21 Feb.
I'm in this awful Media Center, again, after filing early for the Sunday paper, and watching this deadline come and go, with negotiations apparently continuing. I found a nice place to stay, with a private bathroom, for only 30 DM a night, the family of a local journalist. The only problem is that it is at the very edge of town, but it is on top of hill and walking down every morning is a good way to get the day started. The KLA positions we visited in Podujevo yesterday got hit today by three hours of shelling, even as the talks go on in Rambouillet. So I guess I am glad that the front was quiet when we were there, although the pictures of course would have been better otherwise. After a hiatus of several months, the first time going up to a front line again brought on the sinking feeling in the stomach and so on. The pictures did run in today's paper, Saturday.

Despite the massive diplomatic activity today I spent the morning doing routine stuff: reaction in the villages, where we met a family with a cuckoo brother mentally ill type pointing at the ceiling, and an Albanian baker whose window was smashed by his Serb neighbor--he knows because the guy came up to him and told him so--that's the nature of life here. Pleasant, isn't it? Also I am afraid I will not be able to send real letters because the post does not seem to be really working; not surprising. But I did get some postcards of beautiful old frescoes from the ancient Serb monastery of Grancanica, where Prince Lazar rallied his troops before that great battle of 1389, and according to legend made a stirring speech, that they would choose the kingdom of heaven over life on earth under the Turkish yoke. He was killed the next day, of course.

Pristina, 23 Feb.