The Foreign Woman who Runs

In the mornings, I've been trying to get out early to take a run up to the castle. Since I go at about the same time nearly daily, I see many of the same people. Same thing yesterday. I was out flitting around and I ran into a group of 4 women I've seen a few times and exchanged mir monjeses with (good morning in Albanian). A little later on, I came across a guy I've seen a few times, too. I had stopped and was checking out a barb-wire-ensconced apiary when his walking companion said, "Hi. I heard that you're the foreign woman who runs."

"Yeah. That's me."

"My wife has seen you a few times."

"Oh? Is she one of the ladies who walks here every morning?"

"Yes. Would you like to join us tomorrow morning?"

Yeesh. Would I ever. So I met this morning, at 7am, with three of the four ladies, the husband, and the husband's friend. And we went for a bit of a hike. Turns out, the husband works for the UN in Pristina doing translations (Albanian, Serbian, and English), his friend owns a shop that specializes in Roman coins, his wife has recently lost several kilos due to her morning walks, one of her friends is currently fasting for Ramadan, and the last lady, well, I'm not sure what her story is, but she has a car and smiles a lot.

We immediately deviated from the usual path going up to the castle. As we started walking, the husband asked if I was in good shape, and then I understood why he asked me that: The path sliced right up the hillside and was quite steep. Undeterred, I easily kept up with him although we had to stop every few minutes to let the rest of the women catch up.

Our walk took us up to a fountain (a pipe pouring water into a concrete tub), which had a nice view of Prizren and surrounding villages. I didn't take any water from the fountain because I've been warned over and over again not to drink the water in Kosovo although I did cup my hand and took a few sips. My companions, however, brought water bottles to fill. Supposedly water from this particular fountain is good for the stomach. Not one to neglect my own stomach, though, I tried a new kind of berry (very tart and a bit bitter), and somebody found me a wild pear to take home and let ripen (the thing is tiny! It's about the size of a quarter). All-in-all, we were out nearly 2.5 hours. A nice way to start the day and meet some new people!

Tomorrow we're going to walk up another path that will take us somewhere with something having to do with white water, but I'm not really sure what that means, exactly. Heh.