My family first went to the U.K. in 1999 and, like so many others, we stayed. I’ve lived there ever since. For a long time we intended to move back to Kosovo. First it was “once the war is over” and later it was “when we get British citizenship.” But then my brothers and I were in school and then university and then it was years later and it never happened. 

A confession: this was a relief to me. I was happy where I was. My spoken Albanian was clumsy and as I grew older Kosovo became synonymous with awkward teenage encounters in the summer and getting dragged around by my parents to family events. I felt out of place.

I understand now that the problem was that I had no personal relationship to Kosovo aside from what my family told me and I wasn’t really making much effort to cultivate one. My parent’s concept of Kosovo was tied to their youthful experiences before the war and seemed alien to me. 

As I developed my own identity rooted in feminism and queerness, I felt that I was somehow unacceptable in Kosovo and that this was tied to having grown up in the U.K. This meant that I associated Kosovo with restrictions and old-fashioned ideas of how to live. I wasn’t interested in it. I didn’t want to deepen ties with a place that would enforce regressive gender norms or make me feel guilty for wanting something different from my life than what my parents wanted.

Then one summer day a few years ago, I joined my cousin on a group hiking trip and my experience of Kosovo shifted completely. We climbed mountain peaks and stretched out on meadows and picked wild strawberries the size of my little fingernail. I’ve done the same every summer since. Now whenever I think of Kosovo it’s the air on the mountaintops and the glint of snow even in July that come to mind, the velvet drape of trees and memories of scrambling across the rocks. 

Being out in nature has deepened my attachment to all of Kosovo. The land pulls me back, and I want to spend every weekend up in the mountains, building that relationship and learning about the place my family is from. And I want a beer at the end of it. 

This is obviously a romanticized picture because being on holiday in the summer is not the same thing as daily life, with its mundane details and grievances. I know walking in the mountains isn’t how people spend most of their time in Kosovo. It’s not really what I’d spend all my time doing either. And even though hiking is what started shifting things for me, I’ve also been struck by the number of people I’ve met through my cousins who are musical. Or into photography, or street art or story-telling, or animation, or film-making or zine-making. Or alternative club nights, or design. Or have an astrology-themed Instagram account. 

My younger brother worked at the Manifesta art festival last summer. Accompanying him to events, I encountered a side of Kosovo’s alternative scene that I never knew about. In these people, I see the same diversity of thought and life experience that I’ve always wanted to surround myself with. My concept of “how people are in Kosovo” expanded, and with it, my desire to have my own connections and community there.

Now that I’m an adult, when I go to Kosovo I can do my own thing. Sometimes that means hiking and sometimes it means meeting new people in cafes and bars. Without fail, the people I meet are upfront and unabashed about their creative projects and their plans to put them out into the world. As someone who’s shy about sharing personal things with others, I’ve been inspired by this energy.

I used to be guarded about sharing my opinions in Kosovo. I suppose I had this feeling of being watched, or that my behavior would be reported on back to my family, or that I’d be immediately dismissed as being foreign and wrong. But the more I engage openly with other people and their work, the more I can be myself without self-censorship and the more I feel connected to Kosovo.

I’m seeing so much creativity and care in activism for environmentalism, for queer rights and for women’s rights in Kosovo right now. And the activism is fun. It’s gardens and indie movies and drag nights and street murals and memes. Who wouldn’t be attracted?

I’ve thought about moving to Kosovo but have some anxieties and reservations. Being in a place that is familiar and familial, but that I’ve only experienced in the summer as a quasi-tourist, might be a bit strange. I also recognize the fact that while I’m contemplating the idea of moving to Kosovo, so many of the people living there are struggling to leave. I know that getting to come and go as I please is so easy in comparison, and so moving can seem like a silly whim. The fact that it’s my choice of whether to live in Kosovo or not is a result of my privilege. To me this means I have to think about it a lot and I have to be really sure about my reasons for doing it. 

For a long time, the main thing stopping me from even considering living in Kosovo was that my idea of it was shaped entirely by family, and not from my own experiences. I didn’t know what having my own life in Kosovo and my own relationship to it would look like. Starting with the mountains, and continuing in the streets and in friendships, I’ve been inspired by what I’ve found. Kosovo is cool actually, and I want to get to know it better and be part of a community there. Building a connection to nature is just like building a connection with other people, it’s about time and attention. I’m ready to connect.

Feature image: Atdhe Mulla through Midjourney.

This blog was published with the financial support of the European Union as part of the project “Diversifying voices in journalism.” Its contents are the sole responsibility of Kosovo 2.0 and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.

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