Word: dani
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Burying the past "Welcome to Kosovo," Dani said, once we were in his rickety red 1997 Volkswagen, heading toward Ferizaj. An early dusting of snow covered the foothills near Pristina, and Kosovo stood on the verge both of important elections and a potential declaration of nationhood. Since 1999, some of the best hopes of this 4,203 sq. mi. (10,887 sq km) territory have been on hold, as it remains legally a part of Serbia, while being administered by the U.N. The same ethnic divisions and territorial disputes that fueled the 1999 war still linger, as do the international...
...months later, I got an e-mail from Dani: "Now I vil tell you my life," he wrote. He'd returned to Ferizaj and was selling cigarettes to U.S. troops, who soon realized, as I had, that he'd make a great unofficial translator. It was thanks to his army friends - and his good grades in school - that Dani was picked to introduce Clinton in the President's only speech to the Kosovar people. But Dani's e-mail also revealed the best news of all: his father had survived the war, he wrote, "So my life was lucky...
...years since then, though my attention and that of the world at large shifted away from his would-be nation's struggles, I never forgot Dani. A photo that I'd snapped of him holding his class picture in the tent in Macedonia still hung above my desk. In October, as the question of Kosovo's destiny became more and more acute, I tracked Dani down again, eager to know what had become of him and his homeland at this watershed moment in history. Stepping through the sliding glass doors at Pristina airport, I spotted that same giant smile...
...through all of this, Dani maintained his keen awareness of what's at stake in his troubled homeland. Between his shoulder blades is a large tattoo of a snake and the initials E.I.S., for the words "Ethnic Identity Sucks." Though the entire Serb minority fled Ferizaj after the war, Dani has met many Serbs at youth conferences elsewhere in the Balkans. He'd also traveled in Serb villages in Kosovo right after the war while interpreting for U.S. troops, and he saw one old woman who'd just been badly beaten by local Albanians. "This land we have fought over...
...speech in Ferizaj, Clinton famously told the Albanian crowd: "No one can force you to forgive what was done to you. But you must try." Dani traces his own tolerance to his mother, who always taught him to have basic respect for others. Even during the war, Dani recalls, he did not have the feeling of "hate that others had." Then again, he adds, "I don't know how I'd feel if they'd killed my father. I want to think my ideas wouldn't be different, but I don't know...