Prizren Radio

I had a class outing with my high school students. There are 21 students in the class; maybe 7-10 show up regularly; and only 2 came today. I still love them, though. Along with a colleague, we visited four radio stations in the Prizren area (there are 9 in total). Our first stop: Radio Roma.

Radio Roma is quite new. It started last year, I think. They've received grants from the US Office and the Soros foundation. The equipment is new, the employees are pretty fired up, and the station manager is constantly looking for new things to do with the station.

The next station was Omega 3, the only Bosniak-language station in town. This puppy is run out of the attic of one man's flat. This station has been on the air for 9 years and employs 5 people.

As with the other stations, Omega 3 gets its music from the internet. However, they did have a small CD and tape selection, mostly of politicians speaking.

The third station we went to was Radio Prizren, a public radio station that's been on the air for 27 years (I think). We happened to catch them between live news readings, so we weren't able to stay for very long. But the news host was quite friendly, spoke good English, and showed us around the studio.

I was rather tired by the time we arrived at Yeni Donem, Prizren's Turkish media conglomerate (they run a radio station, a tv station, and a weekly paper). I took this photo of my colleague sitting at the news desk giving me his best newscaster face.

Not that I'm looking to branch out, but visiting the stations gave me plenty to think about. Each station offered me its services and expressed a serious willingness to work with me. What would I do? Not sure...have to think about that. I am moving forward with my Castle Clean-Up idea (Prizren has a lot of trash that needs to be picked up). I asked my colleague if the radio stations did public service announcements (PSAs), and he said they did (wheels turning). I'm also hoping to get trash bags and rubber gloves donated (additional wheels turning). Even if I don't do anything with the radio stations immediately (aside from asking for PSAs), it was good to make the contacts. I've only been here six months, and I don't expect everything to happen immediately, but I sure do wish I had met all these folk 5 months ago! (Not that I would have known what to do with them then, either!)