Telling our stories, one square at a time

Friday was the official last day of school at SEEU--although there's still a bit of time until graduation-- final exams and the like to finish up (and a stack of student work to read). but I'm starting to realize that my 'Fulbright experience,' whatever that is supposed to mean, is starting to wrap up (as if experiences have neat endings or beginnings. but my fulbright-companions/comrades getting on planes and up and leaving, well that feels kind of like the end of something). and it's an odd transition place to be in--because yes, I'm transitioning out of something--but I'm not leaving. I just moved into a new apartment, and am thinking about buying things like appliances--decisions which don't exactly index 'end' of an experience.

but this also is the end of my first year of teaching. and that. well that feels like something--I just haven't quite figured out how to articulate what yet.

On Thursday, the final day of my final class (Mapping, Cartography and Geography) my students gave presentations of their final projects (basically identify something in the community (or their home community if they weren't from Tetovo) that they wanted to explore further through the process of making a map.) Some of my students choose the awkward public square in the center of Tetovo, which was 'redone' (although this term usually indicates progress, where as in this instance, it seems to be 'regressive' (thank you, Jeremy. it's taken me a while, but, yes. you were right on the whole regressive thing) change) about a decade ago. And it was one of those instances where my students started to say the most profound things, but I couldn't tell if they knew how much they were blowing my mind with their observations. and so didn't want to react too strongly, in case it shut them up.

Previously, the square--at the heart of the city--had a fountain, green space, some statues. Now it's this vast expanse of concrete, where at night, people come out and rent small cars for children to drive around. it has a strange feeling of an free-form amusement park--but not a public space.

One student said, 'squares [but I think you could expand this to talk about public space in general] are supposed to tell the story of the city. But what story does our square tell?"

"Emptiness," was the response.

The square is oddly ahistorical ('you can't tell anything about our city's history from this square,' one student noted), a void as it were, without any place-specific markers that situate this square within the center of Tetovo--geographically as well as socially. From the man selling cotton candy, to the guy with the plastic toys that make all sorts of noise, to the cigarette buts, and old men sitting on the park benches in silence, it looks like just about any other square, in any other city.  Although--it should be noted, there is a large screen where companies  blast advertisements in flashy neon hues (so hell, it's certainly a consumerist/capitalist space--another  observation my students made--that the square was just used for personal profit--either as a 'market place' for lots of plastic crap, or a political market place--for holding rallies, and the such. ), and around the 28th of November (big holiday time around here, celebrating Albania's centennial) a huge banner of a local  Albanian politician (now deceased) was unveiled--although I don't know if it is a permanent installation or not. So, yes, the space is marked, in various ways--by the languages used, the gender norms enacted there. Which then begs the question--retuning to my students' observations--'whose story of the city' will the square tell? and does the marked absence of a story reflect Tetovo's contested histories? There are plenty of other smaller parks around the city with their relics of socalist-realist art--stoic women, chiseled men, all gazing off in the distance with a determined look on their faces, ready to conquer anything and everything. Yet these bodies, these markers, these narrators have left this stage, the space where the story of the city is told, acted and reinacted. and now we, bags of popcorn and wisps of cotton candy in hand, are waiting for another story to begin.