THE U.S. ARMY TO THE RESCUE

Needless to say, it is extremely inconvenient to lock your keys in your car with only an hour to get to your next location. It is even more inconvenient to make such an error in a small town in Kosovo on a Sunday, when absolutely nothing is open and you barely speak a word of Albanian to communicate your dilemma to the few people you see walking a few blocks away who may be able to help you. And yet that is the sad situation we found ourselves in a couple of days ago: we jumped out to get a quick shot and no sooner were we out of the car than we realized that the key that Michaela had in her hand was not the one that would let us back in. We looked sadly at the car key sitting on the dashboard. We tried to push down the car windows with our fingertips. We attempted to pick the lock with a pointy stick. But as none of these things actually had any useful result, we leaned against the car to discuss the situation.

What to do? Granted, our trusty German-made Opel was certainly not the greatest car. Rented to us from the friend of a friend, it lacks the hi-beam that would be helpful on Kosovo’s inky night roads, has a broken trunk and a tendency to stall out if it sits in the sun for more than two hours, and rattles like mad if it goes over 60 KPH. Many times we cursed its fussy ways and fantasized about the day when we would be able to roll over Kosovo’s bumpy roads comfortably and speedily in a snazzy jeep. Still, now that our little car was suddenly inaccessible we longed for its dusty, cramped interior again, and wondered how we’d ever regain access to it. Michaela looked at her watch and noticed that thirty minutes had passed. We hoped that some kind of help would come along soon.

Enter the U.S. Army Reserve, in the form of Mr. Marks and Mr. Bohner and their Albanian translator, Mr. Gashi. Climbing up on the elevated train tracks, Michaela spied the trio peering into a large hole about fifty feet away and appealed for their assistance. Gamely, they scrambled over – and while Mr. Gashi tried to trick the lock with various of his own keys, Mr. Marks and Mr. Bohner told us a little about their experiences in Kosovo. As it turns out, they were from Missouri, and were both quite happy to have been deployed to Kosovo as they had spent the previous eighteen months in Iraq: as Mr. Boehner put it, as long as nobody’s shooting at me, I’m okay. And they were shooting at me in Iraq. I’d rather stay here. We asked them about the hole they had been so closely examining on the other side of the train tracks, and found out that recent construction had uncovered the remains of an old Ottoman prison, which was turning into quite a local curiosity.

Suddenly, we heard the old familiar creak of our trusty little Opel’s door squeak open. Mr. Gashi was pleased with himself. My brother has one of these, he said. I knew that I could get in! There was much thanking (us) and much protesting that no thanks was necessary (them) and with many smiles and handshakes we were off and not a moment late to our next shoot.