Olja is a Serb journalist in her early 30s. She is small and lightly built, wears dark glasses and carries a trademark see-through handbag, holding her notepad and recording equipment.
Olja and her husband Dragan have lived in and around Mitrovica all their lives, and during the six months that I've known her she has given me invaluable help in covering the stories of this region.
This story began at 0400. Nine-hundred British, Danish and French troops were taking over an industrial complex half a mile away in Zvecan.
The reason, according to the UN, was that a lead-smelting plant was polluting the environment.
Privately, however, UN officials admitted that their broader aim was to establish the UN's control in the region.
The streets and shops in Zvecan look bare in comparison to the rest of Kosovo. In the town centre there are old Yugoslav cars parked by the roadside, with people selling second-hand goods, or spare parts for cars.
Serbs defy UN
There are far fewer cars than in the south, and fewer people, too. It is almost as if you have entered another country.
What is more, the UN has seemed virtually powerless.
Northern Mitrovica has been effectively under the control of a group of men numbering 100 or so, called the Bridgewatchers.
Dressed more often than not in shell-suits and armed with walkie-talkie radios, these men watch everyone moving in and out of the town. They have been blamed for much of the violence here in the past seven months.
The Serbs living in the north of Kosovo have seen relatively little of the UN in the province. The arrival of almost 1,000 troops, just around the corner from their home, presented a rude awakening for many people in Zvecan, including Olja.
It was still dark when we headed downhill towards the factory. It is a vast, dark stretch of offices, warehouses and chimneys. At the southernmost end black and grey smoke pours out of the lead smelter. The fumes simply gush out of the roof.
Leaflets
When we arrived outside the main entrance to the site about a dozen factory workers were waiting to start their shift. Leaflets were being handed out by British troops, explaining that the plant was being taken over to be refurbished.
Bizarrely, tea and cakes were being prepared to be handed out to people as they arrived at the gates.
Olja asked one of the soldiers for a leaflet which explained why the factory was being taken over. But he did not have one written in Serbo-Croat.
I could hear the frustration building in her voice. Everyone, she said, agreed the factory was a source of pollution, but that did not mean the UN had to march in and take it over.
Stone-throwing
By 0800 the crowd had grown to about 500, and the mood had turned sour.
Stones were being thrown at a line of French gendarmes blocking the main entrance.
As I talked on the mobile phone to my editor in London, a women came up to me shouting. She tried to grab the bag off my arm. She then snatched my notebook and threw it down the road. This focused the crowd's attention on me.
A man came up and punched me on the nose. I was surprised, more than anything. A UN police car which was behind me was then attacked by the crowd.
I could see people trying to haul out the driver, but he managed to reverse away.
Two men tried to haul me down to the ground and hit me. British soldiers standing just a few metres away started shouting, and before I knew it I had been pulled away by them and hidden behind a row of Land Rovers. From there I slipped down an embankment and watched the situation deteriorate further.
The troops came under a shower of rocks and stones and responded by firing plastic bullets and baton-charging the crowd.
Frustration
I felt frustrated and embarrassed. Frustrated, because I could no longer cover the story properly, and embarrassed that I had become the focus of attention.
I met up with Olja six hours later. She had been caught on the other side of the crowd. We walked back towards her home past the factory gates.
Apart from a small group of women waiting on one side of the road, the place was empty. The only evidence of what had happened earlier were rocks and stones scattered along the road.
I looked at Olja. Behind her dark glasses I could see her eyes were full of tears. "I'm angry," she said.
We got home and her husband was there to greet us. He tried to apologise for what had happened to me. "Today has been a bad day," he said.