Kosovo - 10 years of Independence

My daughter has several poster-sized maps in her bedroom, including one of the US where we have marked off the US states where she has traveled and a map of Europe where we have marked the countries where she has visited.

When we returned from Macedonia, she took the sharpie to mark the countries we visited -- Macedonia, of course -- and the other Balkan nations where we traveled, including Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece, Albania, Montenegro, Croatia, and Kosovo.  She realized that Kosovo was not included on her map -- and so she carved out Kosovo.

I was impressed - her map looked fairly accurate.  We did have a fridge magnet featuring the map of Kosovo in the mineral trepca on display - so maybe she remembered from that?

In any case, I didn't think that this map was that old, but I suppose we did get it after her first European trip, which was in 2006. (She actually learned to walk when we were in Lancaster, England.)  I can't remember when we first started this map -- 2006? 2007? or after the first Fulbright to Moldova in 2010 or 2011? Regardless, the need to draw in her own Kosovo sparked a new discussion about the war and Kosovo's independence in 2008.  (Of course, when we were traveling around Serbia none of our maps included Kosovo as a separate country (!), so she is fully aware that not every map of the Balkans would include Kosovo.  Still, I think she assumed that a map purchased in the US would include it?)

at one point we had those transparent arrows, so we could comment on where we had visited without concealing parts of the map...this is still a work in progress...

at the Bill Clinton statue on Bill Clinton Boulevard in Pristina, Kosovo

Click here to see President Clinton's 10th Anniversary message:
President Clinton's 10th Anniversary Message



This weekend there are several retrospectives about Kosovo's independence, see 

Washington Post Article:  Kosovo Marks 10 Years of Independence but its People Remain Divided

New York Times Article: Kosovo Finds Little to Celebrate after 10 Years of Independence

For more about our travel in Kosovo, see our

Previous Blog Posts about Our travels in Kosovo --

http://jainmacedonia.blogspot.mk/2017/02/kosovo-presentation-at-american-corner.html

http://jainmacedonia.blogspot.mk/2017/02/kosovo-bill-clinton-statue-and-hillary.html

http://jainmacedonia.blogspot.mk/2017/02/kosovo-bear-sanctuary.html

http://jainmacedonia.blogspot.mk/2017/02/kosovo-ulpiana-archeological-site.html

http://jainmacedonia.blogspot.mk/2017/02/kosovo-gracanica-monastery.html

http://jainmacedonia.blogspot.mk/2017/02/kosovo-janjeva-lunch-at-anija-in-shadow.html

http://jainmacedonia.blogspot.mk/2017/02/kosovo-national-ethnologic-museum-in.html

http://jainmacedonia.blogspot.mk/2017/02/kosovo-newborn-monument-in-pristina-no.html

http://jainmacedonia.blogspot.mk/2017/02/kosovo-prekaz.htmlhttp://jainmacedonia.blogspot.mk/2017/02/kosovo-out-and-about-in-pristina.html

http://jainmacedonia.blogspot.mk/2017/02/kosovo-mueum-of-kosovo.html

See also this post about our recent visit to the Clinton Presidential Library

http://jainmacedonia.blogspot.mk/2018/02/clinton25-clinton-presidential-center.html