My Journals, August 2000

We Albanians make majority in the classroom. Others are Somali, Ethiopian, Iraqi, Cambodian, and Bosnian. Today, in the afternoon classes we were practicing conversation. Topic af discussion was family, family tree, home. All, except for Kosovars had brought their photo albums, pictures of their families, video tapes, written memories, proof of their past. The teacher, a blonde with curly tailed hair and blue eyes (Kerri Ann) looked as if she were trying to say: “What about you Kosavars, what is this negligence about. Is this a carelessness, a rebellion?!” A silence, a moment of despair in the faces of Kosovo students. Well teacher: “Our photo albums, our books and notebooks, our children’s toys and other things that we used to care for as a sign of memory of our ancestors, things we have had for centuries, our cultural heritage, national, symbols, sunny landscapes were taken away from us and destroyed by the army of lost wars.
Sabit Abdyli