Belgrade once again! I arrived here last night on my way back to Berlin, coming from the Rainbow Gathering in the very south of Bulgaria. I’m staying two days at the People’s Global Action (PGA) conference. Here is a short summary of my journey:
2004-07-16
The party the night before was quite interesting. The independent party scene in Albania is just building up, so I talked to the first Drum and Bass DJ in the country and other music pioneers. On my last day in Tirana I visited the mosque at the main square. Small and pretty. I found a piece of wrapped chocolate on the nice carpets upstairs, holy chocolate – yum. I walked to the farmers market to get some food for the bus journey. Albanians say “jo” and nod if they mean “no”. “Yes” is shaking your head in a strange way and saying “po”. So buying some cheese becomes a funny adventure and needs as much concentration as a drinking game. In the remote corners of the market local fruits and vegetables are really cheap and you can get some free stuff that is rotten a bit. I went back to the National Gallery to pick up my stuff and say goodbye to some people. My bus left just before sunset and the way out of the city along slow and ruinous highways was tinted in warm colors. The empty bus went to the coastal town of Duerres first where it got filled with people. After some good roads the bus went on a busy small rocky path through the mountains. One time I woke up from my head banging against the window again and I could see some roadworks in the dark some 20 metres below me just next to the bus. Of course there was no barriers at all..
2004-07-17
I arrived to Tetovo in Macedonia near the border to Kosovo just after sunrise. The patrolling tanks with big machine guns on the empty roads added to the strange feeling about this unknown country. Ah, militant rebels have better things to do at this time of the morning.. I walked to the exit of town where after a few minutes a Macedonian man in a car from Berlin stopped and took me to Skopje. He was on his way back to Berlin where he owns a small pizza place. I walked a couple of kilometres into the centre of Skopje to the bus station. The ticket offices were on strike so it was quite hard to find out about the different busses going to Bulgaria. There was only busses in the afternoon. A Red Cross doctor from the south of Macedonia helped me to find a shared car to her hometown. People that go long distances with their car always go to the bus station first to collect people going the same direction. Usually you pay a price similar to the bus fare. After two hours through wine and tabacco fields I arrived to Strumica in the south-east of Macedonia. For a little more money the driver took me to the border. Another friendly passenger accompanied me on my way over the border and gave me some advice. I was about to leave all the advertising taxi drivers behind and hitch to the next town when I met two Japanese students speaking fluent Bulgarian. I took a photo of them doing strange poses indication “south-west Bulgaria”. They plan to visit all 4 corners of the country.. They had rented a taxi and we visited a small castle nearby and went on to Petric. They took a bus to their hostel and I got a lift by a truck driver and two women with their little daughters to Melnik some kilometres east. A man that reminded me of my father a bit took me to a small road that I walked along quite a while. It got a bit hilly but I passed through beautifully old and quiet villages and fields with fruit trees (yummy) and wine, and I had calming views over the Toscana like countryside. “Das muss ein schlechter Mueller sein, dem niemals fiel das Wandern ein, das Waahaandern!” After an hour the first car passed by and the two old men coming from their work in the fields brought me to the next village. Friendly villagers pointed me in the right direction and gave me vegetables and water. A bus stopped and took me a few kilometres further. At a stop patrolling border police checked my passport. I watched the life at the central square of the village that I arrived to. I tried to hitch on, but decided after a while to end the day, have a nice, cold beer in the bar across the road and find somewhere to sleep. But someone that stopped at the restaurant took me 2 hours further through the high uninhabited mountains to Goce Delchev on the other side. The driver did a delivery at a petrol station and brought me to the end of town. I put up my tent in a field near the road. That was a very long day.
2004-07-18
I woke up by goats and cows being herded around and something big sniffing at my tent. A big old dump truck driver with his little son stopped right away and took me a few kilometres further. I watched the heavy horse and carts traffic in the village for a while and the lazybones of the village talked to me a bit. A man with his small son took me an hour further trough the mountains and picked up two more hitchhikers coming from the Rainbow. We got off in Dospat and crossed a big dam. They bought me a bottle of water and went home to Plovdiv and I went on towards the Rainbow, now only a few kilometres away! A man in his old Lada looking like some kind of farmer’s association official took me a village further. Here once again many Bulgarians in shiny western cars drove by without even noticing me. With only a few acceptions it’s always the simple country side people who stop. A big truck carrying many of the local “Devin” water bottles, mastering every bend of the narrow road with ease, took me the last kilometres to the small road that leads to Jagodina and on the Rainbow camp. In a small tunnel a taxi with other Rainbow people stopped and took me to the car park of the gathering. On the way we collected Roland from the Worldwide Peace Petition. There were about 30 cars and vans from Germany, Austria, Holland, France, Switzerland and Bulgaria. We walked 20 up the hills to the Welcome Home. We had our fist small “food circle”, rested a bit and walked up the hill another 30 minutes until we reached the main meadow, an area covering nearly a square kilometre with forrest, grass meadows, hills, a spring and a few small houses. There are many temporary structures like the huge central fire place, the big kitchen tent, tipis, flags and signs. And then there are numerous individual tents, tarp constructions and hammocks all around the forrests. We put up our tents on a hill overviewing the valley with the main fire and the kitchen. I had a wander around and met the first people. I helped in the kitchen and ate at the big food circle with all people sitting in a huge circle around the main fire. At that time there were around 300 people present. A sat at the fire a bit and went to bed early.
2004-07-19 to 2004-07-21
I dove into the world of the Rainbow family. Find more about what Rainbow gatherings are like at this Rainbow Family Homepage. I attended a workshop on edible plants in the area, went for a cold bath in the river, helped cooking, serving at the food circle, building a roof for the bread oven, cleaning up and rebuilding the fire place after the night, and had many inspiring talks and met good people. I’d like to mention here and say hello to Pinnih from somewhere in between Zimbabwe/SouthAfrica/UK, Maik and his girlfriend (sorry, forgot the name) from UK and Bulgaria, Hagai from Israel, Roland, Sascha and his girlfriend from Switzerland. It was a short stay at the 4 week camp but I’ll definitively visit more Rainbows in future.
2004-07-22
The people going with Gael’s van towards Belgrade gathered at the main fire early in the morning. A couple of hours later we had packed everything in the van and the seven of us took off towards Sofia. After a nice journey with many stops through the summery Bulgaria we arrived to Sofia and four people got off and Gael from France, Leo from Croatia and me went on to Serbia. After sunset we arrived at the border where all border staff obviously had a very good time examining us and the van packed full of all sorts of stuff from all around Europe very closely. Gael played some of the instruments in his car for the Bulgarian customs people in the garage. “Marijuana? Marijuana? – No, we don’t have any in the car, really!” and so on. Everybody thought we were a crazy, a little suspicious looking bunch, but let us pass after a while with shaking heads and a smile. After an hour we were back on the road looking for somewhere to sleep. We went down a small path just off the main road, tried to turn, but backed off into a ditch and could not move the van anymore. We’ll deal with that tomorrow we thought and went to sleep in a small apple garden with a lot of moskitos behind the ditch.
2004-07-23
A neighbour who heard what was going on the night before called someone else from the village with a tractor and after a little while we could go on. It was really hot but I had the back of the van for myself and could open the windows, lie down, sleep and read. The motorways were blocked through a miner’s protest, so all the holiday and cargo traffic coming from western Europe (every second car was German) was redirected through little towns and villages. A pretty ugly and smelly picture. After many, many hours we arrived to Belgrade and the PGA conference area around a primary school that is empty for holidays. I met some people from the TransHackMeeting in Pula, put up my tent and had dinner. I’m really just travelling through, so unfortunately I don’t have too much time to get really involved. I hitchhiked to the city centre to meet some of my friends from Belgrade. I tried to meet Ljubica and some friends of her, but unfortunately the arranged meeting point has been closed the week before and all signs had been removed. Until I found out about all this it was pretty late and so I’ll try to meet them again today. On my quest for the place that disappeared infront of everybody’s eyes I met Sanya. She just finished working at a kiosk and brought me to the closed down place and then we went on to the city centre. She showed me my bus station and we chatted a bit about her life in Belgrade. People are really helpful here.
Today I spent most of my time typing this here and now I’ll have a look around the conference and go to the centre again. Phew, it’s so hot. It feels good to be back here..