Pols prattle, but life in Kosovo goes on

If you search the headlines for news of Kosovo, you get a fairly decent idea of how mixed up this part of the world is – and how much difficulty the international community is having trying to deal with it

But if you walk the streets of Pristina, the capital of this estranged province of Serbia – a province that has asserted its right to independence – you get little sense of crisis.

As I sit here typing this, the sounds of construction fill the air. Power saws, the pounding of nails, jackhammering, the calls of one worker to the next, the whisper of air brakes announcing the arrival of delivery trucks coughing their way up and the hilly, rutted and dusty streets.

Not only that, but the outdoor cafes are filled at lunch time. Near the Grand Hotel Pristina, the nearest thing to a city center as you’re apt to find here, the café Monaco’s three dozen or so outside tables are taken up by people drinking various coffee (the macchiato is particularly popular) or tea drinks, while eating or chatting amid the ever-present swirl of cigarette smoke.

No one seems in a panic. No one seems even outwardly upset at the recent vote by the Serbian government to include Kosovo in its new constitution. Or to news that the United Nations, which has run Kosovo since 1999, may delay any decision of Kosovo’s bid for independence until after Serbian elections in December. Or even to news that NATO troops just uncovered a cache of munitions in an area southwest of Pristina.

This, of course, could change in a minute. The mostly Albanian populace has taken to the streets before , not only as a show of defiance to Serbia but also as a show of unity among themselves.

Until then, though, folks here in Kosovo are likely to continue eating lunch, searching out news on high-speed Internet connections, watching cable (or, in many cases, pirated satellite) television, smoking Western brands of cigarettes, conducting business and doing all the kinds of normal activities that people engage in all over the world.

Meanwhile, the politicians talk and delay and bluff and play the game of diplomacy, all of which ends up affecting those same ordinary people in ways that often take them by surprise.

And amid it all, the construction workers labor on.