Helga in Kosovo

Good day!

I hope your Tuesday has started well. It has been rather cold here last week, but now the weather is getting warmer again. At least it has been better here than in Finland where it had been snowing last week. It was Midsummer’s Eve last Friday and usually it’s warm at that time of the year in Finland, but this year people had to wear their jackets. Hopefully summer will reach Finland soon. Here it is going to be close to +30 degrees and sunny.

Even though last week’s weather was bad, I had the best time. My boyfriend Simon came for a three day visit to Prishtina. Was wonderful to see him, but too bad he had to return back to Finland so soon. Next time I will see him is in the beginning of August…

Anyhow, last week at work was good and I got to work on a new project. Also, on Friday I took Simon to an event, which was focused on the police force in Kosovo. It was more like an information session, because the Executive Director of IPOL (Balkan Policy Institute) presented some research results that they had conducted in Kosovo, Macedonia and Serbia. They had conducted a survey on how much people trust the police in these countries. I was really surprised on how much people trust the police over here, because I have seen some police officers and they are… how to say this nicely…? They are super unprofessional. Also, the General Director of the Kosovo Police Academy was present and he informed about the work they do at the academy. I was surprised to hear that 20 000 people apply yearly and only a bit over 300 are accepted. The tests are difficult and usually people with high education get accepted. At the moment 85% of the students are male and the rest women. I have heard from other sources that the facilites at the academy are good, and that they are working hard. But because of the police officers I see on the streets I don’t know always what to believe. However, I know they have been working a lot with international institutions and they send their students abroad. That is one reason why the results were much better in Kosovo than in Macedonia and Serbia.

The reason why I think the results were surprisingly good, was because over 50% of the people in Kosovo trust their police. In Serbia the same number was a bit over 43% and in Macedonia 31%. They did mention that they had interviewed people in high positions such as professors and politicians plus people involved in different kinds of legislation work. I think that has a huge impact of the results. I have seen the police working here and it is not so impressive. For example, on Saturday night we were walking in the city with Simon during the Music Festival. We happened to cross the road 20 meters away from the white lanes, just like many people do here all the time. After we had crossed the road one police officer was calling us and telling us to use the white lanes. I understand that one police officer comes and tells us this, but suddenly after a while when Simon was speaking with him we were surrounded by 4 other police officers. The others didn’t say anything, they were just staring, because they were so curious of Simon’s Albanian accent, which is very different here than in Albania. I started laughing so much, because too many officers get involved with things that has absolutely nothing to do with them.

There have been quite a few of hilarious things while I have been here. For example yesterday when I was walking towards my apartment in Gjakova, I see a turtle about to cross the road. In Finland we don’t have wild turtles so it feels surreal to see them in the middle of a city!

Under the text you can see some more funny things that I have come across. The picture with the horse and the car is taken by my mother earlier this year, but I have seen similar creations 😀