Sweet Home Nis Serbia

I hitched a ride from the Serbian-Bulgarian border.  I planned to be in Nis, Serbia before the sunset, but it's already nightfall and I'm in a small town called Pirot, still 75 kilometers from Nis.

I'm dining on a traditional 'gurmanska pljeskavica' (Serbian cheeseburger) and a not-so-traditional Coca-Cola.  The old man who picked me up, Dusan, just paid for my meal with one of the fattest rolls of Serbian Dinars I have ever seen.  I estimate its worth at at least 100 American dollars.  He's waving the money around to let the world to know he has just paid for the Amerikan's dinner.  I remember I'm not in Latin America where such an act might get you robbed.

"Ciefing" in Mostar, Bosnia

Southern Serbia (and the Balkans in general) operates on a different wavelength from the rest of the world.  Only in Nis do I see people spend a 12 hour day drinking the same cup of coffee while talking about all the things they have to do, need to do, should do, could do...without ever actually doing them.  In neighboring Bosnia this has a name, 'cief,' which loosely translates as 'doing nothing and loving it.'  This sounds more like the laid-back 'mañana' attitude of Latin American countries such as my current home of Costa Rica.  However the Balkans has managed to create an equally laid-back, but more sophisticated culture, around something which is not supposed to relax you - a cup of coffee.

I blame the evil tourism industry.  Since I live in Costa Rica, I use it as the obvious example.  Costa Rica has marketed and sold the expression 'Pura Vida' as THE way of encompassing the people's friendly, relaxed attitude towards life.  This place is sold as a peaceful, military-free country with gorgeous beaches and perfect sunny weather where nothing goes wrong.  They don't mention the criminals who prey on tourists, the tourists who prey on prostitutes, the trash and piss-smells in the streets and the fact that it rains 11 months out of the year.  

While it is true that Costa Ricans are happy and friendly, that's only true if you talk about happy, touristy things.  If you take the conversation beyond the weather, they turn out to be as conservative, deeply religious and closed-minded as your average American Southern Baptist Republican.  Despite me tolerating criticism daily about 'gringos' and capitalist USA, if I criticize Costa Rica I'm usually told to, "go back to your own country if you don't like it. (see Youtube comments.) Sound familiar?  Yeehaw!

The Balkan countries of Albania, Montenegro, Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia and Serbia, (and Kosovo depending on who you talk too) have stunning mountains and beaches, nice weather and friendly people who will often invite you into their homes like family.  Unfortunately tourists still see this region as a war-torn, poverty-stricken place full of violent, genocidal war criminals.   

Horrible, war-torn former Yugoslavia

When my nice Serbian friends travel through Europe, they hear supposedly intelligent people call them 'war-criminals' and 'racists' because of the actions of a few powerful people with evil ideas.  Oh well...such is history.  Germans still have to apologize when they get 'too patriotic' at international football games because some politically sensitive, whiny pricks start throwing out the word 'Nazi.'  I don't care.  I was cheering for Deutschland at the Eurocup 2012. 

But I digress...

I watched the elderly Dusan wandering around the gas station parking lot and wonder how he could be a war criminal.  He was beyond laid-back, and the fact that he couldn't speak English didn't stop him from sharing his whole life with me.  We had already stopped by his house to move furniture, finished a Serbian dinner on his tab and had coffee at a local cafe that was owned by his son who had lived in Chicago for some years.  His son was 'Americanized' and had explained to his father that although I appreciated the hospitality, it was 8 o'clock at night and I had somewhere else to go.  

Dusan was now soliciting rides for me from truck drivers in the gas station.  His son said I was in a hurry; but Dusan couldn't be hurried.  He strolled from truck to truck seemingly without purpose, and yet somehow managed to find a ride for me within 10 minutes.  He passed me his number and told me to call him when I arrived in Nis...and that I always had a home with his family if I was ever in Pirot.  The same crushing, sad feeling I had had with Maria in the Ukraine - knowing I would never see someone again - came over me.

An hour later I was at the riverside amphitheater in Nis, singing Gogol Bordello, drinking heavily and partying with my friends as if we had never missed the past year together.

  



  

   
  

How To Entertain The Bulgaria-Serbia Border Police

Where the hell am I?

The bus left me on a lonely dirt road that supposedly went to the Serbian border.  The road drifted away and disappeared around a distant corner.  All I could see were haystacks, cows and miles of rolling hills.

Hills.  I wasn't ready for hills.  After 3 hours of sleep, a wild night with a Brazilian backpacker girl, a city tour of Sofia and several hours lost in the Bulgarian countryside I was ready to collapse.  The Red Bulls had worn off much faster than expected and my guitar had suddenly grown a lot heavier when I stepped off the bus.

I shook myself out of my exhausted haze and started walking down the snaking road towards the corner.  The corner soon gave way to a large descending plain of rolling hills on my right and a farm that meandered off into the horizon on my left.  In the distance I saw a farmer with a scythe hacking at hay as several cows lulled around him.  Chirping birds and evening crickets gave the surroundings a tranquil, pastoral feel that I was completely unable to enjoy since I had no idea where I would sleep that night.  I had the vague feeling of a trespasser as the dirt road slowly brought me in the farmer's direction.

Maybe he would offer a wayward traveler a place to stay?  Sunset was evident now and long shadows played over hills which refused to show a large sign or line that said in big letters, "SERBIA."  This was not the kind of road I expected to find any hitchhiking cars on...maybe tractors or donkeys.

Among the tranquil bird and cricket chirps I detected sounds of civilization: cars!!  The large hill descended to a highway - the same highway I had lost when I got on the bus.  The Serbian border would be there somewhere. 

The farmer became a distant concern of mine as I scanned the highway for signs of a border crossing.  I saw it; cars were forming lines in front of highway border checkpoints and two large gas stations.  I breathed a sigh of relief and walked through the trees that lined the road.  Although my route was not the obvious border choice, clearly others had taken it since there was a worn path that lead down the hill to the gas station.

And several border police. Damn. 

Well...even though I magically appeared out of the middle of nowhere like an illegal immigrant, I wasn't doing anything wrong, was I?  The hill was clear and I felt completely exposed as I walked towards the gas station.  Once I walked through the trees, the police saw me instantly and pointed as I descended the hill.

They stared me down as I advanced on them with my guitar case and black backpack.  There was nothing I could do so I continued walking casually as if it was perfectly normal to be wandering around alone on a international border at nightfall.  They stopped me.  They had guns.

They didn't speak English, but "passport?" is an international word.  I stood there tensely as they flipped through my blue passport.  "Amerikan??" I nodded, and fortunately they liked Americans.  Smiles broke across their faces as they pointed at my guitar.

Did I mention "guitar" is another international word?  I celebrated my first Bulgarian-Serbian border crossing by performing "Hotel California" for a quartet of armed border police.