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A personal account from...

Citim:

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Rabë Lajqi, 77

I became a man at 12. The Serb forces had killed my father because he was with the resistance. My brother was a little boy, so I took charge. I made the journey between Pejë and Pepaj many times, mostly on foot. It would take me four to five hours to walk the 25km - you wouldn't have been able to catch me, even if you had a bike.

I wanted to be a man and I was completely like a man, always. There was no love and I never regretted it. I had a gun and the men were afraid of me. Once, I was cutting trees in the forest and a guy came up demanding that I stop. He said a woman shouldn't be in the woods by herself, never mind doing man's work. I pointed my rifle at him and told him, should he ever come within 100 yards of me again, he would be a dead man. Ha! How he ran. Nobody ever bothered me again.

I'd like to marry now, but it's too late. If I was younger, I'd put on a dress, flirt with the men and find myself a husband. I am the only proper Virgjineshe in Rrugova now. Mirë is not strong like a man. She was only a shepherd. She never really worked like a proper man of Rrugova.

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