[The following part was conducted on February 23, 2018]
Part Three
Erëmirë Krasniqi: And what happened after?
Elizabeth Gowing: We got Gjejlane to school? Yeah, yeah. Yes, we had this amazing experience of of, that was one of the proudest days of my life, was walking this, I was the head of this line of sixty-two children like walking to school, we left from the center of the mahalla[1] in Fushë Kosovë. And you know as we walked there were all these people from the community like, saying, “Where are you going and well done!” And you know it really felt like quite a procession and an achievement, the children were really proud, so that was a really great day.
And I felt like we achieved what we set up to achieve. And I’s said that I would give that six months and it was almost exactly six months, like it came really close to not being achieved within that timeline. But we did it. But then actually various people told me that we couldn’t stop there because if we did just stop there, probably everything we had achieved would just, you know, be lost because the school obviously didn’t want the children there, because otherwise they would have made it easier for them to go in the first place.
The children were all I mean some of them were two years behind, some of them were five years behind, so they were really going to struggling. So they were gonna be 14 year olds in a, in first grade for example you know. So that’s not an easy thing for the teacher, not easy for them so…
Erëmirë Krasniqi: And how was that managed?
Elizabeth Gowing: Well, by the school you mean?
Erëmirë Krasniqi : Well, in the school and how did you assist in that?
Elizabeth Gowing: Well the school, I mean the teachers were perhaps understandably really unhappy about having these children in their classes. I guess they were visibly different children, they were poor children, they were also children who hadn’t had any prior learning. And you know there’s teachers who’s classes are very full and so you know they already had 38 children and they were being asked to take another three children or whatever.
But it was horrible like all the children were in the, the lobby of the school and along with all the other kids you know starting school. And the headmaster called the teachers out and they had to pick the children. So, of course some children were left until the last, you know so it was like what should have been a really positive experience for the children was made into a very horrible one.
And the first week, I think we had eleven children sent them home from school for all kinds of excuses like, “Oh you’re too big for the chairs, or you’re too small, or come back when the extension of the objekti i ri [new facility] has been built.” Two children, brother and sister, were called up in front of the class and the teacher said they had scabies or fleas, I don’t remember which. And we took them to the doctor after, they didn’t have fleas but they refused to go back to school because you know they had been ashamed. So the teachers really tried lots of ways just to get these kids out which…
Erëmirë Krasniqi: To discourage them to take part?
Elizabeth Gowing: Yeah but I suppose one of the things we did which, which helped, hopefully helped the teachers and certainly helped the children was, an idea of one of our volunteers, that we should start Saturday activities, to the, so that the children could come back together and they could see each other and have that kind of solidarity. They could also have that extra learning ‘cause they were still very behind. So we started those and actually we still continue those even seven years later and we have about eighty or ninety children who still come every Saturday. So not just those original children, we have some kids who come who were always in school, like they registered in the right way they go, but they just want, want to be with their friends, so that’s really nice.
And then we have some children, still who come, who are not in school for whatever reason and this is actually the only education they get, is coming on the Saturday. So it’s nice, they’re really nice activities and they’re run by volunteers and almost all the volunteers are from the community, including a group we call “the little teachers”, who are teenagers from the community who had like training every week, they have a training in critical thinking and a bit in pedagogy. They have a trip like a shëtitje [trip] every month so you know they have some benefits. But in exchange they teach the children of their community every Saturday, which I think is a really important model, you know.
That’s one of the way that I think our organization has grown since, well has matured, since that’s start. Because back in 2011, it was you know crazy English lady volunteers mainly foreign volunteers and we were kind of busing in, helping the children going back to our homes. Now it’s people from the community who are helping in the community and that’s much sustainable and much healthier.
Erëmirë Krasniqi: You mentioned shëtitje [trips] and I’m just wondering, do the people from the community get to see other parts of Kosovo?
Elizabeth Gowing: Well that’s exactly why we set up these, these outings because lots of the children know, lots of the children haven’t even been to Pristina. Some of the children know Pristina really well because they’re the ones who pick the rubbish you know go into the kontenier [rubbish container], yeah. So actually they know it better than I do, like they know all the back ways and they know.
So, they have a different map of Pristina from what I have. But some of the children haven’t been at all and you know even when they come to Pristina and they’re not going to the theater or art galleries and the cinema. So we’ve taken them to those places and we’ve taken them around Kosovo as well you know, to Prizren and trying to think where Novobërba and yeah, cultural heritage sites and Gërmia and have, you know, fun as well.
And we also have speakers coming in to talk to the children because this idea of expanding their horizon is really important. So yeah, that’s I think something that we’re, we’ve really moved on from, from that, that starting point. But the other thing that was really important as the children were being registered for school, was that we realized that unless the families were economically supported then in the winter, when the children when it’s the hardest time and people are sick, and they need firewood and then that’s when the children would drop out of school. And so we needed to help the families financially.
And so we set up this women’s enterprise to employ the mothers of the kids who had registered on, on condition that their children went to school they, they could be employed in this project. And then the profits from the sales of what they made would go straight back to them, so we didn’t take any profit, not even to cover the salary of our coordinator. So we got a grant funding for that.
And we started off with making soap and making tote bags. And now we’ve expanded into making greeting cards with this beautiful filigree, silver filigree design so we cooperate with a cooperative in Prizren who makes silver filigree. And then we, the women sew this little bit of jewelry into the card and so it’s kind of a card but it’s also a present. Because then you can wear the jewelry so as this piece of jewelry {shows her jewelry}. And yeah, I think the other products we make, we’re just about to start making candles as well, so we have a range of product.
And we have women in Fushë Kosovë in this and we have women in, we had women in Istog in fact that part of the project just closed at the end of last year. And we have women in Janjeva in the project. So at it’s largest I think we had thirt… and more than thirty women in it, it’s slightly smaller now. But that’s been a very important model you know like it’s not just, we have this model that we didn’t start out with but now we’ve constructed around what we do, which is we help people in need, we help people in need to help themselves. But we also help people in need to help other people in need.
So the, the project with the making soaps and bags is people in need to help themselves and then the little teachers I was talking about is really helping people in need to then help others. And that I think is the real magic formula if you can manage to do that. And, and I don’t think that many NGOs think about that third stage, so I think that’s something that we are, I think we’re quite proud of incorporating that into our work.
Erëmirë Krasniqi: What’s your, what’s your relationship with all the community members now that you’ve gone away, what’s your personal…
Elizabeth Gowing: Well, the family Gjejlane’s family this first family that I met, I still… so I can’t remember if I said that before that… We decided to build them a house that I talked about the house right and did I just shortly after they moved into the new house the father died, right. So suddenly that family was left very vulnerable and, and a lot of people who had been moved by that story and it’s the story I write in my book. And so some people read the book and met the family that way and so a lot of people wanted to give money to the family that way.
So, we didn’t want to give them money directly, just as a handout to the family, even when they were at their most vulnerable, we wanted it to be kind of kushtëzuar [conditioned] somehow and that’s conditional on the children going to school. Because when their dad died, the oldest boy told me that day, he said that, “I have to take dad’s wheelbarrow and leave school.”
And like you know that’s not what your father wanted and we’re not gonna let that happen. But it was a real battle in those months after their father died, that of course the children were very, you know, upset and it was, their mother was very upset and, and quite fragile. And so the family really needed support so we said, “Look your job now is to go to school and if you go to school there are all these people in England who want to help your family.” So we set up this kind of sponsorship so that they, for each child that goes to school their mum gets money every week and the child gets like a pocket money as well so it’s kind of motivation.
And it was a real battle for the first six months, you know, the one child basically didn’t go to school for four months at that time, just gave up, kept running out of the school even when his mum took him, she would leave and then he would skip out in the break or whatever. But they are, with the exception of Gjejlane who now wears a headscarf and so can’t go to school but all of the others are in school. And so, I go every time I’m in Kosovo, which is now maybe twice a month, I, I go and visit them. So I have a very close relationship and I’m in touch with them on Skype or phone you know, perhaps every few days even when I’m out of Kosovo.
So that keeps me connected and I think my role has changed a little bit because this is something I thought about a lot during my sabbatical as well so if maybe my stories changed (laughs). But I think I see an important part of my role as joining up the UK and Kosovo. There are so many people in Britain who care about, who care and who can be made to care if you can tell the story then they can be made to care. And some of them have read my book some of them have been volunteers with us, some of us came out to Kosovo with other organizations but wanted to help and see The Ideas Partnership as a way to do that.
So we have a lot of people who want to give, maybe money or they want to give… I mean this big suitcase that I just brought today that is the reason I was late, is full of shoes that were donated by people in England. Because they say, you know, “My kids grown out of these shoes, I want to give them to a child who will wear them to school.” And I think what The Ideas Partnership is very good at, is making that direct connection so that woman that gave her children’s shoes will get a photograph of the boy who’s wearing those shoes now in Fushë Kosovë, and we will send it and say this is filan and you know, he’s in school and his mom say thank you and you know a little bit so that they really feel connected.
And when we take them to filan, we will say this comes from a lady in England and her son used to wear them and now she wants you to have them. And so I think making that joining the world up, yeah…
Erëmirë Krasniqi: Personal connection…
Elizabeth Gowing: Exactly. And so what was your question, no I was, it’s…
Erëmirë Krasniqi: It was more about what’s your relationship now?
Elizabeth Gowing: So, I feel now that one of the important things I can do is to be that connector and so I always, when I’m in England which is once a month, I always come back with a big suitcase. Often two because British Airways will give me free suitcases. And I bring baby clothes, particularly baby clothes and blankets and children’s shoes and whatever else. And then on Saturday I go to the families in Fushë Kosovë and I give to the newborn babies or people, the widowed, families the ones who are having a hard time and I take the photograph and I send it back and I write a little explanation.
So that’s a piece that I can contribute, we’ve now got staff, we have an all local staff. We have 27 staff now, not all full-time like majority of them are part-time. But then still 27 staff, and half of them are from the Roma, Ashkali or Egyptian community so…
Erëmirë Krasniqi: Do you involve the entire communities through this work?
Elizabeth Gowing: In Fushë Kosovë, I mean we’ve touched every family one way or another, you know. We have a kindergarten now which has 80 children and that’s in its third year so if you think that’s how many generations of children.
We’ve got all these children into school every year, you know not just back in 2011. We give out clothes, you know we offer bursaries to adults who want to go back to high school, doing evening classes to get their certificate. So we have lots of different ways that we’ve touched different people. And a big program for pregnant women as well, for safe pregnancies. So we have about 40 women in Fushë Kosovë and about 40 women in Janjeva who every week come to our midwife and get vitamins, and we pay for the transport to take them to hospital, to have their baby in safe conditions.
And we take the blankets that were knitted by the ladies in England you know, so we, yeah, so I’d say I’m still quite close to community yeah you know to answer your question. And we’re not in more than that community so we’re in Fushë Kosovë, in Janjeva and Lipjan, Obiliq, in Gjakova, in Graçanica and we were in Istog until the end of last year. And I feel like there’s one more that maybe, well then I suppose in Pristina we have our office here maybe that’s what I’m thinking, so…
Erëmirë Krasniqi: How did you expand, like… ‘cause you started in Fushë Kosovë?
Elizabeth Gowing: Yeah and Fushë Kosovë is still our biggest project like you know that’s where we have everything, in Fushë Kosovë. Whereas in the other places we have, in Janjeva we have a kindergarten but it’s just three times a week, whereas in Fushë Kosovë it is every day. In Janjeva we have the social enterprise as well and we have a few classes but not as many, not like our Saturday activities. So we have, art class, and we have English classes, we have Albanian classes just on certain days of the week.
In Obiliq we just have education for older kids three times a week. We don’t have any social enterprise, we don’t have any health work in Obiliq. In Gjakova we work specifically with blind children and not just from the community, like from any community, working with the society of the blind. So that’s a very different project. There’s no antenatal stuff. There’s no social enterprises. Just working on supporting those kids into school.
So, I guess we… ideally, I would say that we have an organization that has a huge number of volunteers. We have a hundred and something. A hundred and twenty, I think. Volunteers. We have a center. A few centers. We have a center in Janjeva, a center in Fushë Kosovë. A few other centers in other places. And, if somebody shows us a need, we can kind of mobilize those things and and make the needs, you know, resolve that problem. So you know one day somebody said to me, someone from the community in Fushë Kosovë said, “We really need German classes.”
There are so many people who’ve come back from Germany or kids who grew up in Germany or people who want to move to Germany or engage to someone from that community who’s living in Germany and I put out an email to all our volunteers and we had one in our center within less than a week, we were able to start German classes. And, you know, no other NGO I think can work like that because normally you’d have to apply for funds and it would take six months before you’ve got that approved and by then maybe the interest would have gone. So we’re able to be very responsive because of that.
Erëmirë Krasniqi: Okay. I was wondering, I mean if you have nothing to add about The Ideas Partnership, I was wondering about the book, do you find inspiration from the work that you do there? Are they creative non-fiction or are they just pure fiction or can, can you tell us about that?
Elizabeth Gowing: So, it’s called Travels in blood and honey. Becoming a beekeeper in Kosovo. So this one really tells the story of, from I first arrived in Kosovo in 2006 to 2008 like when we left Kosovo, the last chapter is us leaving Kosovo. When we thought that, you know, Rob had a job back in England and we thought that our time in Kosovo was coming to an end. Little did we know (laughs) that was just the beginning. But… that’s, that’s, it’s got a very different feel in my opinion because it’s about becoming a beekeeper but it’s also about learning not just beekeeping. But learning Kosovo’s history and its traditions, its food. You know, it got recipes in the book for what to make with the honey.
It’s a very sweet, very lyrical book. I think it’s kind of, it’s a lot about the landscape, the countryside, the villages, and, and, it’s kind of a love story about me, you know, falling in love with Kosovo. And, and, so I, you know, I love that book because it’s, it really tells that, that journey. But I remember there was one review of it that said it was uncritical of Kosovo and I suppose that’s true, I mean, I didn’t want to be critical, and, but, also I perhaps hadn’t got, you know, deep, I hadn’t met the community in Fushë Kosovë to see some of the problems and frustrations. So, yeah, it’s a love story, when you’re in love with someone, you’re not critical (laughs).
And then the second book I wrote, well, I started writing it before the first one was published and, which is about Edith Durham, this British woman who came to Kosovo a hundred years ago, and that is a different kind of book, you know, it’s partly biography. It is called, Edith and I: on a trail of an Edwardian traveler in Kosovo. So, it’s partly Edith’s story, and it’s partly my story in finding out about her and then retracing her steps. So, it starts with me finding out about her when we lived here, but then it talks about me going back to England and being stuck in this small apartment in London, feeling frustrated that my life in Kosovo, which had been so rich and happy, was, you know, I was now, I’ve been torn away from that. And the remembering that there was this other British woman who, a hundred years ago had gone to Kosovo and had had this wonderful experience and then had had to come back to this flat in London and had been very frustrated.
And so, that’s why I started researching her really, was kind of from homesickness, yeah when I was in England thinking about Kosovo, but in the middle of writing it, Rob got this job back here so actually the second part of the book is about my journeys in Kosovo where I used Edith’s travels as a guide, so it’s partly a travel book, it’s partly a biography, partly an autobiography. And then the third book is the story of the rubbish picker’s wife and it’s such an unlikely friendship in Kosovo and that tells the story of Heteme and Gjejlane and meeting with that family and what that pulled me into. So, that’s probably the book that has got most of me in it, you know, that’s really the story, perhaps the story i care about the most because it’s really shaped, at least for now, who I, who I am.
And, but it’s, it’s much more critical of Kosovo, if it’s not a love story, because, you know, of course it’s about the frustrations here and the ways that some communities are being shortchanged here and… But hopefully it’s a positive story because it does have, it has a happy ending and then my most recent book which was published last year is, The Silver Thread, which is about silver filigree, and the subtitle is A journey Through Balkan Craftsmanship. So, it’s a Balkan book, so it’s not just Kosovo, although it’s mainly Kosovo. But there’s quite a few chapters in Albania and also one in Istanbul. And that’s about this silver filigree and it starts, in fact it starts way back before even my first book started.
The first contact I had with Kosovo was when Rob, when we were living in London, he got a job with OSCE, two weeks election monitor during the first elections here. So in 2001 he came out for two weeks and he was based in Prizren and he was you know, in a polling station there and he brought me some Prizren silver filigree back, just a very simple necklace. And, so the story sort of starts with that and then describes how I was given this beautiful, intricate, extraordinary necklace and wanted to discover where it had come from. And so I go back to Kosovo when we get back here, I went down the mine, I went down the mine in Trepça which is where the silver came from, and then I went to Novobërda, and saw there where the smelting was done. And then I went to Prizren and saw how the cooperative make the filigree. And then I visited these women, actually in Albania, who collect the filigree and who sort of told me the stories of it, its history and then I went…
Erëmirë Krasniqi: What are the stories around this type of craft?
Elizabeth Gowing: Well, it’s particularly the way it’s worn, those, that’s the, I mean, there’s some detail, technical details in the book about how it’s made and you know, these techniques. But the bit that interests me more is the, the human context of it, so understanding, for example, however rich a woman was, even if she was able to have all gold jewelry, she would always have had one piece of silver jewelry because silver is supposed to be, had the power to see off the evil eye. You know, and so, silver is important, it’s not just like a poor man’s gold, it’s important in itself. And then the xhubleta[2] you know, the traditional Albanian costume, and I went to the Malësia e Madhe and to the Lugu i Bjeshkëve, where all the young women, the latest brides from all the valleys are all dressed in this xhubleta which goes back possibly like 3,000 years or something as, as a style.
And they all have this amazing intricate jewelry and there’s various types so traditionally, women would have tongs, and hanging like a long chain with tongs and that would be so that she could pick up an ember, a burning coal from the mangall so that she could light her husband’s cigarette with it, so she, you know, has to have tongs. And they say that she would have to put her hand out like this {puts out her hand}, because heaven forbid that the burning coal would fall on her husband’s foot, it should fall on her hand first.
So, yeah, learning, you know, that tells you a lot about lots of things and there’s also the symbolism of lots of bees, actually, made out of filigree because that symbolizes hard work and the sweetness that the bride was bringing into their family. Lots of triangles cause they’re also amulets against the evil eye, and you know, this is all a way of understanding people, and then going to see the young filigreenists who are in Pristina today, who have, just as a couple, young women who started up businesses. And it’s great to go into their shops and see other young women, professional women, buying filigree there. And this is, I think it’s having a bit of Renaissance in Kosovo, and that people are not buying Swarovski like down the road, they’re buying from these shops. And buying that as a gift or a present there for a business colleague or something, you know. So modern women are buying it. So yeah, this is the story I tell really. And what’s been interesting with those books is that I’ve done a lot of talks about my books because I love doing…
Erëmirë Krasniqi: What is the audience? That’s what I want to know.
Elizabeth Gowing: Yeah well, that’s what’s been interesting. So when I started the… I started the first book about honey and I got in touch with all the beekeeping organizations in England and some of them… I mean they’re mainly farmers and they’re interested in beekeeping and the practicalities of that, but a few groups were interested to hear about beekeeping in a different country. And then I started working… talking to some women’s groups, there’s a big network called The Women’s Institute which has… something like thirty thousand, no it can’t be that many, maybe it’s three thousand groups in Britain, branches in Britain. But still, you know, a lot. And so they’re mainly older women, mainly in rural areas. Often quite traditional, it has a bit of a reputation in Britain for being about homemaking and making jam and doing handicrafts and although not all the groups were like that. But so that was again a quite an older audience and who didn’t know about Kosovo so they were interested in this, you know, learning about something,
And then, with particularly with this last book and there’s a group in Britain called The Art Society and that has six hundred branches across Britain. And each of the branches has a lecture every months on an art’s topic, fine arts topic. And so they’re always looking for lecturers and they have quite a rigorous process to become a lecturer. So I had to go through this process, but now I’m on their list and so actually the main talks I’m doing are to art societies, which are very big groups. Usually over a hundred. So I did one on Monday, there were 150 people in the morning and then another 130 people in the afternoon. And I suppose that’s a slightly different, you have to pay quite a bit more to be a member of that group, compared to the other ones I was talking.
So these are people who, you know, consider themselves very educated and cultured and they’re interested in fine arts. So it’s wonderful to be talking to all these different kinds of people. I’ve done now 160 something talks (smiles) and so if you calculate it it’s more than thousand people who I’ve spoken to. So that makes me very proud, like I can go and tell Kosovo’s story and my story…
Erëmirë Krasniqi: What are the questions, like what kind of curiosity the books spark?
Elizabeth Gowing: My favorite, my favorite questions are when people ask about tourism here. And you know, I kind of think, “Oh, I hope that means that they’re gonna come.” And I did once get an e-mail when I was sitting in, in Pristina and it said, “Dear Elizabeth, I’m sending this from the Grand Hotel. I would never have been here, if you hadn’t come to the Wimbledon Women’s Institute last year (laughs). And that makes me really proud.
And then people often want to know about, actually they’re not so interested in the war and the politics. Maybe that’s the one thing that people do know about Kosovo, or at least they think they know. But they will often want to ask about the quality of life, you know, health care, you know, jobs, electricity, you know, those kinds of things. And when I do my talk about the filigree people always want to buy some of them. Like, “Where can we buy it?” Because of course they’ve discovered just how valuable it is and they understand the work that’s gone into it. So that’s why it’s great to have these cards that the women in our project have made because then people can buy a piece of Kosovan filigree.
And we have a collaboration with a designer in Cornwall, who in fact made these earrings {touches her earring} so the filigree on these earrings is made by the filigreenist here. And then she combines it with these other beads and crystals and pears and whatever, for necklaces and earrings and…. So those sell very well, and she gives some of the profit – well she gives all the profit to The Ideas Partnership. So it’s also, everybody wins, yeah.
Erëmirë Krasniqi: I think we can close it here but I was wondering if you had something else to add? You think you can tell us something else…
Elizabeth Gowing: I mean there’s always be more (laughs) but no, I think we’re done.
Erëmirë Krasniqi: Okay, thank you. Thanks a lot!
[1] Word of Arabic origin that means neighborhood
[2] Traditional Albanian costume.
