By Michael König, CARE Austria
Xhema loves his wife and he loves her “Maze”. No-one else – as he points out – can cook this traditional Kosovar dish as well as Tevide. Nowadays not only his family eats this tasty dish, visitors from all over Kosovo have confirmed his bold statement. CARE helped the family in the picturesque rural area of Kosovo in establishing a small traditional restaurant serving local specialties cooked from completely organic farm products. The project helps the people in the smallest and poorest municipality of this young state, just a 45-minute drive from the capital, Pristina, to access new sources of income.
In former times Novo Brdo used to be a real centre of the region: From the middle ages onwards the people here lived from mining for gold, silver, lead and zinc. That prosperity is history now. The war in Kosovo and the economic downfall led to complete poverty. In Yugoslav times 90 percent of the local population used to work in the mining sector; today it stands at only about nine percent.
For the last two years CARE worked with households in the rural area helping them to prepare their houses to accommodate tourists or their kitchen facilities to cook for guests.
“Before the project started people here were living from hand to mouth, because there were no jobs in the area. Today, most of the families have an income of about 250€ per month from the visiting tourists who either stay for the night or just visit the area and its sights for a nice traditional home-cooked meal,” said Alban Ibrahimi, CARE’s Senior Project Manager.
CARE also reanimated traditional forms of income, like the collection of herbs or mushrooms or the production of high-quality bee-keeping products such as propolis. Rural tourism is something new in Kosovo and CARE helped the local families to set it up. Today four families provide bed and breakfast and five families share their home and garden for the traditional meals when people come to visit the remains of the local fortress or for hiking in what is known as “the green lung of Kosovo”.
“I always cook for many people”, Tevide explains with a smile. Indeed she does. She had eight children plus her grandparents to take care of and cook for, so if there are any additional guests, that’s no problem. Apart from that her oldest daughters have already started helping her out in the kitchen which makes cooking for the visiting tourist even more fun.
“Novo Brdo has turned out to be an excellent place for weekend breaks for people from all over the world. After a slow start, the word of mouth spread fast and especially the households providing meals are profiting a lot already. Now it’s time to also promote the bed and breakfast farms”, Ibrahimi explains. Together with the local farmers he started a marketing initiative to make more people aware of the rural tourism area. Meanwhile the stories of Tevide and her “Maze” started to circulate in local and international newspapers, travel guides and TV-channels.