A neat row of charred house-slippers, big ones for the adults, small for the children, is all that remains of the worldly possessions of Murtez Demiri and his family. All else is rubble, collapsing plaster and a hot sky in place of a roof.
Murtez has journeyed with his seven children and grandchildren from Kildare town to his homeland to be confronted with the absolute destruction of everything he ever owned.
The Serbs came first to plunder, and took everything that moved; even the frames for the doors and windows were ripped out. Then they set fire to the house to finish their work. The roof collapsed, completing the devastation.
The house was unoccupied at the time, after the family fled over the mountains to Macedonia. Now Murtez has his life, and a few thousands pounds from the Irish Government with which to start rebuilding his life.
Ironically, this south-eastern part of Kosovo suffered the ravages of war less than other parts. On Saturday, the market in nearby Gjilane was bustling, under the watch of heavily armed US troops.
None of this is any comfort to Murtez. All last Friday, he journeyed in hope, not knowing what had happened to his home. Dandering an infant grandchild on his knee, he said only that he was homesick and wanted to return. "Ireland was a good place, and many tears were shed when we left, but Kosovo is my home, and the place for my family."
Murtez was nowhere to be found when we located his house on Saturday. A neighbour said he was staying with relatives, and offered to help us find him, but the first relative we travelled to said he was full up, and Murtez had gone stay with another cousin.
This relative has taken in the refugees from Ireland, though he is already sheltering another branch of the family who were also burned out of their home. Twenty-four adults and children are squeezed into a house intended for eight.
It's better than a tent, though. As Michael Barton of the International Organisation of Migration explains, Albanian families are like sponges: "They can take in so many, and then let them out again when times improve."
But as Murtez admits, "perhaps if I'd known it would be this bad, I might have stayed longer in Ireland".
