Road leading to Mokermal, Kosovo. Photo by Dea Gjinovci.
Waiting to interview a distant cousin for a documentary project in one of Prishtina’s swanky new post-war cafes last April, I sat and wondered what I would discover about my family’s heritage in the next six weeks.
It’s the first time I’d ever met Avni - we connected on Facebook - the diaspora’s digital index for family trees. He is about forty-years-old - deep brown eyes, a similarly aquiline nose to mine and showing the distinctive baldness that characterises most men in my father’s family. We greet each other with the undefinable familiarity people in Kosovo share with every other Albanian - be they relatives or not. What strikes me first is his reserved demeanour.
