Gott’s Blog

So I’m either really ambitious, or a little foolish, or perhaps a little of both! But today marks two-months until the marathon I’m organizing in partnership with Grandma’s Marathon in Duluth. We will hold a marathon here (that yours truly is setting up), exactly 7 hours prior to the famed marathon up north. Sounds like they’re going to hook us up with some custom t-shirts, and that our times will be posted on their website and post-race publication. Pretty cool!

And that marks two things for me; my first full marathon (a goal I had for myself to complete last year), and pretty much the last major event I should have to do before handing over the reigns to my replacement. Can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to it!

It’s weird to finally picture that getting back home just might be a reality in the near future. Time has gone quickly at times; not so quickly at others. But I’m starting to be a little nostalgic for the last time I came home from Kosovo. Of course, that time I was only in country six months, so this is a bit longer stint, but it was a very happy day all the same. Kinda felt surreal–in a very good way–for the first few weeks back. Mom was still alive then, and she and I had just discovered a friendship and fondness for each other we didn’t think we’d ever be able to experience in our lifetimes. (That of course was a credit to her finally leaving ‘the cult’, as I like to call it–you might have seen their rogue sect on tv recently with the raid of the polygamist ranch in Texas. Not that Mom was part of that nut-job bunch, but I take some glee in associating the two organizations!) But thinking about how good it was to get home before just makes the thought all the sweeter of getting back this time around.

Another thing that made me think about my first trip here was my ipod material at the gym tonight. I was catching up on American RadioWorks episodes, and they had re-issued a broadcast first recorded in 2000 about Kosovo. In fact, the interviews were conducted during the same time frame I was here. What was different about this piece of journalism is that they sought out some of the Serbs that perpetrated the massacre at Cuska. To me, it seems like a long time ago, but to hear some of these stories about those brutal murders reminded me of how it felt to be here in 2000, when so much pain was fresh in the hearts of Albanian Kosovars. That pain won’t go away for many of these people, but its interesting to me to contrast those days against the recent independence celebrations. On the one hand, I can intellectually understand some of the anguish of Serbia, but one cannot overlook the horrible things that were done here by the hand of Serbia. On the other hand, there were reprisal killings and violence, so there aren’t really any blameless parties here. But I’m left wondering how any people can get to the point where they disdain the value of human life. I’m just glad things have been relatively calm while we’ve been here, and I guess I take some pride in the role we’ve played in keeping it that way.

Well, enough pontificating for now. As always, I trust this finds you well.