Wow...I really am living in an ex-communist country.

After the initial shock of concrete architecture and men casually drinking vodka for lunch, I sort of forgot that Charlotte and I were living in a section of former Yugoslavia.  However, today I had a new "wow" moment.  

Since Charlotte and I have moved into our apartment, the central heating has been an absent tenant.  Water is switched off from 10:30 PM till 6:00 AM everyday and we've been warned that the power can be cut at any time.  All this is sort of annoying but it's never been a real problem.  We've got a little electric heater and plenty of blankets and sleeping bags so we've kept alive.  That said, the weather's also been fairly warm.  Most days over the last two weeks, it's frozen each night but in the afternoon it's been around 40-50 and sunny.  That's all set to change tomorrow.  The forecast for Kosova is showing freezing rain, then snow, and then sub-zero temps.  

Snow!

Well, it turns out the lack of heat isn’t unique to our apt building.  My school has also had no heat starting last week.  Indeed it seems even the hospitals have been without warmth.  I couldn’t figure out why this was such an issue.  Surely our school could just pay their bill and get the heat turned back on right?  Surely my landlord hadn’t paid the heating bill and that was why Charlotte and I had no central heating?

WRONG!  I was working with a Western individualistic mindset.   

Snow!  Notice the blanket hanging in the window...

The reason my landlord can’t simply pay my bill and turn my heat on is because my apt has no meters of any kind.  Our building and almost all other buildings in Pristina were built during Communist rule and so all the apartments share a power meter, a gas meter, a water meter etc.  Now, I suppose that may seem like a good idea to some (Communists).  What better way to inspire the commune feel that to have an entire apartment building pool together all their resources and pay a shared power bill.  “Never mind that Premtim and Argend upstairs have seven high power electric heaters plugged in at all times and we are only using candles.  We will equally divide our power bill comrades!”

But sadly reality has caught up with the communist ideals these days and people have realized that they actually don’t need to pay their power bills because there are no meters to hold them accountable.  Only about 40% of Kosovars actually pay their power bills… Now, the single power company in the country KEK (http://www.kek-energy.com/en/default.asp#) is horribly horribly bankrupt.  Something like 12 million Euros in debt.  

So as I was saying, it has been fairly warm here in Pristina but the coming storm has got everyone's attention.  My school was closed this Friday because there was no heat and starting next week we'll only be open half days until the KEK figures out how to buy more coal/diesel.  

For now, all I can do is marvel that I'm actually living in former Yugoslavia...

Friday we went out for lunch with some other ASK staff after a school meeting.
Pictured: Charlotte, Adrian, Joe, Maggie and Jeremy

Abandoned Serb church complete with dusting of snow and flock of ravens.