices are limited, particularly for those who want to remain in Osojane. Dejan, for example, wants to stay with his family in Osojane but his career plans may push him out of the enclave.

 

Dejan: I don’t know. Maybe I would like to learn about computers or to be an auto-mechanic. In Mitrovica or somewhere in Serbia. If we had a school that I would want to enter here I would stay. We only have a high school but nobody thinks that with a high school diploma he can do anything. It’s hard to get a job with only high school education. Everybody is thinking about further education.

 

But where is the question. In the current conditions, the only option for minority youth seems to be Serbia or another enclave. Everything would be totally different if Dejan could move freely. Freedom of movement is what young people like Dejan crave for, not to have their options constantly conditioned by ethnic origin. When we asked him what excites him the most, he started talking about his meeting with children from other places, both Serbian and Albanian.

 

Dejan: Last week we had a course in the Spanish language. It is expected to continue next week. KFOR also takes us to the military base where we meet our friends from surrounding villages like Suvo Grlo and also with Albanian kids. We mostly play football and we have fun.

 

And perhaps there’s the silver lining – that young people in general have less barriers to break down in order to communicate with their peers from other communities. It certainly is something to encourage, especially, as Aleksa points out, his pupils are always writing about how they would like to meet their friends more often. They live for that day, he says.

 

Aleksa: Everything is related to the problem of movement. They miss being with other friends. Is so characteristic that Dejan said how he couldn’t wait to see other kids to tell them what happened since they saw each other the last time. Those meeting are really touching, cordial, warm.

 

And what about the older ones? Tanja is in her mid twenties. She could be considered one of Osojane’s lucky ones since she has a job. But is there anything to do besides work, given the enclave’s rather meager offerings in terms of entertainment or even hanging out? Tanja is resolutely optimistic.

 

Tanja: We meet in restaurants. We have two restaurants. Now the youth center has been built and it is going to be a bit different. They will gather in that center. Till now we didn’t have any activities, but there are plans. We’ll organize courses in foreign languages, computer training and different educational activities. 

 

For many in the enclave, life is still a waiting game, but at least the complaint that nothing ever happens in Osojane will soon no longer be valid. And that does it for this edition of UNMIK on AIR, thanks for listening.