Up a Mountain in Kosovo (Part Two) by Inez Cook

(Please see 25/08/2014 for Part One)

We are glad to get out of the cold when we step inside the house.  The room we enter has rough white plastered walls and is empty apart from a single mattress, plastic chairs and a woodburning stove in the middle.  Hysen invites us to sit as he hangs his shotgun on a hook behind the door.  He explains he must keep it to hand at all times, as the wild animals on the mountain include bears and wolves. 

After collecting firewood from the store outside, he deftly lays and lights the stove.  The warmth spreads and shortly after the teapot is whistling on the stove.  Hysen is preparing Turkish tea, a remnant of the Ottoman Empire in the history of Kosovo.  It is also a central tradition in Kosovo-Albanian hospitality, where guests are afforded great respect and are regarded with an almost regal courtesy.  He uses a blue enamel double teapot.  The pot on top is made into a strong tea and then diluted using the water from the lower pot.  It is taken black with sugar and is served in a small curved glass.  Hysen opens a carrier bag and lays out some tomatoes and a generous bunch of wild garlic leaves.  He gestures to us to help ourselves, reminding me of the Albanian saying which sums up the simple tenets of hospitality here: buk, krip e zemer (bread, salt and heart).  

A little later we are joined by brothers Bajrush and Bekim, friends of Hysen and our hosts during our stay.  When we set off in the Lada Niva, they walked on foot, scaling the streams and crags and reaching the house in about two hours.  After our tea, Hysen sets up his chessboard and challenges Bekim to play.  They settle down on the mattress and, in the quiet concentration of the game, I realise how loud the wind and vehicle clatter were on our way up.  The room is silent until Hysen, acknowledging defeat, knocks over Bekim’s King.  The pieces scatter and laughter fills the room. 

Hysen shows us the three unfinished rooms of the house.  The largest room contains wooden animal enclosures lined with straw, ready for Hysen’s goat herd that will come and graze in the summer.  The second room will eventually be used to store homemade cheese and pickles.  The third room contains metal bunk beds and blankets for travellers to use.  It will be used on 1^st August, Hysen explains, when hundreds of people from surrounding villages climb Lybeten and camp overnight.  By then the snow has melted and walkers can see the glacial lake that sits just behind the summit.  Hysen describes how Lybeten holds a sacred significance for locals and how national identity is closely connected to the landscape.  Kosovo lies on a plain surrounded by mountains.  This means that wherever you are in the country, the mountains always remain in sight.  For centuries, as well as providing sustenance to people, the mountains have been revered for being a natural fortress against invaders. 

Hysen points out a small stream a few yards away from the house.  A concrete trough siphons off some of the stream water down to a small water-wheel.  The wheel has been hand-cut and hammered from tin and is connected to a generator which will eventually provide the house with electricity.  The house and its hand-made hydro-power system have taken years to build, as all the building materials have had to be transported by car.  The project is a long-term one, and despite his ingenuity and resilience, Hysen is aware that it always remains subject to his health and the mountain weather conditions. 

We walk to a grass ridge as Bajrush and Bekim gather kindling.  Every so often Hysen looks up and scans the mountainside.  He tells us that there are certain places where it is best not to walk.  Since the war in 1999, most unexploded mines have been cleared by NATO but he is still cautious.  We huddle around the newly-lit fire.  The flames seem strangely intimate next to the vast drop a few feet behind us.  Warming his hands, Hysen tells us about his mother.  He says the mountain kept her healthy and the clean air and mineral-rich springs were the secrets to her longevity.  He smiles as he speaks and I see how he has transformed during the journey.   Far from his shop where he first greeted us with stoic reserve, up here he is in his element, the guarded alertness occasionally thawing to reveal a man at ease and at home in this landscape. 

Around where we are sitting, the grass is dotted purple and yellow.  Hysen points and names each one: wild violets and celandine.  These tiny bright flowers seem incongruous with the bare branches of the woods below but even on a wintry April day the richness of the biodiversity is clear.  This region is particularly known for its butterflies, including some very rare and endangered species.  Apart from the illegal logging it is unspoilt, making it an area of interest for conservation research.   

A little later, Bekim spots an eagle dipping below us.  We walk closer to the ridge to follow its descent.  Through a thin layer of cloud the city of Ferizaj is visible and beyond that the capital Prishtina.   Up here it is almost possible to forget that there was a war in recent past.   After collecting our things, we climb back into Hysen’s Lada and start our descent.  Hysen points out a helicopter circling a neighbouring mountain.  It belongs to KFOR, the NATO organisation in charge of peace-keeping.  Soon other signs of war start to reappear, the shells of burned-out houses and empty villages.  Our journey off the mountain takes us along the same route that the villagers took in 1999 to flee violence.  In two days we will attend a memorial service to commemorate the local civilians killed during the conflict.  For now though, we clatter down the mountain and say goodbye to Hysen, grateful that he invited us to share the thing most precious to him: his mountain.