Maliq Sadiku had walked a sweltering 35 kilometres by the time we came upon him on the Skopje-Pristina road at around 4 p.m. yesterday. He wasn't young, his legs were swollen and sweat poured down his face, but he walked like a man possessed.
His destination was the town of Vuchitrn, some 25 kms north of Pristina, the town he grew up in and hadn't seen for three months since joining the refugee exodus to Macedonia with his wife and family. The focus of his frantic pace was his two sons, 15-year-old Besnik and 23-year-old Shkelzen, who had become separated from the rest of the family during the flight from Kosovo.
All he knew was what he had been able to glean from a Turkish friend who had a brother living in Vucitrn. The last he heard was that his cafe/restaurant had been burnt out three weeks after his departure.
All he knew of his young sons was that they were trapped in a town patrolled by Serbs in uniform where the sound of gunfire constantly pierced the air.
He knew he was risking his life going back so soon. Anyone around Pristina could have told him the same. Flames and thick smoke could be seen pouring from Albanian houses all over the countryside. Back in Macedonia, Maliq's friends and family begged him not to leave but after giving NATO a few days to settle in, he could wait no longer. "I need to see and hear my sons. That's all. I don't care about buildings or my cafe or anything like that. . ."
He had eaten nothing since a breakfast of coffee, bread, tomatoes and hot peppers. Now he sat between us taking huge gulps of water, this anguished man who had been travelling since 9 a.m. from Tetovo in eastern Macedonia.
As he crossed the border, he had received the Macedonian farewell; confiscation of his refugee papers and the news that he could not re-enter the country.
But for Maliq, it was worth it for what he found at the Yugoslavian border post on the other side: not the loathed Serb border guards but the Albanian flag and under it, KLA men there to welcome him home.
A kind of party developed where other returning refugees hugged and shook hands and celebrated the homecoming. He got down on his knees, kissed the ground and wept. Then he smoked a cigarette and set off on his journey.
With Maliq squashed between us taking huge gulps of water, we drove into Pristina and headed north. After a few kilometres the comforting NATO presence came to an end. Soon it became evident that Maliq was on his own. He looked out at the burnt-out houses, the ones still smoking, the truck-loads of unkempt Serb military swaying around the countryside giving us the usual one-finger Serb hello, the absence of ordinary village life and activity.
We passed a point which, eyes brimming, he described as "the worst checkpoint in all of Kosovo". As yet another troop of soldiers stood eyeing us from the verge, he said: "Yes, of course they make me nervous. I hate them. They are the ones who made me leave my home. They are the ones who left me not knowing if my sons are alive or dead".
But his heart was set.
He hadn't slept for more than three hours a night, had lost his appetite, had even travelled to Albania to try and locate his sons. At one point, he said, he had even been tempted to join the KLA just to get back inside Kosovo. This long, dangerous walk home was the last throw of the dice.
All was eerily quiet as we entered the Albanian sector of Vuchitrn. The shattered, bombedout landscape resembled something out of an old war movie. Tiles and glass littered the dusty, unpaved streets.
We passed the house where his best friend once lived - another burnt-out shell. It didn't matter. He began to recognise the few faces on the quiet street. A man appeared out of an alleyway and advised us to keep moving but: "Don't worry. Be happy!" he ended, in a startling burst of English. At his wife's family's house, a forbidding place without any street windows, we stopped while he got out and called out names. No one answered.
We drove on further, through streams and craters, until Maliq stopped again and called out a name. Slowly, cautiously from behind a steel door, a man's head appeared. He stared at Maliq incredulously than ran out in the street and hugged him till they cried. Soon three, four, five other friends appeared, embracing Maliq, then us, shaking our hands, their joy and emotion streaming out in incoherent stammers and hugs.
As they ushered us back in the car with whispered warnings to be careful, to stop for no one, to get out as soon as possible, Maliq was a man transformed. We travelled back to his in-laws' house and once again, he called out names, this time accompanied by frantic hammering on the street door.
The door opened and suddenly, Maliq had his arms around his lovely strong sons. They wept like babies as he repeated over and over: "I cannot believe this - I thought you were dead. . ." His sons just squeezed him tight, whispering "Father. . .Father".
We moved in off the street where everyone felt safer and suddenly the backyard was filled with neighbours and relatives, unable to do anything but stand and weep with their arms extended. And all the while, Besnik, the 15 year old, kept his eyes on his father, like someone who had seen a vision and feared it might dematerialise at any moment.
So what would Maliq do next? "I plan to stay here with my two sons. Then after a few days, we will phone the rest of the family and tell them to go close to Jazince [the western Macedonian border with Kosovo] where we will collect them and bring them back.
"This is our place, our home and this is where we will stay".