Leaving Belgrade – mid-March 2004

Leaving Belgrade:

We left Belgrade in a warm Spring breeze – or, rather, the strongest wind we’d had thus far. Tiring, oh so tiring. Almost pushed us backwards. But Spring is definitely here. Oh, happy life! Sunshine.

We biked 50 km. to the small town of Kovin with a group of bikers from a cycling club – organized by Dragan Stankovic, who had heard Stephane’s interview on Serbian radio. Ten men and me. One said that passing cars probably thought it was terrible that all those men let a girl carry all the bags on her bike. That was funny. I hadn’t thought about it like that. The young men were very nice. Sociable, and spoke to us in the good English that so many from Belgrade seem to have.

We rode as a group on the road leading out of Serbia’s capital. In the middle of the road, on the median strip, were pigs, feeding on the grass. One lay dead alongside the road, hit by a car.

We passed a flea market in Pancevo – the largest one in Serbia. Run mostly by Romanians and Bulgarians. More like a yard sale. Lined both sides of the street. There was an extraordinary amount of used and spare car parts. Tons of junk. But mostly relating to cars. I guess because people here repair their ancient cars themselves instead of taking them to mechanics.

Once we reached the town of Kovin, the others turned around and biked back to Belgrade. We were too tired to continue for the night to an area where we could camp, so we knocked on someone’s door and asked if we could put our tent in their yard for the night. At first, the woman refused because her husband was not home, so we continued on a couple of houses farther down the street. Turns out it was family. In fact, the whole string of houses on that block were all family – parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents. Just then, the woman’s husband – Zoran – came home from work and heard the story from his wife Branka, and he came running up to us and told us we could stay with him that night. He was a jovial, good-natured man, about 40 years old. His wife had thick, dark hair and was 27. A 2-year old son named Luka. Zoran’s two other children came over because they could speak English. Turns out they lived with their mother just two houses down. They asked us to stay at their house instead and we spent the evening in the company of Ivana, her brother Ilija, her boyfriend Naned and friend Svetlana, and her 4-year old brother Milos.

We had only planned on staying one night – because we had just left Belgrade that very day! – but ended up staying two days and three nights with Ivana and Ilija and their family. I wanted to adopt the family. Maybe take them all with us around the world until we reached home. Ivana and her mother Slavica asked us to stay longer, and as it was, we would have been happy to spend more time with them – if it hadn’t been for the fact that we had just left Belgrade! Only one day of biking, and already we were staying more than one night with a family. What a record – at this rate, it would take us ten years to go around the world!

Ivana was 19, tall and slim, with very long straight black hair. She said she loved everything that was black – hair, clothing, nailpolish, even her cat! She loved heavy metal. Her friendly 23-year old boyfriend Naned was drummer and songwriter for a heavy metal band called “Enjoy Sarma.” Ilija is Ivana’s 14-year old brother. Cute kid. Talked up a storm. Showed me his English books and lessons. Funny because he’s apparently not a stellar English student. But he wasn’t at all shy around us. Ivana was shocked. Every time we went out of the house – to his mom’s job at the butcher or to the store – he pointed out all sorts of objects and animals to me and told me their name in Serbian. It would probably be easier to learn a language if you hang around children. I liked Ilija – great kid. Milos was the 4-year old brother, not at all shy, and full of energy. Another cute kid. Gave me lots of hugs. And some kisses. Boy, are these Serbian boys nice! He told me his secrets – when Ivana asked him what it was so that she could translate, he said he couldn’t tell her. It was a secret!

So it was with some regret that we hadn’t known them longer that we waved good-bye to Ivana, Ilija, and Milos to continue eastward.