Aida-S: Ok tell us your name, your full name, your age and where you are from? Haxhere: Hi my name is Haxhere and I am seventeen years old. I come from Kosova, a city named Pristina.

Aida-S: Ok before the war start in your country, Kosova, how was your life?

Haxhere: Well all the time we had difficulties because we always suffered from different problems because it wasn't only the war but we were occupied, I don't know a long time ago and we always had like problems like you couldn't walk with Albanian books in your hands because the Serbs will stop you and ask you where you are going, why you are holding your books, even though you were supposed to go to school, lah, lah lah and you know all these stuffs and so on. You it was always with problems even before the war.

Aida-S: Can you say how was your daily life? What did you usually do?

Haxhere: Well like the first few years?

Aida-S: No before the war.

Haxhere: Oh yeah before the war. I go to school and I started school at four o'clock p.m to seven p.m, that means three hours of school. And we shared the school building because it was better than going to houses and I also went like in English course.That's it.

Aida-S : So were your parents working?

Haxhere: Yeah my parents were working. My mother was teaching in the University of Medicine and my dad was working in some company. So my brother and my sister and myself were going to school.

Aida-S: So you all lived as a family in an apartment?

Haxhere: Yes we lived in an apartment and we still have it, our own apartment in Pristina. Yeah that's all about it but there were still difficulties like always the job of my parents wasn't always guaranteed because every time they were kicked out for another person but luckily they didn't my parents.

Aida-S: But why did they kicked them out?

Haxhere: I don't know there were different problems. There wasn't so much work and maybe they didn't need a lot of employers and for example if they work in factories, right, say the factory of oil for example if they don't have a lot of oil then they don't need a lot of workers of if they are making a lot of oil then they need a lot of workers but they didn't so they just like you know kicked them out. So some of them will leave their works, their jobs and find other jobs elsewhere. Most of them weren't being paid, say the teachers, they were paid once in three, five months.

Aida-S: So what happened when the war started? How did it start and do you know why?

Haxhere: Well too many political problems and that's basically the main reason, the big one. I was home, right playing a video game with my brother and my mom called and say just take some pictures, some family pictures and your jackets with you and we are coming to get you because my parents were both at work. And so I just took some family pictures so we can have them cause who knows if you can come back or not. And I took a jacket with me and we started our journey for Prisheva, where my father is from. And we like tried to cross the border for three to four times but they didn't let us. They even beat up my father and they would return us and tell us not today, not today, you know they always like made it more complicated for us and but one day, you know lucky us we paid money and then we crossed the border, which was, then we went to Macedonia. We stayed there for like two months, then we had the opportunity to come here and then that's how I ended up here. And then one more thing, We didn't stay in camps in Macedonia but we stayed in a family house because most of them volunteered to get different families even though they didn't know them. We didn't know them you know, and to have them, you know we slept in their house-that was nice of them to do.

Aida-S: During the war in Kosova, how long did you live there? In Pristina?

Haxhere: Well I left Pristina the day that NATO bombed so I didn't really see a lot of bad things, how some of my friends, like you and some other people saw, so I can't really talk about it cause I didn't see it myself but I still heard the bombs and all those arms that really heard some scary noises. I just heard them, but I didn't really see things myself. I didn't see them.

Aida-S: How did you feel when you heard the bombs?

Haxhere: Well scary. First of all I was at my aunt's house, sleeping with my cousin in the same room but she is younger than me for like two years or so and my mom wasn't there and my father wasn't there, they were all up at my uncle's house and I was so scared because first of all I wasn't there by my parents and I had called and all they said was I should calm down and that all will be ok in the morning and we will get together. I couldn't panic because all the kids that were in my aunts house were younger than me, so I felt like they were looking up to me, what I am doing, what reactions I have so I was like calming myself down but mostly calming them down cause I knew there was something really wrong but I didn't want them to like know- I mean they knew what was like wrong but not to scare them, you know like kids. And in the morning, at six a.m we got together but I mean it was really scary, scary as hell.

Aida-S: And where was your uncle's house and your aunt's house?

Haxhere: Back in, I mean back in Prisheva.

Aida-S: In Prisheva?

Haxhere: Yes Prisheva is, they say it's like...

Aida-S: Is it far from kosova?

Haxhere: No it's not. That's what I am saying there is no border to cross or something, just like one hour by car from kosova.

Aida-S: Both houses, your uncle's house and your Aunt's house were in Prisheva?

Haxhere: Yeah but like fifty kilometers apart.

Aida-S: So in the morning...

Haxhere: We got together in my uncle's house. We all got together you know cause as many people as you are as much you know the better because you help each other. Finally we decided to like try and cross the border but we couldn't, then we came back and like for a whole week then at the end when we crossed the border to the other side, to Macedonia we were like, then we were safer there but still the Macedonians like Serb Macedonians, cause they were Albanian and Serb Macedonians but the Serb Macedonians will protest and say that they have their own people too. I mean why do kosovans are coming here we have our own people too back home like you know Serb Macedonians can have Serbian kosovans which, umh that was the big conflict then because they didn't want to like start war in even Macedonia, cause if they want to have us and they want to have them, it starts a big conflict again so I mean it was safe- it was safer but still not safe. You know what I mean it was safer than back home but still not safe cause still they find you and they have reason for, to do it , you know.

Aida-S: How did you get to Macedonia?

Haxhere: By car.

Aida-S: By car? Whose car was it?

Haxhere: My father's car. We were like eight people in one car [she said smiling].

Aida-S: Who was that? Your family?

Haxhere: My family. My mother's friend with her daughter and her cousin.

Aida-S: So did you have any problems?

Haxhere: That of my father's beating while we were waiting in Macedonia, I mean in the border. I was I don't know. I was scared.

Aida-S: And then what happened?

Haxhere: Then they let him go. I think they, my father wouldn't want to talk about it cause you know off course you don't want to talk to your kids about what happened to you and it is just a bad thing and it was a bad thing for all of us and I think they got money from him but that I can't really say all the facts because I don't really know it myself.

Aida-S: So when you got to Macedonia, you lived in house?

Haxhere: Yeah in some Albanian people's house. They were like three brothers and their mother and the mother lived in one house and the three brothers in their different houses. So one of them let their mother stay in his house and lended their house to us.

Aida-S: Did you know them?

Haxhere: No we didn't and that was the best thing. They were very, very nice you know like warm welcoming they expressed to us. Like they knew us for like the whole lifetime but they didn't really know us.

Aida-S: So how did you meet them? Did just like go to their house and ask them if you could stay in their house?

Haxhere: No in the border, they would come with their cars and say do you have house to go? Do you want to come in my house? but actually that didn't happen to us. My father had a friend and he want to help so my father asked if we could stay just for few days till we get an apartment and rent it cause you know but he said no, no I don't have space in my house because he lended it to UNICEF and those organizations but his brother in law has space for our family. So that was how we got to know them.

Aida-S: So how long did you live in Macedonia?

Haxhere: We were there for two and the half months.

Aida-S: All the time you lived in the house you just sit in house?

Haxhere: No we went to school, my mom worked there cause she taught in back home but she worked in some other, it's like the women and children something-it was I don't know the house for women and children and something like that. She was a gynecologists there and she worked there and so they opened the same thing back in Macedonia and so she worked there and my brother, me and my sister went to school. But I didn't learn anything cause it is funny you know I went to school for two months and didn't learn anything but it's just that we were all Kososvar people that made one class together and we were not really concentrated. We had classes but we were like we are not in our proper classes so who cares, let's just cut classes. It's not that they were bad kids or some thing we were just like traumatized and didn't know what to do.So that's why they did all this stupid things without realizing it. None of us really like got something from it Just to know that we were spending our time in school and not in the streets. That was why we went to school.

Aida-S: What language did you have to speak in school?

Haxhere: Albanian.

Aida-S: Oh so you had Albanian teachers?

Haxhere: Yeah we had Albanian teachers, you know we found Albanian people. Thank God because at that time nobody would have want to speak Serbian, believe me. Even though all of us know how to speak Serbian, all of us. But you know when you are mad at someone and you don't want to use anything from them. You don't want to hear them. That's just natural it's not that you hate somebody, because how would I hate the word hate, I can't say I hate them, it's just that something I don't like about them.

Aida-S: You hate what they did to you?

Haxhere: I don't like what they did to us it wasn't fair, it was like an unbelievable thing that Milosevic did to Albanians. Cause Milosevic did that and then his followers continued. So it was not so his fault but I don't know.[ sighs and shook her head].

Aida-S: During the war you were only like one week in Pristina?

Haxhere: Yeah you can say that - one, two weeks but like when the big one started I wasn't there.

Aida-S: Were any of your friends or neighbors or anybody killed or hurt?

Haxhere: Family thank God no. And I heard of some girls being raped and stuff but I can't say I heard it from - my friend's sister had been raped from military Serbians but I say it because I heard it from my friends in chat room and tell me that all this, this happened to this, this person but since I didn't see her and I haven't talked to her in person, I can't believe the words. So I don't know.

Aida-S: While you were in Macedonia, did you contact people that were in Pristina? you were able to do that?

Haxhere: Yes but only in my Aunts house, the phone in her house only worked because just before the war she bought her apartment from a Serbian woman, so they thought that the phone is Serb's people phone. So they never disconnected it and only her phone worked and almost the whole town called from them, their house and people from outside the country called to their house to leave messages for their people. So we called her.

Aida-S: So what happened to your Aunt? She stayed there?

Haxhere: Yes she stayed there all the time, my both Aunts and my Aunt from my fathers side. One of my family stayed there.

Aida-S: And nothing bad happened to them?

Haxhere: Thank God, no nothing happened to them.

Aida-S: So from Macedonia you came to America?

Haxhere: Yeah we came to America. We had a family friend here, they sponsored for us, which I hated[laughing] I didn't really liked it and I was forced to come here. My father and brother they loved to come here and so that's how we came. Yeah.

Aida-S: So you would have like to stay in Macedonia?

Haxhere: No, not in Macedonia, not stay in Macedonia but maybe stay there till it gets better and then go back home. Actually we stayed there in Kosova all my thirteen years of life I stayed there under Serbian occupation and now it is freedom and I'm not like living freedom, just war and so that was why I wanted to go and live my freedom, you know-I don't know but it is so relief and so fun to have freedom in your country. I went for vacation and I saw all those flags in the streets and Albanian music playing in the streets. Before you would only see Serbian flag and hear Serbian music but now it's al Albanian. I don't know like one family, together even though[??]

Aida-S: So your father's friend helped you to come here?

Haxhere: Yeah the family friend that we knew before helped us to come here and so that's how we ended up here.

Aida-S: So when you got here you lived in your friend's house? How was it?

Haxhere: Yeah we lived in their house for like almost two weeks and then they found us an apartment in the Bronx but we didn't like Bronx at all. We stayed in Bronx not even for a week and then we moved to Brooklyn, where we stayed for two and the half years. And now like seven months or so moved into New Jersey [? ] and now we live there. It is really pretty but boring[laughing].

Aida-S: Ok so when you first came here how was it? Was it hard, you couldn't speak language?

Haxhere: No not at all. When I first came I was so you can say crazy but you know we started- we came through the International Rescue Committee[I.R.C] and they organized, they are so organized, I love them. They organized a Summer school for all of us even parents and then we started going there and we were all Albanians and in the morning to the afternoon like four or five we will have like social classes and different activities-to the Park, we'll have lunch together and you know have the chance to talk to American people that volunteered to help Annie and the I.R.C, you know to work with us. So we started learning, us the refugees from Kososva we started learning the English especially me I'm talking about myself now started learning the English language. And September came and it was time to go to school. I said I wasn't going, I'm not going to get my vaccination done, I'm not going to school, I am going back. But I was forced as usually. I was forced to because my mom was like no there would be no good thing there now because everything after war changes, you know it will take time to calm everything, stable, into place, you know and have a good opportunity so let's start here and see and we'll see, we'll see we are still here. You know and I'm still here and I am going to be a senior in September[talking about Fall 2002]and that means that I am finishing my high school here. I don't know I maybe continuing collage but not staying here afterwards I'm gonna contribute for my country. I'm telling you now and I will tell you always.

Aida-S: Were your parents working when they came here? Could they find a job?

Haxhere: When my parents came here my mom is a doctor, right and my father is an economist but my mom said that she would not work cause she had all these years to study as hard as she could to be a doctor and help people, you know show them but my father off course he said that too but somebody had to work for us to survive you know and he started working in a restaurant as a bartender in a chinese restaurant and he was there I think for month or so and then he found his job as a doorman in New York City and he is still working there. It's very nice as a doorman but it's kind of hard because he is working there at night shift which is very hard but it's ok. It is better than nothing. And now lucky my mom she found a job in the hospital, working as a nurse, not a doctor cause you cannot beg and choose. Beggers can't be choosers as they say, you know.

Aida-S: Before you came to America, what image of America did you have? Did you think of it as a good, a paradise or a bad country?

Haxhere: Believe me I was watching a movie called Beverly Hills and it was made in Hollywood cause I can tell that. I never dreamed to come here but I had some neighbors and there father was here and you know they would come here to visit some times and they would tell whatever stories so I said oh it would be fun if I go for a visit. Just like that but to come and live here, never in my life. But I always imagined U.S as a really pretty city, rich and big and clean, I don't know with all the best things, paradise as you said. You imagine them in your mind but you can't see them in real life. That's how you know but when I came here I realized that I imagined wow- that I actually imagined the right thing. Because I imagined it really clean, neat all the people I don't know, rich and I don't know, saints how I imagined. The really good, something really, really good. But when I came I saw, because the first place we went to live was Bronx and I was like uh and it was really the bad part of the Bronx because there are really some good parts I can say about it but I was in a part I don't know really dirty and unclean. I was like oh no I am not staying here, no baby cause it was much better back home than here. But then we moved on and on in Brooklyn it was much better and now in New Jersey it is really clean and better which now I see some parts in U.S that are like that.

Aida-S: When you started the school what was it like?

Haxhere: When I started the school, ha, ha, ha. It was-thank God I had my friend Albana with me because I was alone. And school was kinda weird cause I first started going to Brooklyn International High School and there were no American kids, not at all. Only like refugees, and you know people from different places like me and you. And most of them were Hispanics you know and they helped me a lot. My best friend, I mean my best, best friend was Albana off course but after her was Casandra, she was Haitian and she especially helped me a lot. It was really hard because of language and you have different subjects like history, you have English, Math and all these things and you need to know for example for Math, subtraction and I am still confused from multiplication and division. I don't know which one is to multiply or divide. Unless I draw you know but if you talk to me I would be confused. But it's okay. Now I am getting better and better but in the beginning it was really hard, really, really hard especially I never attended my history class because they were studying World War 2, Hitler and everything and I just couldn't stand- and they watched movie everyday and I was excused by my teacher. Albana, she I don't know how but she handled it but I couldn't. I was so sensitive so I would go to the Library and read a book. The name of the book, I can't remember but it was the same story as the movie but a book which was easier for me. History was the hard subject for me, while they were studying Hitler's time but then well my sophomore year was much better. My freshman year was hard, really hard. I stayed in school till six pm. Staying after school with each teacher from every class and thanks to them that they stayed with me afterwards.

Aida-S: You could see the war that you saw on TV, it reminded you a lot about the war in Kosova?

Haxhere: Yes what I saw in TV, what Hitler did to those people, I was like let me see, let me think of it if Hitler and Milosevic are biological brothers. Seriously, I am talking so seriously here. I mean I was thinking is it possible for them to be something like that, that close? Because they did such a criminal thing. They are very, very similar and that I couldn't handle and I was like mom I just want to tell Joe, my teacher that I am not going to watch the movie and start having nightmares. I mean having those dreams that were happening to me. So then I told him that I can't and he was like oh sorry I am sorry, I should have given you another assignment because I forgot and let's see what I can do and Albana she was like no I can handle it and so I just did it myself. I just didn't want to have too many things on my mind and you I was still young, I was just fourteen years old and I was even younger when I saw such things but fourteen years old I didn't want to have such heavy things on my mind. I have a lot in front of me.

Aida-S: When you first came did the kids discriminate you at school?

Haxhere: They really made fun of my accent and like some things that I didn't know and I ask- I am the kind of person that if I don't know something, I ask and they will say for example I remember and now I use it a lot, this word dude but at that time I didn't know what they were talking about. They will say yo dude what's up? and I will say okay can I first know what you are calling me? Dude is like - it is a word for food that you eat it in Albania and I was like damn what is this[laughing] and they would say okay and make fun of me. But I didn't mind and they knew that I didn't mind. But it was okay because they all were with accent and thank God that I wasn't in an American school. But now they still do because I am in New Jersey and they are all Americans, rich kids, you know those valley girls and they are like Oh my God I can't believe this, oh my God[imitating them] you know. All these things, not my type they always make fun of me but I still don't care which is the thing because they make fun of my accent and I am so proud of myself that it doesn't really bother me.

Aida-S: Okay so what are your plans for the future?

Haxhere: The future? Okay I am working now at the Natural Museum of History with my mentor and he is astrophysics and I am researching astronomy, and it is interesting, learning about galaxies, and black horse, you know it is fun to learn about them. And so I am interested in the Universe and I am thinking of that but some times my mind goes to anthropology. So I am between astronomy and anthropology but more going to astronomy. And the thing that is mostly getting me to astronomy because I don't know of one Albanian, that is astronomer. So I want to be the first one [grinning]. But I don't know, I don't know someone has to open the doors.

Aida-S: And you will like to live in Kosova in the future?

Haxhere: Yes sure I want to contribute there. I want to like be-if I go there and they say what do you want to contribute? I'll say astronomy and if they say you can't I'll say but sure I can because first they can open a faculty, they can open a collage and I'll teach them. That's the best thing you know, that is good. That's where I belong.

Aida-S: How many times did you go there?

Haxhere: I went there only once. After two years from there, I went there in the winter time for vacation. Oh my God I had a wonderful time. I stayed there for one month but believe me it was like open and close my eyes. The time flew. I was like one more I have day left, oh my God, impossible. Raeshma knows it was very quick.

Aida-S: When you remember the war, what image do you carry in your head? What's the image that you have when somebody tells you about the word war? What's something that you remember the most?

Haxhere: So many things but I am going to say the one that is important to me which is - you know I have always dreamed, like my day dream you know. I have always dreamed to have a nice childhood without no worries, what will happen to me now, tomorrow, the day after or who would come in the street and beat me up without doing anything. So I want children to be children you know, not to know what to happen today or tomorrow. So if someone will talk with me about war I will say the most thing I will feel sorry of is how children suffer a lot. I mean maybe you wouldn't see that but they will find out that much later like I did. While I was in Pristina, I never knew I was suffering cause you know my mom wouldn't let me listen to news, I mean she would let me to listen to news some times but not usually and not the major ones where they talk about all the bad things, you know. She wouldn't let me do that and she would say you have to have Serbian friends too and so I will go and find out and you know play free, don't worry about nothing because I am here to worry about you. She would say all these sweet words to me and that's what didn't make me realize what I was going through. But any how you will find out later like I did when I came here. And I am so happy that I found out that because now I know how to express myself much better than I was able to do before. You know and also I don't know, too many bad things that you can't say them because before you leave it you can't believe it. You have to leave it and believe it.

Aida-S: If you could talk to some important person, like say in the government, some president or some one who could stop the war that is going on somewhere in the world. What would you tell him about the war?

Haxhere: Well everybody see what's going on in the world. You cannot say that you don't see it because they see it. And that's why they work for. They are politicians and they do it but the one I will prefer to talk with- I will talk with Bill Clinton because I think he is understandable and maybe because he was President while he invited us in here and he let us in here. I will talk to him and I will first of all appreciate him and second of all I will like how can- if how can he help us talking to other presidents, you know make more freedom in the world and also I will like to talk with people like Milosevic. Like you know, I don't know never mind. I don't want to face him but maybe write him a letter and like name all the bad things that had happened to us and just curiosity maybe I will say what would you think if that happened to your children and your fellows because I don't know, I don't think he thought of that. I don't think he thought of that when he did it cause if he thought of that he wouldn't do it at all cause he would say that oh but war is war you will never know who is winning or not. And that I may do the bad thing to my own children not only them. So I just want that if it happened, well not to him cause he is so in big position and with all those security. So let's say his children are in school and it happened to them. I mean I don't know just curiosity for me. Maybe it's stupid but I really want to know.

Aida-S: How long did it take you to get from Kosova to Macedonia? Sorry I'm just coming back for one question.

Haxhere: I don't really remember because we came in the border for like twenty-four hours or maybe less.

Aida-S: You were just waiting there?

Haxhere: Waiting, yeah you wait there for a very long time. But you add the time that you travel, I am sorry I don't remember. But I can find out for you if you want to know.

Aida-S: Do you remember what did you see while you were traveling or waiting?

Haxhere: Yeah I remember seeing people traveling on their feet, right, they don't have cars. There was a pregnant woman that I saw carrying two small children, one year and two years plus pregnant and her husband with a broken feet who knows what happened to him. So he couldn't help anything, he has a broken feet and he was helping himself. I saw that which oh, touched me a lot. It was really sad but I saw a rain- it was raining. I don't know why but whenever something bad happens it rains. I realize that you know. I t was raining a lot and people were sleeping in the floor, there was a lot that could get really sick especially women. I don't know I saw a lot of bad things as I said before. You can name them but there is no end.

Aida-S: Do you wan to add anything or do you have a question?

Haxhere: I would say that people who went through the war are much older than people that are their generations. Meaning that they know more and I would just love to be respected, you know in different ways because it's not that I don't know nothing. I know something. I have been through the most difficult times that have ever happened in my life as a kid because we are going to remember this for our whole life. Like our grandparents remembered the World War 2. That's what we are going to remember. Isn't that right [nods to the interviewer]. Yeah and we are going to tell this to our coming generation so I think it is good for people to know what we went through even though it is hard some times for some to tell because it is about your personal life but it is good tell and it is good to know. As many interviews you do like as mine, the better because you learn more. More life, more experiences... Maybe what you and me went through, if we listen to some one talking that went through the same thing that we went through then we will learn more. Even if we went through...

Aida-S: Yeah it is never the same.

Haxhere: Yeah you can see the similarities bit it is not the same.

Aida-S: Loulou do you have any questions?

Loulou: Yeah I just want to know Haxhere, ever since you left your country and you came to the United States, what's your biggest achievement so far?

Haxhere: Oh I have achieved a lot. First I am an out spoken person and I speak a lot as you see [smiling] but the most important thing that I see in myself- I went to California and I made a speech about the, the, actually I told the story of my life, my biography. Yeah and I think that was what opened my doors and then I spoke in New York I don't know how many times that I have spoken for women's right, for teenagers in the war which really is a good topic. And then the thing that makes me more happy is the movie we made "One way Journey", that's the most awesome thing I did, me and my friends something that we have for our whole life and one more thing I found myself on the internet. Yeah in "google.com". Yeah so it is nice.

Aida-S: Okay, so thank you so much for your time in sharing your story with us.

Haxhere: Yeah thank you too.