A slice of Serbia in 24 hours
Dylan Strain captures the mood of the people and the country after travelling back to Serbia to teach English to young students.
'”Travel and change of place impart new vigour to the mind,” said the Roman philosopher Seneca. This thought perfectly expressed how I'd felt the need for new ideas and so travel. Here then are the first filled 24 hours, to offer a tiny slice of Serbia to you in more than a Tweet of 140 characters, but trying to be “less is more”.
From Vienna airport, a tiny 60 seater, propelled us to Belgrade. JAT is the National Serbian carrier of 80 years, carrying classy magazine articles and cold coffee. I learn about how big Premiership football is in Serbia. The teams' names look funny in Serbian. e.g. Vulverhempton.
I read about Zvonko Bogdan. I'm drawn to this artist in seemingly complete charge of his art, who ignores the big stage to be closer to the people. A national treasure, singer and actor, restoring the music of Vojvodina and Serbian folk in general to the ears of Serbs in the taverns of the 1970s, bringing "the theatre to them".
The school in Zrenjanin where I am teaching is in Vojvodina, a town boasting wonderful art nouveau buildings, that's also Bogdan's home. However, the area is vast, made up of three districts, Barnat, Backa and Srem.
The man next to me is scared to fly today, "It's a small plane," is all he’ll say. Isn't it true if a bird hits a propeller we've had it?
It seems easy to talk to Serbian people. They seem open and straight talking. No nonsense in fact. How's that for lumping a population of seven million together? We’ll talk stereotypes of England and Serbia later in class and it lands me in trouble.
The air hostess, Jovanovitj, is all woman. Sassy, experienced, sexy. She's more model/actor than air hostess. Her eyes seem tough, but she's very helpful. She's now a Facebook friend and my internet tour guide for Belgrade this Friday.
It's a warm welcome too on land. Spring arrived in Serbia for Sunday and Monday. On the way to the bus station, I meet an attractive woman in her 30s. She tells me honestly about her life over 20 minutes. She lives in Kosovo and life is hard. She escaped to Vienna for a week's holiday and she's loved and needed it. "It's so safe there, no problems." She wants out of Kosovo. It's too difficult. Yet, she has refused to seek asylum in the past, like so many of her friends, she didn't think it was right.
"How's my English?" she asks, "My grammar?" she glows when I tell her she's very good, though she hadn't any idea if she was good or not. She's never been to England.
During the conflicts of the 90s, her father taught her Italian, to give them something else to keep their minds on. He could speak five languages. She now volunteers for free for three months a year in Italy helping others as a translator. She seems loved there. The Italians don't let her pay for anything.
It's reciprocal, in fact, as we both share our love for Italy. She'll be back, not to Milan as usual, but to Sicily and Sardinia this year and if she needs to leave Kosovo without an EU passport, I suggest, perhaps only half joking, marrying an Italian man.
"No, only for love." She says. "Well, yes, you could fall in love! I'm not saying marry anyone, Jelena." Maybe she should marry me.
She gets out at the bus station and I miss my stop there. The bus driver is blunt but once more helpful, "What did you have your headphones on or something? I shouted, but it's no problem, you go here, then here, 5 minutes." "Hvala," I say, pretty much my only word of Serbian.
Three minutes later, I'm changing money, "How many dinars to the euro?" The young woman, looks at me, she thinks I'm daft, it's clearly displayed as ever anywhere, she's poker faced but (once more) kind to fools none the less.
"Yes, be careful. Watch your stuff," says Jelena. We've been destined to meet once more at the bus station, the pleasure's all mine and we make plans. She wants me to come to Kosovo to do some English workshops. "We will pay you." I find myself saying I'll do it for free, if we can sort out some travel money or something. She has met up with her brother's friend, a drummer in a band. "My dad's a drummer, my brother too, I love percussion, I plan to learn." I gush with maximum energy.
"Maybe in Kosovo then!" Jelena says, big smile on her face. She says she’ll add me on Facebook, as soon as she gets in after her six hour journey. I'm still waiting to hear from her. Has she lost the piece of paper? Or something else...
The 90-minute bus journey is typical of many in Europe or UK. Interesting leading out of the city, then farmlands. There are three or four things though, worthy of note. The bombed buildings in Belgrade. The cars are often old – Russian Ladas or cuter communist-era cars, like the cool and small Zastava 750. Lastly, all the unfinished buildings or bricked up, unused buildings.
Zastava 750
In my 4 star 'Vojvodina Hotel room, so comfy and smart for only 40 euros a night, the glasses in the bathroom inform me in writing that they have been 'disinfected.' That's a relief.
Jasmina (right) with her sister Jadranka
My main contact for the week, Jasmina, has a maturity that belies her 33 years, that maybe comes with having three daughters, "I had them at the right time," she says. She's also the director of Focus Language School, with 10 years of service. Her husband is a lorry driver, who tired of being based in Austria for work, is currently unemployed. The situation seems farcical.
In Zrenjanin, the authorities sell 'green field' sites to Chinese, German, Romanian and Italian, you name it, companies. The sites come free in return for jobs for Serbians, with the wages lower than EU companies by law are obliged to pay.
Meanwhile, Jasmina's husband, might find it difficult to get work in his own country, as the government charge tolls on the roads that are too expensive for haulage companies. Lorries are apparently bypassing Serbia, taking the long way around via other countries.
Zrenjanin is full of Chinese shops and Chinese people, importing from - yes, you guessed it.
Three weeks of Christmas in Serbia have just come to an end, the Orthodox new year ushering in on January 14th. Christmas decorations are still up on the street and indoors.
As part of the celebrations, politicians have given the town square and people a small ice rink. Generous and nothing at all to do with election year coming in April/May. They are also renovating an important old building, long needing attention, in the corner of the square. The building housing a bank.
Jasmina tells me of the great beer festival in the town in summer, highlighting a lot of musical talent outside. She mentions a beer that has a fun pronunciation. I have great pleasure ordering later. "A Love beer please." It's written as Lav and made by Carlsberg.
The Serbian language is very hard to pronounce for us English, well, for me anyway, giving my students a good laugh. But once you understand the alphabet, you say it as it's written, unlike English vocabulary, where the students here must get annoyed by its complete nutty eccentric pronunciation.
My students have a great attitude. Keen to learn and funny. They are eager to tell me about their country. "One of the natural wonders of the world, Davolja Varos" (A salt mine called Devil's Market) and the history of Serbia; Turkish rule for hundreds of years and their legacy, Turkish coffee of which I've been well plied with this week. Independence in 1878.
They seem flattered I've come from England and want to learn about the UK. I start, as it seems to come up naturally, on national stereotypes. The English? "Gentlemen." "Hooligans." There seems a contradiction there, or is that just me?
"Tea at 5 o'clock." What is this conspiracy across Europe that the English have tea at 5pm?! How uniform does Europe think we are?
Then I ask for the Serbian stereotype, "Homophobic." "Drinking." "Also football hooligans." Milos, a boy of 13 says, "Mean." Hmm, not such a positive list then”.
Idiotically, I ask, "why mean?"
The mood of the room changes. They don't really want to state the obvious. An uncomfortable silence.
I try to carry on as before, but after a couple of minutes the feeling is still there. I pause my writing on the board and freeze for a few moments. They laugh. I turn around.
"You know, I didn't want to make you feel bad before, I just said the wrong thing."
"It's ok" a few say. It is. We return as before.
In Serbia, like in many other parts of Eastern and Central Europe I've taught in, where people had little (and in some cases, nothing much has changed there if everything else has) there's a sense of togetherness, lost in Britain.
I've almost been a fly on the wall of the main reception room, noticing how warm people are to each other (and out and about ) sharing all their snacks with me, freely going out of their way to chat to me, not because they feel they should, but because they want to, all the same attitude.
Jadranka, the office administrator and one of Jasmina's sisters asks me unprompted, "Is it true, in a restaurant you and your friends pay erm.. pola, pola?" Separately, half and half, she means. She's laughing at this, as though we are all mad. "Yes, pretty much." I say.
2 February 2012
