August 4th, 2010 at 9:16 am
Posted by Liz

Greetings from Gjakovë, Kosovo! My name is Garrett Rubin and I am a musician from Sacramento, California. I attend the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York where I study classical voice performance and cultural diplomacy. At Eastman I am president of Eastman for the Shropshire Music Foundation,
a student organization that raises money for SMF. Needless to say, I couldn’t be happier to be in Kosovo with Liz, Burim and all of the wonderful SMF youth volunteers.

I arrived in Kosovo this past Saturday and was met by Liz and Burim at the Pristina Airport. The drive from Pristina to Gjakovë was an eye-opening experience in itself. Kosovo is doing major road construction so it took two and half hours over a mostly unpaved gravel road to reach Gjakovë. Driving through the countryside, the effects of Kosovo’s high poverty rates were obvious. Many of the buildings and homes that we drove past were in very bad condition, having either been poorly rebuilt or not rebuilt at all after the war. Some structures still had large bullet holes across their exteriors.

Once in Gjakovë I was taken to the SMF house as the youth  volunteers had organized a welcome party for me! I was  thrilled to meet this group of young people that I had already  heard so much about. We had a great time together – they  taught me Albanian phrases and traditional Albanian folk  dances (both of which I need to practice!) At the end of the  night we sat in a circle and they each explained why they  enjoy teaching for SMF. It became clear that this is a  dedicated and bright group of teenagers, all of whom love  music and believe in its power to heal and help others.

On Sunday two of the youth volunteers, Jeta and Edona, spent the day showing me around Gjakovë. Jeta and Edona are sisters and have been in the program for two years. Edona is older and she describes herself as a dedicated student interested in pursing the best education possible. Currently, she is a student at the Gymnasium, Gjakovë’s best high school. Her sister Jeta will be entering high school this fall. She is an extremely talented and accomplished musician. She plays the flute beautifully and as the other volunteers will tell you, she is one of the best singers in the program.

The girls showed me all of Gjakove. As I learned, practically the entire city was destroyed in the bombings and fires of the war, so most of the buildings and homes that stand today are new or rebuilt structures. My favorite part of the city is the Old Town, which was rebuilt to replicate the traditional Albanian buildings lost in the war. The architecture in Old Town is beautiful and shows a strong and surprising east-meets-west influence.

After my city tour, Jeta and Edona took me to meet their parents. Their father and mother are similar in character to all of the Albanians I have met: kind, welcoming and open. Unsurprisingly then, their mother had prepared a traditional Albanian meal for me: feta and noodle soup to start and chicken cooked with tomatoes, rice, onion and spices. Lunch was served with fresh homemade bread and a thick, yogurt-like dairy drink. To describe this food as delicious would be an understatement.

While we were eating, their mother expressed her most sincere and deep thanks to me for what America did to help Kosovo establish its independence. Her sentiments echo that of most Kosovars, who appreciate the US military intervention in the Balkans.
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The SMF Kosovo program runs Monday through Friday at four different sites in and around Gjakove. On Mondays and Thursdays, we teach a large group at the Yll Marina school in Gjakove; on Tuesdays and Fridays, a group from one of
the remaining refugee camps (or, more accurately, IDP camps) comes to the SMF house to work with Liz and a few of the youth volunteers while the remaining youth volunteers travel to Skivjan to work with children there; and on Wednesdays we go to a school in the village
of Shishman fifteen minutes from the city.

In addition, every weeknight the youth volunteers come to
the SMF house for training, which usually runs from 7:30 to 10:30. In the training classes, the youth volunteers are taught penny whistle, harmonica, singing, ukulele, drumming, guitar and conducting. This summer Liz has also added a classical music appreciation class. As a musician trained in the states, I was surprised by both the quality of education that these programs offer and level of musicianship that they foster.

I came to Gjakovë to be trained as a teacher in the SMF method. Mostly, I am watching Liz and Burim teach so that I can learn how they do what they do. Yesterday, however, I had the opportunity to teach a group lesson. Because many of the youth volunteers have no previous singing or music making experience prior to their participation in the SMF programs, many struggle with internalizing pitch. This is especially true of the males, which is to be expected developmentally for their age group as singing is usually more challenging for boys than girls. To help, I gave the male volunteers a group voice lesson! It was my very first teaching experience and while we had a lot of fun, I realized just how much I have to learn about teaching music. Luckily, I have Liz and Burim to learn from…

Giving the group voice lesson made me even more appreciative of Liz and the work she does. Having observed three days of classes and trainings, I can tell
you that the SMF Kosovo programs are nothing short of spectacular. The structure and method that Liz has developed over the past eleven years does far more than teach music proficiency. Through these classes, the kids are learning life skills necessary to become successful adults: confidence, work ethic, analytical thinking and a capacity for self-expression. There is a particular need for this type of education here in Kosovo and the effects the program is having on the kids is obvious. The older youth volunteers that have been in the program since they were young exhibit characteristics that are not common of many of their Kosovar peers. Most have or are working on college degrees and they all speak passionately about different careers and interests. Each will tell you that they wouldn’t be where they are today without Liz and the Shropshire Music Foundation.

… more to come! I am in Kosovo for another week and half and hope to update the blog every few days.
Peace, love and quarter notes,
Garrett