Tales from a little corner on south-east Europe, where everbody’s dream is to become rich! – Part 1

There is a saying in the contemporary urban culture which goes by “Get rich or die trying!” And I don’t think there is a country which this saying fits best than Kosovo. Kosovo is a small country with a population of little less than 2 million, where everybody’s utopia it to have millions in their bank account. Well maybe not everybody’s. Some even have the guts to think about billions.

I’ve been thinking about starting this series of articles for a while now. But there is simply something new happening in my country every day, which hits me surprised, as if I haven’t seen enough already. But these are just thoughts from top of my head because of the absurdities that happen often enough. Deep down, I love this place and wouldn’t change it for any place in the world. It’s the stories you hear that make you think. “Drum hits for the ones who hear” – An ancient saying in my country, which believe me it’s applicable even today. By average, Kosovo has the youngest population in Europe, which puts us in a pole position to enhance our selves in the future, but apparently, our views of the world only consist in the financial part of the life. It is amazing, how in my everyday chatting with friends and knowns of mine, the only thing keeping us apart from our dreams is money. I am like this too, I dream about having lots and lots of money, only to do the same things I do right now, but just in a more luxurious way. Instead of drinking a 1 $ beer, have a 3 $ beer, because in my mind this shift would make me more acceptable in the eyes of the society, therefore make me feel better myself. Did you see how many wrong mindsets where in that sentence? If you did, than that’s pretty much how we live our daily lives down here.

There are two things that keep us far away from developing as a country. First was money, already covered it. Well, partially covered it. There’s a lot more to that. The second thing, people in this country seem to have a strong feeling of inferiority. I don’t know why, but everything we do, we feel like foreigners, people who are not Kosovars can do it better. In this country if you are a doctor, but your own private clinic doesn’t say “American Clinic” or “German Clinic”, you are not worth it. And if you are a doctor but you don’t have a private clinic, are you even a doctor? Its not only on the medical part, it’s everywhere. There are literally advertisements in our TV shows which specify the foreign origin of a particular product, since if foreign therefore qualitative. Which is wrong. But also society-acceptable here. As a youngster from this country, I have tried to find links on why do we have this state of thinking? And I have come to the conclusion that I should be a foreign to do that. See what I did there? Seriously, there are a few reasons why we have come to this level of inferiority. First one can be that we came out of a devastating war 19 years ago, which left us behind on many things. Second, we have used that excuse so many times, we might have to find some other things. Maybe the level of education? You see, the thought of reading a book is not very popular in our country, not the biggest fans of Plato or Freud here. Let alone studying thoughts of popular writers or authors around the world. Things are starting to get better, but I honestly still remember a time where one would be quoted gay or p**sy if seen reading. And yeah, about the gay community? No.

Anyway, why do we persuade the dream of becoming rich so much? We all know that money can give life a little more comfortability, but is richness live-worthy of a goal? I think not, but not everybody has the same opinion as me. See, I do have friends and family, so I will start by my own family. A financially medium-low Kosovar family, which as the majority of Kosovar families, during dinner time comments on absolutely not relevant stuff for our wellbeing. I mean everybody at least once in their life commented on the life of someone, which is not your business, but you do it anyway. Kosovars live for that time of the day. You should see momma’s emotion when she says that the neighbor down the streets did not wash her living room carpet yet this spring…to be continued.