Kosovo war widows wage their own battle on tradition
KRUSHA — Fahrije Hoti lost her husband in the 1999 Kosovo war but when that fight ended, a new one began against age-old taboos when she took up her dead husband’s place working in the fields. “We were receiving emergency assistance at first but it was only enough for bread,” she said. So she and many other widows decided to take charge and plough their fields as their husbands had all their lives. This switch from housework to farming was akin to revolution in this patriarchal rural milieu where fieldwork was the preserve of men and women were supposed to stay home, looking after children and managing the household. “We did not want to live off social assistance forever because we wanted to offer our children a chance,” Hoti said. But the widows faced a dual challenge. Not only did they have to learn about cultivating the soil, they also had to confront prejudices in Kosovo Albanian society that brand women as anti-social if they take on a man’s job and appear often in public. “They demonstrated an extraordinary instinct for survival. They broke the old codes in rural and patriarchal areas that treated women as a (domestic) labor force,” political analyst Migjen Kelmendi said. Krusha’s fertile soil is known for good agricultural yields and ideal for growing sweet peppers, known here as paprika, a key ingredient in regional cuisine such as the ubiquitous condiment, ajvar. More then 90 percent of the local population depends on its production. Settled in the far south of Kosovo, the village was heavily affected by the conflict between forces of Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic and separatist ethnic Albanian rebels..... MORESource: The Daily Tribune URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100809com3.html |
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