As I looked down at my watch, a couple of days ago, to see why my tummy was rumbling (we've eaten constantly and so well this team!) I began to laugh at the absurdness of the situation.
Here we were: 8 people from NI, two missionaries, 4 (lovely) Kosovans. Standing in the beginnings of an elaborately designed garden of a man we'd just met. As he told us about his star shaped rockery that had rocks from as far away as Peru, a 7000euro Japanese maple tree, beautiful flowers, two massive German shepherd guard dogs, a gorgeous but tiny, yapping hound pup.
The man showed us pictures of his daughter, his nephew and all the rest of the family. Then we looked at the architectural drawings for the house with a jacuzzi that he plans to build on the hill below us, over looking the beautiful valley with the city of Kamenica nestled in it.
Our plans to pray there were side lined while he continued to tell us of his great wealth, briefly discussed God and belief systems.
There we were, this strange mix of people, sweaty and smelly from a 2 hour journey from Prishtina in 35deg heat with no windows and a 2 hour sports camp earlier in the day, wearing home made white t'shirts with 'Dashuria ne Aksion' scrawled across the back. Sweat and wind had given us creative hair styles, tiredness and hunger had subdued our conversation, our feet and legs dirty from dusty flip flops.
Before we knew it, we were back in our vehicles driving towards the town. Our convoy became longer as we followed the 'rich man from the big house on the hill' towards a restaurant that would give us a discount because he knew the owner.
We pulled up in our sweat box vehicles to an exceptionally posh restaurant: bouncers with bow ties, a red carpet we were scared to walk on in our dirty shoes.
All eyes from the other patrons on us as we were guided to our seats, still sweaty, dusty and wearing home made clothes, the ink now running as they soaked up our sweat. We wondered if the absurdness and hilarity of the situation would be communicated as we tell the folks back home?
carlena doing a turn on the red carpet
feeling slightly underdressed (& the ink had started to run on the homemade t-shirts, they seemed a good idea at the time..)
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