Our Life in Belgrade – February – March 2004

Our life in Belgrade:

When I came back from Paris, I found out that Ivan had been showing Stephane around town. As he played in different bands, all of his friends were musicians and played in bars and clubs in the city. He had introduced Stephane to his friends and to the nightlife of Belgrade. So every time we showed up at a bar, we knew the band members or some of the bar staff.

There was one band that we especially liked, a band called “Eclipsa.” We liked them as much for their friendliness and humor as for their music. There was Josef, like a big teddy bear who dressed in American sports jerseys, and who played the comb, imitating various instruments such as the saxophone, accordion, and trombone. There was Sargen, the humorous dark-haired fellow who was the self-proclaimed “best keyboardist in the world.” There was the drummer Woody, and the singer Dragan, who had to leave to fulfill his army service. Then there was Igor, the gypsy with long, dark hair and a beautiful voice.

We also visited with Danijela and her theater group. She is an actress in a small alternative theater specializing in nonverbal, anarchist interpretations of plays. And we visited a lot with Marina and Misha, a young married couple with the cutest – and most lively! – puppy I’ve ever seen. We heard Ivan rehearsing with his band for the upcoming season, which starts in March. And – surprise! – Miodrag came from Backa Palanka to visit us on the day that I came back from Paris.

We visited a park with Danijela and Boris in the old section of the city. It was situated on the top of the hill, overlooking the city. It was one of the few things in the city that can be considered pretty. Not surprising that many couples come there on a Friday night to sit on a park bench overlooking the river and the lights below. As we walked through the park, we noticed that booths selling popcorn popped up everywhere. In fact, popcorn booths were abundant throughout the city. Just one person inside a kiosk selling popcorn, in little bags, like in the movie theaters.

While I was in Paris, Stephane was interviewed on a radio talk show by a comic man with a gruff voice. Danijela translated from French to Serbian. After the main part of the show, the host received callers who had questions for Stephane. One listener later contacted us by e-mail and invited us to an international conference on the Danube Trail – a project currently being discussed in Serbia. He also contacted acquaintances who work for the newspapers and the television, so we were interviewed by different reporters and ended up in the newspapers and on TV. We clicked with the young crew and visited with them a few times during our stay.

People speak English fairly well in Belgrade. Much better than they do in Paris, for example. Children used to learn Russian (and some French) at school, but they now learn English. Many people who didn’t learn English at school learn it from TV. Serbian shows and movies on TV are almost exclusively in the original version with subtitles, meaning that many people learn English that way. Spanish as well – there are many South American soap operas in Serbia.

The one thing that our day revolved around was trying to stay warm. We lived in an unheated apartment, and had to feed the stove regularly with wood to keep warm. We had bought wood during our first day at Ivan’s house and stored it in the shed out back. Daily – or every other day – we would chop the wood into smaller pieces so that it would fit into the stove. Chopping wood is hard work. I didn’t have enough force to cut it properly like Stephane did. So it took me many efforts to cut it. Which was okay. It was a new experience, and so it was fun. Besides, the act of chopping wood in itself keeps you warm. The hard part was living in a cold apartment. Dragging yourself out of your warm sleeping bag in the morning, when the fire had already been dead for many hours, was difficult. Staying warm in the winter is a big part of people’s daily lives in this corner of the world, and many families worry either about where they’re going to find more wood or find enough money to buy wood.

And how’s the weather, you ask? It’s March, already, and I had been hoping that somehow Spring would arrive miraculously as soon as February left us. Dreams, dreams, dreams. The big white stuff is still falling. It’s cold, cold, cold!

And I can’t seem to shake this stupid cold that I have. I have a stupid cough that moved into my chest and my head feels like its caving in. Other than that, we’re doing fine, Stephane’s taking care of me and feeding the fire, Ivan’s mom is a retired doctor and has been feeding me hot tea and homemade soup – apparently the best medicine in the world no matter what country you come from. A friend yesterday promised me I’d feel better if only I drank yeast mixed with yoghurt. Only she had no yoghurt, so she mixed it with milk, warmed it up, and gave it to me to drink. I forced it down out of duty to the Health gods, but it didn’t work. I only spent all evening feeling like I was going to throw up. A word of advice: never, ever drink anything with yeast for as long as you live, even if it’s promised to save your life. It might actually kill you! I still feel ill just thinking about it. Then, another homemade remedy was to gargle some kind of chemical compound, hydrogen chloride or something like that, that was supposed to clear all the bad stuff from your throat that hurts. God, how I wish I had never tried that one! I spent ten minutes hunched over the toilet waiting to spew. It was only by incredible, harder than steel willpower, that I managed to keep it down. I think I was green for the rest of the night.

It really is quite an experience to be sick in another country. You learn all sorts of remedies and treatments that you would never have otherwise heard of.
It might even be a bad idea to tell anyone that you’re not feeling well – you should probably lie out of your teeth – because then everyone feels charitable and wants to give you their own grandma’s remedy. Each one seems worse than the last, and I’m not at all sure that they work. I even tried garlic mixed with hot water. Another one that wasn’t so bad was to inhale, then drink, hot, caramelized milk. The drinking part wasn’t bad, but the inhaling part was a little difficult when you already have trouble breathing.

Other than that, I’ve been having a craving for brownies lately. I crave brownies and chocolate TastyKakes every now and then when everyone else around here is thinking about cigarettes or beer. People kind of laugh when I say that brownies make you happier than beer! I’m not sure which one is worse for your waistline!

Ivan’s House:
It’s going to be difficult leaving Ivan’s house. It’s starting to feel like we’re part of the family, and not just houseguests. We talk with Ivan’s sister, Jelena, and Ivan shows us around town. Ivan’s mom, Milka, invites us for meals every day, and we eat with the family. When we don’t eat upstairs with them, she sends meals downstairs with Ivan. She was nourishing me with hot tea and soup when I was sick. It’s like having a mom away from home. Or, rather, like having grandparents. They remind me of my grandparents 15 years ago. It’s a warm, fuzzy feeling. Our adopted mother speaks French well enough, and when she can’t find her words, she never tires of looking in the dictionary. She still remembers her French from her school lessons in 1947!

This past week, Milka taught us how to make some typical Serbian dishes, and we’ve been dutifully copying down the recipes. We made sarma, which is a typical dish made of sour cabbage (sauerkraut leaves), stuffed with a ground mix of veal and pork and spiced up with paprika seasoning. Also a bean and ham soup, and an apple pastry. And what they call moussaka – a dish with ground beef and scalloped potatoes.

The food in Serbia is very good. It’s about the only thing people in this country are proud of. Mom’s cooking is like the pride of the house. We’ve been getting tons of homemade food and Serbian specialties – we are so spoiled! The one thing I’m not thrilled about in Yugoslavia is the cheese – it’s a hundred times better in France. But, then again, the cheese in France is a hundred times better than everywhere else we’ve been. Also, we’ve been eating a lot less yoghurt because it is especially expensive here, compared with the price of other food.

It’s nice here – like a real home with a real family.