CERNICA - For eight-year-old Pavaresimi Limani there's a very personal side to Kosovo's imminent declaration of independence.
His first name means "independence" in his mother tongue, and when press photographers dropped by his family's run-down home Saturday he was busy blowing up coloured balloons for local independence celebrations.
"When his father when to work this morning, he asked him to buy him a gift," his mother Ardiana Limani told AFP in this village about 45 kilometers (30 miles) from Kosovo's capital Pristina.
She said she decided to name her boy Independence when the ethnic Albanian separatist Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) fought Belgrade-backed security forces during the breakaway Serbian province's 1998-1999 conflict.
"Our decision represented hope that Kosovo would be independent some day," she said.
"His father told him that there can not be a better gift than the independence of Kosovo tomorrow."
But Pavaresimi appeared less certain about his moniker.
"I like my name, but sometimes it bothers me because everybody keep calling Pavaresi, Pavaresi -- and I don't always know if they're calling me or if they mean Kosovo's political status," he said.
"I hope they'll quit it when Kosovo becomes independent."
lh/rom/eb
02/16/2008 20:05 GMT