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Arriving in Belgrade, I walked everywhere; the Walking District, the Bohemian District, etc. There were still some signs from the late 90's NATO bombing.
Picture: A Russian Orthodox church inside which are stored many artifacts and icons that were scurried away during the Russian Revolution of 1917.
Belgrade seemed to me a toned-down, Slavic, post-communist version of Vienna--rich with visible layers of Serbian history from Ottoman rule to Tito's Yugoslavia, to Serbia by itself.
Picture: Statue of Prince Mihailo in front of the National Museum. Prince Mihailo, who has been asserted to be the most enlightened 19th Century ruler of Serbia, advocated the idea of a untied Balkan federation against the Ottoman Empire
The overnight train ride from Bar to Novi Sad on New Years Eve was remarkable. My idea was that because I was travelling alone and with not much money, there was no need to celebrate New Years and could save on a hotel night by sleeping on the train.
I did save money by not staying at a hotel and did not celebrate for New Years, but nor did I sleep. The Serbian father and son in my compartment were very nice and my couple of words remembered from Russian combined with the son's couple of English words made for a few smiles. And they shared a few sweets with me.
However, the compartment was bitterly cold because the heater did not work, and the father and son team smoked one cigarette after another making it impossible to sleep. It turns out that shivering and breathing swathes of smoke over a 14-hour train ride are not conducive to snoozing.
The train was due to arrive in Novi Sad before 5AM. I hoped that either the train would be late or that when I arrived there would be some sort of unlikely concert still happening in the main city square. The train arrived about 8AM at a station in a city in which I had no orientation.
I asked a Serbian guy on the train how to find the city center, and he kindly shared his taxi with me and pointed me to the center. Although sleepless, I was still full of energy to see the city.
Picture: Statue of Svetozar Miletic, a 19th Century leader who fought for the rights of Serbs in Austria Hungary
Novi Sad is the second largest city in Serbia, about 90 minutes by car north of Belgrade. I walked for about two hours around the center--it was beautiful and it was frigid. My nose was running and tissues frozen into ice.
Crews were cleaning up the aftermath of New Years Eve and it looked like it had been quite an event. There were a McDonalds and a few coffee shops open. The city was otherwise sleeping.
I hopped on the next bus to Belgrade.
In Bar, Montenegro I purchased an overnight train ticket to Novi Sad, Serbia, the second city of Serbia. I had a few hours to wander in Bar and noticed that people were extremely tall there. I saw at least 10 women taller than I am. At my height of six feet and two inches (188 cm), that is a tall order.
I noticed also that whenever I ordered a slice of pizza in Montenegro, they asked if I would like ketchup or mayonnaise as its condiment. And except for the Albanian populated areas of Montenegro, there was an appalling lack of cafes!Picture: The central square of Bar, Montenegro, stage set for the New Year's Eve celebration
There was a busy fast food stand in the square serving pizza. The cooks and servers were all Albanian and Roma folks. I ordered a slice of pizza and munched off it, but it had ketchup as a topping. Halfway through the slice, I put the remains in a bin and searched for a better slice at another place.
After several days of unbridled—and to be exact—unbridled celebrating around Christmas in Rubik, I convinced myself to travel away from Albania. Unfortunately, my friends who were meant to travel with me were sick, so I travelled solo. I left Rubik early in the morning on the 29th and showed up in Shkoder, Albania, looking for the minibus that goes to Montenegro.A nice woman at a travel agency told me that there are no minibuses to Montenegro, but I asked “How can I go then?” She told me that there is a driver in the four-story red building in the square, sitting at the café, who has a white car with license plates that begin with UL (for Ulqinj, Montenegro).
I didn’t really believe her, but I found the café and asked the waiter how I could find a ride to Montenegro. He answered that the guy with the mustache a few tables over was the driver.I found the man with the mustache and he invited me to sit with him and another passenger for coffee. He was especially friendly and his name was Hamid, an Albanian person from Montenegro. I waited just a bit to see if I liked him before I started talking in Albanian language with him.
He drove me to Ulqinj, Montenegro, as far as the bus station. Hamid helped me buy a ticket to Kotor, the next stop on my tour. While we were in line at the ticket counter, he argued with the two peeps behind us, asking them why they were yelling so much.Picture: A view of Kotor, Monenegro
Riding on the bus from Ulqinj to Bar, I noticed we were travelling through the city of Bar, but didn’t know where to exit. So, I walked toward the front of the bus and tried to discuss my exit with the conductor. The conductor was alternately talking in Serbian and Albanian when I looked at the girl in front of him. I asked her, “Do you speak English?”She brightened, and said “Yes!” Before the bus turned a corner we exited together with some small talk. This Serbian woman was absolutely shining, smiling, beautiful and friendly; smitten to speak English and explained to me the directions to the bus/train station. Picture: Church of Saint Alia in Kotor, Montenegro
At the bus station in Bar I asked the ticket lady, do you speak English?
"No", she answered.
"Albanian?" I asked.
She began to write instructions on how to travel to Albania. Protesting, I spoke rudimentary words until she asked me, “Do you know Albanian?”
I responded, “Yes”.
“Then, why don’t you talk!!?” She said, with exasperation.After that chat, I purchased the bus ticket to Kotor, Montenegro.
Picture: A giant old tree inside the castle walls of Kotor
According to the CIA World Factbook, Montenegro is composed of the following ethnic groups:
Montenegrin 43%, Serbian 32%, Bosniak 8%, Albanian 5%When Albania was created in 1913, about half of the population of Albanians still existed in countries outside of the borders of Albania. The Great Powers at the time (Britain, Germany, Russia, Austria-Hungary, France and Italy) decided the boundaries considering geopolitical issues. After World War I at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, Woodrow Wilson rejected a plan by European powers to divide Albania among its neighbors. Wilson is thus a hero in Albania.
Still, significant populations of Albanians--people who speak the language and are culturally Albanian live in Montenegro, Kosovo, Serbia and Macedonia.
I went to the city council meeting this morning, then a lunch afterward with the council members.At the end of the lunch, people exploded into an argument--among all of the people at the table--over who stole votes from whom in the last election. Fortunately, my entrance back to the lunch table from the bathroom, putting on my jacket stimulated everybody to shut up and leave the bar. I had tried a few times during the argument to stop the yelling, but curiously, my exit from the bar spurred them to exit.One councillor, while we were leaving, told me that Pal stole the votes, and began to explain how he did it. I told him "I don't want to know".Finally, the Vaushkieze Bridge project has been finished; funded by the Dutch Embassy from a project developed by my office at the municipality.Before and after pics:
At a recent wedding, my American buddy did "the worm" dance toward the end of the night, and took out three people. He told me later that they fell independently of his dance. The Rubik mayor pushed me into a dance circle to dance with our (unmarried) school director. Rumors! I happened to be sitting next to another (unmarried) Albanian girl during the wedding. Rumors? Apparently most people thought she was American, so less scandalous.
After I came back to Albania from America in April, I presented chocolates to the president of the Rubik City Council for his wife and three sons. "Fine", he said to me, but "I'm divorced with my wife" (Albanian joke, not true).
I said, "that's great, I like your wife, I'll marry her!" He went crazy, and everybody repeats that joke now.
14-August- A tremble of my apartment building, a small earthquake which was centered in Kurbnesh.
Photo: Stupefied, surprised at a birthday cake coming
A few Albanian jokes that I've heard recently:
-What does an ass do in the sun? Make shade.
-What kind of rocks are in the river? Wet rocks.
-What do Chinese people do when it's raining? They let it rain.
My buddy Dan said to the new American Peace Corps volunteers: "You're gonna have to pretend to laugh better!"
-I saw my first crossdresser in Tirana around the 4th of July, while walking. This phenomenon is simply not seen in this conservative culture.
Four people have told me that I am becoming fatter, and it is true. It's not rude to call people fat. In fact, most anything that we consider rude in American culture is not so here.
-Electricity is off from noon until 4pm each day, crimping work, and the refrigerator.
You should read this article about an obscure custom:
Albanian Custom Fades: Woman as Family Man
Plenty of people have been calling me a liar lately, but if you consider that I've been adapting to local norms, that is a ridiculous accusation ;-)
My counterpart, Sander took me to the regional hospital in Lezhe. I accompanied him because I was curious about how things work at the hospital. His reason for my presence was that it would influence the doctor away from accepting the (usual) bribe for service. In the end, Sander's ear problem was cured, and the bribe didn't have to be paid "because the American is here".
There is universal health care provided from the government, but since doctors and nurses are paid so little, they take bribes for services, surgery and whatever. Medicines are often counterfeit or expired. Still, the life expectancy is 77.8 years, while in the USA it's 78.1.
Statistics are here:
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2102rank.html
In the parking lot at the hospital, a man in uniform came to Sander's car, asking for the parking fee. Sander said, "Go away" and drove off. The ticket tout crumpled the ticket and threw it on the pavement. Sander leaned to me and said, "he would have just put the money in his pocket".
We were awarded a grant to purchase dumpsters, but the money will be enough to install them in only about half of the city.
People have been asking me, "You mean to say that there are no dumpsters in Rubik??" This is a clean and green city compared with others, but we have no dumpsters. Only some old concrete cylinders which are manually shoveled out a few times a week. Many of those concrete cylinders are damaged and the trash tends to be strewn around. Chickens, dogs, cats, pigs and even sheep enjoy the trailings.
For this project we first have to plan for where to install the dumpsters, according to such criteria as accessible places for the collection vehicle and proximity to apartment buildings and businesses. The old concrete containers have to be removed so that they are no longer used.
Next, the city must build platforms for installation of the dumpsters. After we buy the dumpsters we must negotiate a contract to rent a collection vehicle from the neighboring city of Rrëshen to empty them. Garbage collection trucks are extremely expensive, and Rubik does not own one yet.
Photo: A Gjushje (grandmother) in traditional garb, walking with a friend. A stray cat and concrete bin, with the abandoned copper factory in the background.
Currently--and unfortunately--garbage is deposited on the riverside for its final resting place. However, within a couple of months a modern landfill will be finished where the city's waste can be deposited properly. I explain these things to show some steps in implementing this project--there is so much more that I would like to write!
This summer another project begins for developing a strategic plan for improving the environment of the municipality. I never thought I would be so involved in environmental issues (I'm more of a computercrat), but this has been satisfying work.
At a lunch last week I began to put pepper on my salad, but our Finance Director across the table reached across to stop my hand, saying "DON'T!!" Albanians may not like pepper on their salad, but I do.
At another lunch I was told that I should not pour vinegar because it did not have lettuce in it. These were curious culinary objections.
Another time with two American girls, we were sitting outside when a strange woman approached our table. The stranger peered at the items on the table while we looked at her. Then she reached down and took a piece of bread!
My friends and I became paralyzed, not understanding what was happening. The woman next reached down and took a piece of meat from Leslie's bowl! The waitress told her to go away, and we just began laughing at the absurdity of the event.
Photo: Berat, the "City of 1 million windows", or 10,000. A really nice city, in any case.
In Berat we were desperate to find ice cream but finally found a vendor. It was late at night, and I noticed "Red Bull"-flavored ice cream. I asked the server, is that REALLY Red Bull flavor??
The customer next to me politely explained that it was indeed ice cream. Replying, "no shit", I pursued the question about its flavor. Again, the person next to me insisted that it was ice cream. "No shit", again, but it turns out that it was Red Bull ice cream, my small taste with a little plastic spoon proved it.
This was for dessert, following a typical dinner during which fresh olive oil flew everywhere.
