Interview with: Marigona
We asked Marigona to tell us about her experience during the time she was forced to leave her house. She responded by telling us this story.
My mom woke, me, my two sisters Erza and Mimoza and my brother Edi up. We were all so confused since it was 5 in the morning and we didn't understand why she was crying. She had heard that the Serb soldiers were to come to random houses and kill everyone they saw in the house. She told us to get dressed and just get another pair of clothes and we were to leave our house. I was 12 at the time and I kind of understood the danger we were in. We left for school everyday not knowing if we would see our family again, but they said we weren't going to give in to everything the Serbs wanted so we kept on going to school. As we left Prishtine I asked my mom if we could stop by some people's house so we can see them again, and she said we couldn't stop anywhere we just needed to leave. I started to cry I wanted to say by to my cousin Albulena and my best friends Valza, Kaltrina, Zana and Lola. We arrived about 20 miles from the border of Kosovo and Macedonia, when the police told us to get out of our car, took all of our belongings including the food that we had taken with us. We had to walk for 20 miles and than we discovered that ones we were there they separate women from men. Since all of us were 12 and under they only took my dad away. We all started crying and than they hit my mom and told her if they see one tear in any of us they would kill my dad right there in front of us. We were all forced to keep our emotions in. My little brother started to cry and the police started to hit my mom telling here that if my brother didn't' shut up they would kill him too. We didn't know what to do he was only 2 years old and from all the gun shots that were happening he got scared and cried. My mom closed his mouth and tried to do things to make him laugh. Apparently that wasn't allowed there either. No one was ever to show an emotion no matter what happened around us. They raped girls, beat them up and tortured them in ways you can never imagine. At some point the girls around me started making plans about who they should die they didn't want to live knowing there were raped by these soldiers. I was so scared I didn't know how anyone could ever commit suicide but than again I wasn't in their shoes to know what they were going through. I was really hungry and we didn't have any food since they took it from us when they took everything else with it. I told my mom and she couldn't do anything about it we asked people around us and they were all as hungry as I was but there was no food being provided by the Serbs. We stayed for 1 week at the border of Serbia and than they took us to the Macedonian border. Me and these girls didn't know how to get ourselves not to be hungry so we would talk about our favorite food. When we got to the Macedonian border it was like we were free from everything. We went to my grandmothers house in Macedonia hoping we would see our dad there but he was no where to be found. My mom started crying thinking that they had killed him or taken him to prison for no reason just for being an Albanian. We were all worried and prayed and hoped that one day he would just show up. As I left for school that morning with some of my friends, I saw in the distance my dad walking. He looked 10 years older and skinnier. I ran to him and he was so tried he could barely bend down to give me a hug. He started crying and asked if everyone was ok. I told my friends to go to school that day and I went home with my dad. I ran in the house and I told everyone. They were all shocked and when my mom saw him and the way he looked she started crying of happiness, because all along she thought he was dead. We all sat down and talked about everything and my dad said that the best solution for us was to get out of there and go somewhere else anywhere. My parents decided to come to the United States. They tested us for a few things than they put us in the plane. We really didn't have anything with us but the clothes on our back. We came here and fortunately my aunt lives in New York. We stayed there for a few months and than came to Detroit since my dad's friend said that there are more jobs. We moved here and we have lived here ever since. Even though most of the refugees moved back we think that because of the jobs here and because we are 6 people in the family our life is better here, and we usually just go to Kosovo for visits, but everyday I live with the fact that any of us could be killed and think about all those family members that are no longer alive because they were just living in Kosovo. |
