We must join the world and have the right of religion and free speech and freely elected leaders. Shock is everywhere. Almost everything else is in short supply. Hundreds of shops were destroyed in Dakovica, Pec and other towns. People live on bread, crushed red peppers and beans.
Coffee is a prize, sugar a dream and gas a trickle.
On the sidewalks, conversation centers on the whereabouts of the lost. Sometimes there is unexpected laughter, especially when a NATO tank roars by, reminding everyone they are safe. But mostly ethnic Albanians just stare into wide, bombed holes and walk over pots and tires and glass and brick and stone and all the things that once held a neighborhood together. They seem puzzled that the cafe is blown away, the butcher's shop is a clump of dust, and the car mechanic's garage is a mess of melted tools - all the handiwork of Yugoslav army troops and Serbian police forces. Children summon their imaginations to blot out the awful things.