Adventures in Gjilan

First thing this morning we hit the road as we made our way to Gjilan in southeast Kosovo. When we arrived we had a meeting with Mayor Lutfi Haziri. He shared lots of information on the municipality of Gjilan with us. He explained that this area is a heavy agriculture area producing fruits, vegetables, tobacco, meat, wood, and processing of food products. His three priorities for the area were to improve infrastructure, agriculture, and education.

From the Mayor’s office we made our way to the Agriculture High School in Gjilan. They currently have a little over 2,000 students in the high school. We were able to visit with the principal and teachers at the school to learn more about how agricultural education operates in Kosovo. We were able to tour their classrooms, labs, greenhouses, and orchards.

We enjoyed a great lunch on top of a hill overlooking the city before visiting Kadri Zeka University in Gjilan serving about 7,000 students. While they don’t currently have agriculture as a degree option they incorporate agriculture into their current programs such as business and economics with the importance of agriculture in the area. They look forward to possibly adding agriculture degrees at some point.

Our final stop in Gjilan was time at Ask Foods. This is a unique food processing company that is growing. They are the only facility in the Balkans that can store fresh fruits and vegetables without freezing products for up to one year. They specialize in fruit juices, spreads, jams, canned vegetables, etc. They export most of their products with markets in New York and Chicago in the USA. We would like to thank Tony Bislimi for hosting us and planning our time in Gjilan.

From Gjilan we returned to the hotel and immediately traveled to Vushtrri where Norwalk, Iowa and Vushtrri signed their sister cities agreement. It was a great evening of ceremonies, including speeches, singing, and dancing. We concluded our day with great conversations at the restaurant Soma as we prepare for a busy Friday in Kosovo!