Drita Ismaili was damp, cold and exhausted from spending four nights in a muddy valley with tens of thousands of other refugees after being driven by Serb forces from her home in Pristina. When asked whether she thought she would return some day, Ismaila's eyes widened and she spoke with a voice full of certainty: "I will be on the first bus back to Kosovo."
"It's my land and I would not trade it for any place else - not even for America," said Ismaili (25) with a weary smile.
Over the last 12 days, Serbs have exiled ethnic Albanians by the hundreds of thousands from Kosovo. Despite the brutality and hardships, the refugees - almost without exception - have retained a fervent determination to go home, and an optimism that NATO will make it happen. Ismaili and her sister were ravenously eating bread and sardines while sitting on a curb and waiting with the rest of their family for a lift to a temporary shelter.
"I know our house is burned down. But that does not matter. It is still our land. I do believe that NATO will make it possible for us to go back," said who wore only a light jacket against the cold wet weather. "As long as I have life in me I will strive to get back to Kosovo," added Hamid Ismaili (60), her father, a retired factory worker.
Like dozens of other refugees Ismaili expects NATO to seize Kosovo from President Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia, and ensure the safe return of Kosovo's ethnic Albanians.
Another reason for hope is that before the mass deportations, less than 10 per cent of Kosovo's population was Serb, so returning home does not necessarily mean that the ethnic Albanians would have to live in the midst of their enemies.
This has been a major deterrent for Muslims who were expelled from their homes in the Bosnian war. "This is not like Bosnian Muslims leaving Serb-controlled areas," said Mr Kris Janowski, spokesman for UN High Commissioner for Refugees. "It's understandable that these refugees see returning to their homes as just a matter of time much more than the Bosnian Muslims did."
Unlike in Bosnia, where Serbs repopulated areas where Muslims were driven out, Serbs are unlikely to be willing to live in Kosovo. "That's why these expulsions are so useless. There's no way they will put Serbs in Kosovo," Mr Janowski said. "They would have to drag them with a team of oxen. They've been leaving Kosovo in droves in recent years."