I spent the weekend in Nis and Babusnica in southern Serbia with my friend, D. She’s my first friend here who doesn’t speak English. I was really nervous about the weekend – would I be able to communicate at all? It was lovely. Some highlights:
We spent Friday night watching TV – English language programs with Serbian subtitles. She read. I listened.
Nis put on a show for us Saturday morning. It was sunny and warm as she took me on an idiosyncratic tour of the city: the old fort, a shopping mall, a floating café/bar for cappuccinos. My guidebook says there is a tower with skulls imbedded in it. We never saw it.
On Saturday afternoon we drove to Babusnica, D’s home town –a village of 5,000 in the mountains. Her friend drove us. We stopped often along the route so D’s boyfriend could test out his new digital camera.
The hospitality was overwhelming. D’s mom made us a huge spread: cooked vegetables, ajvar, two kinds of cheese, bread, and pickles. She sat there watching us eat. Every time I started to slow my pace, she asked me if I liked the food. When I said I did, she put more on my plate. I was so full. We spent the evening going from one of D’s friend’s house to another. I must have had 7 cups of coffee. I feel bad refusing anything offered to me.
On Saturday night, we went out to a café/bar for “rock night.” I was amused to watch D spend a half hour on makeup only to sit in a very underlit place where no one could appreciate her handiwork. When I arrived, the bartender/DJ started playing grunge in my honor Soundgarden is from Seattle, right? Very nice, especially since Evanescense was on when we walked in.
D was not so subtly trying to set me up with one of her friends. It didn’t happen. Big language barriers & living six hours apart do not make for a romance in my book. He and I couldn’t communicate well at all, although I did manage to explain to him that I grew up thinking of Serbia as the bad guy in the region, and that most Americans, when they have heard of Serbia at all, have that impression. I don't think he was super excited to hear that.
And that’s my weekend.
1 Comments:
At 1:38 AM,
Anonymous said…
"I grew up thinking of Serbia as the bad guy in the region, and that most Americans, when they have heard of Serbia at all, have that impression..."
American press was and is very biased as it is a tool for American foreign policy.
They had the military shadowing CNN during the Kosovo war, and even many soldiers who served in the Balkans came to realize the media was very deceptive and biased.
CNN even presented the funeral of Bosnian Serb children as being of Muslim children. The footage was first shown on a French TV station, though observant people noticed the crosses and that the funeral was conducted by a Serbian Orthodox priest.
The same footage, with the priest clipped out, was shown by CNN and claimed it was Bosnian Muslim children.
That is truly evil that they'd use dead Serb children against the Serbs and to keep falsely inflating the impression of Muslim victimhood.
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