week 5
Hello again. A lot has happened since my last post. At the end of last week, the day after my previous blog entry something good happened. There was another protest against the same law that I had gone to protest earlier in the week. At this subsequent protest, which I did not attend, the prime minister came out of the National Assembly building and announced that the law was withdrawn. This was good news to everyone at D4D as the law would have removed a great deal of transparency from the democratic process.
Over the weekend I went to Budapest. Budapest is a very nice city and it was a good time. I particularly liked the thermal bath and the art museum in Buda Castle. Here is a photo from the trip:
Today was interesting. One of my coworkers and I attended a forum named "Civil Identity Beyond The Ethnic Divisions." It was very interesting. The forum had three different panels comprised of various community leaders. The purpose of the discussion was how to unite Kosovo. It was great to see that different groups are working on the problem of division. The issues are very real and challenging. I do not know how much you know about the Balkans, the breakup of Yugoslavia, or the Kosovo war. Before I visited Kosovo I knew very little. And I still do not fully understand the situation, I never could.
Besides the conference, work has been going well. Through the project, I am working on I have learned a lot about the parliamentary system. I used to think it was not incredibly different than the U.S. system, but now I see there are some major differences.
After work last night I walked to a road called "Rruga B" one of my friends told me about. It was an area where graffiti artists had been permitted to paint the walls. Here is a photo:
In addition to authorized street art, Prishtinë has plenty of cool graffiti. I particularly like the graffiti and overall design of this building:
Tonight my friend and I are attending a football game, it should be very fun. I will update and post about it next week. That is all for this week. Ciao!