K-Blog: Më Fat Bajrami: Or How I Spent My Tuesday

Monday was the last day of Ramadan and Tuesday marked the first day of a three-day bajram or celebration. The first day of this bajram is a huge holiday in Kosovo. It's like Christmas, Boxing Day, and Halloween all rolled up into one. It's like Christmas because everything is closed and people go home to be with their families. It's like Boxing Day because people go around visiting their friends and family members. It's like Halloween because kids go from door-to-door soliciting candy.

I went with a friend to Polluzha, which is a small village about 90 minutes by bus from Prizren (there are three busses per day that go to Polluzha directly). It was nice to escape both the city and the morning call to prayer. Some photos:

Per usual, I enjoyed good food. On Monday night we ate homemade soft cheese with baked peppers, fried fish, tomato salad with cheese (the tomatoes were f-a-a-a-bulous...store bought American tomatoes cannot hold a candle to these), freshly baked homemade bread, and homemade wine. Absolutely delicious.

There are lots of vinyards around the Polluzha area. When asked what kind of grapes are available in the US, I said, "Oh...green grapes and purple grapes and red grapes and black grapes." This response brought up two points: in Kosovo, grapes aren't called 'green,' they're white. Also, Kosovars are more specific when speaking about grapes. The above picture is of the Hamburg variety (I think). I didn't really know grapes came in varieties, aside from the wine varietals which aren't sold at Safeway (are they?).

I ate, learned about grapes, and hiked. I walked to the top of Mount Koznik (the Mt. Koznik in Kosovo and not the one in Serbia), named after the goats that used to graze the mountainside. I was told that the hill was about 1700 metres, but it didn't feel that tall. It took about 3 hours to hike up and 2 to come down. The weather on Tuesday was perfect for a day hike: slightly breezy and slightly warm.

This is the view from the top of the hill. From my vantage point, I could see a lot of Kosovo (keeping in mind that Kosovo is a pretty small place that's not too surprising).

On the way back down to Polluzha, I snapped what I thought was a particularly striking red gate. I was also taken by the fact that there isn't any garbage in front of this particular house.

I was quite surprised to see a turtle hanging out in some underbrush. Was it released? Is it endemic? Where did it come from? Where is it going?

The village of Polluzha is quite picturesque. The nearest mosque is 4km away, so it's quite quiet, too. It's a farming area and I have some students who come from here.

What else should one do after a day's hike besides eat cake? This is a three-layered number. At first glance, it looks like the middle layer is some kind of meat (like tonkatsu or fried pork), but it's not. It's a darker pound-like cake flanked with top and bottom layers of pound cake. It was sweet and tasty.