the things I shall miss

• kisses as greetings
• yoghurt as a bitter drink with meals
• a coffee-drinking rate that makes one cup last for hours
• walking, walking everywhere
• being called Charlotta
• speaking Serbian
• taking buses to new countries every chance I get
• stopping by Orthodox churches, which are warm in winter, cool in summer, and always graced with incense
• castles, cobblestone, fountains
• the opinion that eating outside is much nicer than eating inside
• watching the parade of beautiful shoes as people walk by
• Gypsy brass-bands that play through the street when a neighbour gets married
• old men in curled up peasant shoes and pleated folk caps looking lost on the streets of Belgrade
• the tall haystacks that dot the countryside and look like a different era
• the generosity of strangers
• the simplicity of meals, houses, churches
• being on a linguistic/cultural learning curve
• the amazing things Serbs can do with red peppers, pastry, cabbage and white cheese
• the smell of roasting nuts on the sidewalk in winter
• the fairs and festivals that light up Belgrade for any available reason: celebrations of honey, flower garlands, books, tennis victories, rollerblading
• green markets with their antique scales, manned by stout babushkas
• listening to people’s stories, which are often about great suffering, but it feels like a privilege to listen
• the people, the children I came to know.

the things I don't expect to miss

Comings and Goings

I’ve just returned from a week in  Egypt. At a pretty retreat centre on Alexandria’s Mediterranean coast I listened to the stories and experiences of my coworkers in the rest of Europe and the Middle East. What I do at the kindergarten seems very small compared to the likes of peace-workers in Palestine, but even I was given my ten minutes of sharing, and it felt very good to be part of this bigger picture of amazing people. We sang a-capella hymns, which I’m not particularly used to, but man can Mennonites harmonize. The hymns, like the whole retreat, left me moved and inspired.

Outside of this bubble, the rest of Egypt seems to be an intense, exhausting, and fascinating country. It wore me out, but I wasn’t ready to leave it when I did. I think I’m turning into a bad tourist – it’s unsatisfying to leave a country before I feel like I love and understand it. But two days in Cairo was hardly enough for that…just enough for some colourful, frenzied marketplaces, pyramids, minarets, temples, and plenty of stares given and received.   

 And now Belgrade feels fresh, free, and un-foreign compared to that dusty chaos. I must confess that I counted up the weeks til I leave this place and there were nine. My addiction to change is showing its head and I’m starting to feel antsy. The challenge is to be as present as I can be in the place I am – not counting the days but making them count (cheesy but so wise).  

The Weather, etc.

Spring here is beautiful beyond expectation. The days are already hot and long, trees have bloomed and greened, and all this has the power to make me very happy. A chicken pox epidemic at the kindergarten has cut our numbers in half, so lately we have been a small group, spending our days outside in the sandbox and going home dusty every day.

Most of my working day is now spent chasing a new little boy named Aleksa. Because of birth defects and subsequent operations, Aleksa has half the physical and psychological functioning of other kids his age. Four years old, he can say only a handful of words. Usually the only option for such children in Serbia is to go into institution-type places for handicapped kids. Our kindergarten is one of the only places that sticks sick kids in with the healthy. This integration idea is not without its difficulties. Aleksa runs around the place headfirst, stick-thin legs pumping madly behind him, wet tongue hanging out the side of his mouth, and a grin of complete satisfaction with life spread across his face. He leaves phones off the hook, empties milk jugs on the floor, wets his pants every 15 minutes and tosses puzzles across the room. We can’t say anything when we see that smile, though. The only word that comes to mind is precious.

The very routine working life I’ve been living here is being broken up lately by exciting travel: a church youth conference in northern Serbia, an Easter weekend trip to visit some old friends in Albania, and an upcoming May-day break to be spent on Montenegro (the world’s newest country) beaches, followed by an MCC retreat in Egypt, of all places! After all that tomfoolery there will only be two months left for me in Serbia. There were times during this year when time trudged along, but now it's beginning to race, and I’m beginning to dread the loss I face in leaving.   

Unsettled Situations

Graffiti keeps reminding me that Kosovo belongs to Serbia. It is looking more and more, however, like that assertion is going to go no further than vandalized walls and inert political promises. “We will never compromise on Kosovo,” the president may say, but what is this little unloved Balkan state to do when the world powers have decided against it? Yet Serbia remains defiant, in attitude if not in action. Defiance is one of the most popular words in the Serbian language.

I surprise myself by saying that I empathize with the Serb perspective on Kosovo. Something I have learnt from living here is that conflicts never consist of neat camps of evil perpetrators and innocent victims. Media likes to portray it that way, and when it does a whole lot of ordinary people are vilified (and, often, terrorists empowered). Understanding that, I can empathize with the legitimate emotional attachment that Serbs have to the land, the history, and the national identity that is for them centered on Kosovo. I would fear for the Albanians in a Serbian Kosovo, but I can also recognize the heavy loss Serbs face in an independent Kosovo.

I went to a town called Mostar in Bosnia, where there stood a bridge that was built by the Ottomans and survived centuries of war. The town is made up of Muslim Bosnians and Catholic Croats, and when the two groups began to kill each other in the early 90s, the bridge was bombed clean away. When the fighting ended, the town decided to rebuild their bridge in its original style. They brought out the ancient building plans and called in artisans from Turkey. The bridge is beautiful. It’s about the only thing in the town that isn’t pockmarked with bullet holes. But the city it connects is still divided. On one side of the river live the Bosnians, on the other side the Croats, and both are still fiercely nationalistic. I see the bridge in Mostar as I see all the tidy borders and diplomacy and daily calm in this region: like little scabs trying to cover over a wound that is still deep and bloody underneath.

sweetness

The kids asked me how one gets to America. Bus? Train? No, I told them, one has to go by plane because of the interlaying sea.

Yesterday, when I turned twenty-two, Filip presented me with a paper airplane. “Now you can go home and see your mom and dad,” he said. I hugged him very tight. It’s a deep level of empathy from a five year old, and I think it is my new favourite birthday present.  

(Filip as Joseph in our Christmas play).