Fort Dodge Mayor Matt Bemrich; Chad Schaeffer, the city’s director of engineering, business affairs and community growth; and Dan Kinney, the president of Iowa Central Community College; received a warm welcome everywhere they went.

Kinney said the people of Kosovo are “overall very receptive to Americans.”

During the visit, the Fort Dodge group also saw some of the major challenges the people of Kosovo deal with. The three met some of the city’s firefighters who struggle to protect a community of some 50,000 people with a fleet of outdated fire trucks and one working hydrant.

They also saw two vacant factories that sit idle because of ongoing court battles over who owns them.

-Submitted photo An electric car made by teenagers in Gjakova, Kosovo, makes its debut on a public street there. Fort Dodge Mayor Matt Bemrich, who saw the vehicle during a recent trip to Gjakova, said it’s one of the few electric cars with a manual transmission.

The June 24-July 1 trip was the latest event in the new and evolving sister city relationship between Fort Dodge and Gjakova.

Bemrich and the mayor of Gjakova signed an agreement in December 2016 that made the two communities sister cities. The agreement commits the two communities to cooperation on cultural, economic, city development and academic matters.

Bemrich, Kinney and Schaeffer were part of a larger Iowa delegation that traveled to Kosovo. Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey led the group, which included representatives of Des Moines Area Community College, Ankeny; Drake University, Des Moines; the Greater Des Moines Partnership; Iowa Sister States; Hawkeye Community College, Waterloo; and the University of Iowa, Iowa City.

Getting to Kosovo required a 29-hour trip that included stops in Chicago, Illinois; Munich, Germany; and Zurich, Switzerland; before arriving in Pristina, the capital of Kosovo.

The first official stop of the tour was the Stone Castle Winery just outside Pristina. Bemrich said during the dinner there, the Iowans met the politician in line to become the next prime minister of Kosovo.

-Submitted photo Dan Kinney, center, president of Iowa Central Community College, and Fort Dodge Mayor Matt Bemrich, right, examine an electric car made by teenagers in Gjakova, Kosovo. Gjakova is the sister city of Fort Dodge.

In Pristina, the group saw the first of many statues and memorials in honor of Mother Teresa, the nun who cared for the poor in India for decades. Bemrich said her father was born in Kosovo.

“She’s just kind of a beloved individual,” Bemrich said

After two days in Pristina, the Fort Dodge representatives went to Gjakova There, they stayed in a hotel in a 500-year-old building on a very narrow cobblestone street.

Bemrich said Gjakova consists of an old section and a modern one, separated by the Krena River.

“It’s a beautiful community,” Kinney said.

Bemrich said many of the business owners and managers there are in their early 30s.

“People who own a business or run a business take a lot of pride in their frontage,” he said. “They’re always out sweeping, washing the sidewalks down, getting the dust off.”

The local firehouse was one of the first stops in Gjakova. Bemrich said there are 50 full-time firefighters who protect essentially the entire southwest corner of Kosovo from that one station.

He said the newest fire engine is a 1980s vintage rig donated by a Rotary Club in Germany. He said the firefighters’ available self-contained breathing apparatus consists of 10 air tanks and six masks.

The next stop was a center in Gjakova called Bonevet. It’s a place where students practice science, technology and engineering skills.

“Everything that they do there is about building a future workforce that can grow the Kosovo economy,” Bemrich said.

A group of teenagers there built an electric car. The Fort Dodge group checked out the car, which has a light green paint job accented with orange flames. Bemrich said the students ordered the parts, then converted a regular car into an electric one. He said the vehicle is believed to be one of the few electric cars with a manual transmission.

Bemrich said a student at the center used a 3-D printer to produce the parts needed to make another 3-D printer.

The group also visited a business incubator called the Gjakova Innovation Center. Group members later dined at a wood-fired pizza restaurant that was started at the center.

The group also saw the downside of an economy still recovering from decades of communism when Kosovo was part of the former Yugoslavia.

The group members toured two sprawling vacant factories. The Elektromotori plant made motors for washing machines, while the Gatexx plant made clothing. Both plants were once owned by the central government and are now at the heart of years-long court battles over who should own them.

While visiting Gjakova, the group briefly crossed the border into Albania. Albania once was the last communist dictatorship in Europe. But with the communists out of power, crossing the border was as simple as driving through a gate. Bemrich said Kosovo and Albania have an open borders policy.

Bemrich said he wanted to get an Albanian stamp on his passport, but because the Albanian personnel hadn’t checked passports in so long they couldn’t find the stamp. To prove he was there, Bemrich has photos of the border crossing and majestic Albanian mountains which he said reminded him of the movie “The Sound of Music.”