Linda Baleta- To unexpected trips that become destinations. Twenty-five years ago, I was a young journalist who boarded a night bus from Tirana to Prishtina with too much curiosity and a deep sense of something important unfolding if I listened closely enough. Looking back, the first view of Prishtina by dawn signaled what lay ahead.
I had no plan and certainly no idea that I was quietly leaving one life behind and stepping into another. I just wanted to see the cities of Kosovo, meet old friends and make new ones, and get to know that missing piece of what being an Albanian means to me. It was curiosity and desire to meet the other side of me, of us, nothing more. A love for a place I had never been before to.
Then came the encounter with a wise and supportive woman who offered me a role with the United Nations. A temporary post-war assignment that cracked open the rest of my life.
What followed was not just a job, but a journey of building, unbuilding, rebuilding, and protecting a life, a family, a home in a place I had only dreamed would also be mine.
Today I am not merely a guest here. I am a proud citizen. Not an observer of stories, but a part of this one.
The bus ride took a few hours to begin a journey that today turns 25 years old and counting.
To the woman who opened a door Elizabeth Press thank you for changing my life. To every voice, friend, colleague, and challenge that has shaped my road ever since, you have done well and turned me into the version of myself I was always meant to be.
To my younger self: You could have not known it back then, but you were right to get on that bus.
**The picture is from my first week at my job with the United Nations Mission in Kosovo, July 2000.
