From the cabins surrounded by firewood, the splendor of the natural pearls of Mokna can easily be seen. In the courtyard with a few cabins for visitors, since the beginning of summer they gather around the traditional Albanian table. Preparing food for guests has already become a routine for Gjevahire Gusturanaj. For six months of the year, with three meals a day, she welcomes tourists from around the world. At an altitude of 1900 meters, tourists have been enjoying the panorama of the Dukagjin plain for four years now.
Business from home has now become a strong point of promoting mountain tourism and not only. Gjevahire from Istog also takes care of livestock, the number of which, she increases every year.
Gusturanaj: I’m in tourism business and I make traditional foods
“I’m in the mountain tourism business, I make traditional foods. We have cows, sheep, goats, food products, cheese, maza, yogurt, cottage cheese, milk, goat cheese. All these things that tourists order, we make… For 13 years, but we have been in tourism business for four years”, she tells KosovaPress.
The Albanian woman from Istog does not mention only one reason why tourists should choose the mountain of Mokna for a visit.
Gusturanaj: All are organic, it’s a very good place
“The first thing is to stay, that’s why they want to come, to sleep, they come for the food, tea, milk, bread, all these things that tourists consume, can be found at my place…. It is a very good place, in the mountain of Mokna , the air is fresh, the water, then food, sleep, all in general, they are organic”, she says.
Gjevahire and her husband support the family, even though they had many difficulties when they started this business.
Gusturanaj: We started from scratch, it’s a lot for a woman
“Neither I nor my husband were employed. We had three children who had to be educated, we had to do something. We started from scratch, it’s a lot for a woman. 50 percent of the work is work that men can do, I do them…. In the beginning, we didn’t have all the things that are needed in the mountain. We didn’t have a tractor, a car, a van for transport of goods, we didn’t even have the animals. We had to get a loan from the bank, in order to make the conditions”, she adds, as she talks about the work, she has been doing for more than a decade.
The mother of three children says that she never received help from the institutions.
Gusturanaj: The entire municipality of Istog knows what I do
“The whole municipality of Istog knows what I do, because they come to the mountain, they ask for these products that I mentioned and I offer them, they know what I do. I need the government to help me, a little elp from the government, a little help from the municipality, some we do ourselves, it’s enough,” she emphasizes.
“The beautiful and the useful”, this is how she describes her work started two years ago, to help other Serbian women.
Gordana Toskic, who lives on the other side of Kosovo from Gjevahire, tells how she started with traditional cooking.
Toskiq: Our cuisine is similar to the majority community where we live
“From Kosovo means from here, basically our cuisine is similar to the majority community where we live, even with the non-majority we have similarities to some extent, that all this can be regarded as Turkish food recipes. But there is something that was prepared here by women in those ancient times and they followed a certain tradition and customs, in us e.g., it is the Kosovar bread (pogacha), which is prepared all the time, meaning it is prepared when a child is born, when there is a wedding, when there is a party, when we have religious holidays, and unfortunately also when we have a funeral. Then there are the pies of Kosovo, the pie of Kosovo by the way has not been forgotten, we have the pie with cheese, or the pie with milk and eggs, classic sarma, stuffed peppers, xyveq. From deserts, we have tatlya, oblanda, but with that old filling that is boiled for a long time with milk and sugar, we have different muffins, different baronies, as we call them here. Therefore, all these are prepared here and thus we actually preserve the tradition, and we have already started to have young girls interested in learning, this is simply passed down from generation to generation”, she says.
Gordana was not supported by the institutions for this business, in which case, she says that apart from the will, they have no great possibilities.
Toskiq: It started very well, but our challenges were big
“It started very well, but our challenges were big, I think the most difficult thing for me was how to package the food, how to distribute it, because we didn’t think of operating as a restaurant, but as a take away. This is a patriarchal environment, so it was easier for women to work in such a place, where they are not waitresses, you understand, they are not in restaurants, but they are independent, and there was no supervisor, but all we are equal. After that, it was also very difficult how to price the food, because the goods weren’t that expensive, but our time was, that investment of that energy and love, and everything to make a meal like that, so the challenges were really big,” she adds.
The desire of the Serbian woman from Gracanica is for her business to expand and employ other women.
Toskiq: We would need refrigerated display cases
“For catering to operate at full capacity, in addition to kitchen, we need equipment, which, due to the standards of food preparation and cleanliness where the food is made, must be prochromic. We would need refrigerated display cases, when it’s hot here, the temperatures are not suitable, so we need cooling equipment for that, we need a lot of things. We’ve seen over the course of a year and a half that actually what people were looking for the most was to have food delivered to them, so to deliver that food to a certain address, and besides that’s good, it’s also a new job, someone that would distribute the orders, but we also need the means with which we will distribute the food safely, from here, to the place where they ordered the food”, she concludes.
Elida Avdullah also lives near Gordana, who grew up with her grandmother’s and mother’s recipes. She has already inherited all of this, turning it into her personal business.
The traditional foods of the Gorani woman are sold to order from Gracanica and everywhere in Kosovo.
Avdullah: Lately we have been working more with cakes
“Yes, I mainly work on orders, it depends on who asks for what and then I make it. Otherwise, recently we have been working more with cakes, we have requests due to various birthdays and weddings and we do what the customers ask for. In recent years, a growing trend has been observed, that people are looking for forgotten recipes. They are looking for mashica, they are looking for Indianka, klere, because these desserts are somehow healthier, because they only have flour, sugar, oil and eggs, they have no additives, the older generations are looking more for these old recipes”, she tells KosovaPress.
Mos of Elida’s costumers are women who work and find it impossible to prepare food.
Avdullah: Everything has become more expensive; it is difficult
“Yes, it’s difficult, at first it’s difficult, normally, there’s a lot of competition, you have to manage somehow, but we started somehow. When we were children, our mothers always prepared these deserts, we always had them at home, after school when we came there was always some deserts, something to eat, because there were not many things to buy, like the chocolates that are today, and choose which ones we like and which ones we don’t, but what our mothers prepared for us, we ate. And it is difficult, the prices have a big impact. Recently, you can see, not only the products that we use in cakes, even pies have become more expensive, everything has become more expensive, eggs have become more expensive, sugar, oil, transport and boxes that we use, everywhere there is an increase in price, so it is difficult, but the neighbors and friends, buy”, says Avdullah.
Sadije Halilovic from Gurakoc in Istog, started her business with only three cows, where now she already has many cows. It sells a lot of cow’s and sheep’s cheese.
Halilovic: We tried to educate the children
“It was very difficult, we didn’t have great conditions, but we tried to educate the children… We have cheese from sheep and cows, depending on the orders… Now we have 120 sheep, six cows, we are trying, we are working… Very hard, theyr’re all men at home, only I am a woman”, says Halilovic.
Sadija’s products, which is Bosnian, have begun to be exported abroad, but with difficulty.
Halilovic: I do all this by myself
“We now need to expand the business, we need help from the government because we do not have very good conditions, we have too many animals. I do all this myself, it would be good if I had a worker, it would be nice if we help from the government”, she concludes.
Note: This article was made in the framework of the project: “Promotion of women’s businesses producing healthy food”, which is implemented by the Center for Innovations and Development/CFID and financed by: Slovak Agency for Development and International Cooperation/SlovakAid.
