Butterfly in Belgrade - Conclusion

by Rod Amis

G21 Editor & Publisher

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As I have said, everyone asks me what it was like in Serbia. What is it like anywhere? People go to work, they raise their families, they try to endure any of the circumstances which life throws at them. Why should the Serbs be any different or any less human?

Yes, as part of the former Eastern Bloc, Serbia is a very poor country. Yes, there are inconveniences in daily living, with the telephone systems, etc., and political and social changes are coming slowly. It would be naive to expect anything different.

Considering the lies that have been told about the Serbian people, in order to build up the drumbeat of war by politicians, I'm not surprised that so many were worried about my safety. But these Serbs are just people like any other -- though I'll admit I felt Belgrade had more than its fair share of beautiful women -- who are going about their business despite politics. They are NOT fanatics or Nazis.

Driving to Romuliana, Dragana joked to me that as a Serbian devil she must make a point to "sit on my tail."

I laughed, and wanted to rejoin, "Everyone sits on their tails." But I didn't.

We are all too quick to judge and accuse, to forget compassion for our fellow human beings striving just to live. But that's a message we've offered in these pages many times before...

Yet, one of the first things I recalled upon returning to America was lack of compassion, the threat that right-thinking would be endangered by the infection of my very presence. So it goes.

Below the apartment building where Dragan and Dragana live is a public market where you can buy almost anything. This market is what you might expect to have found in a village years ago, though the items are of modern manufacture. Under multi-colored canvases supported by poles are toiletries, shoes, clothing, produce -- everything except meat, which can be obtained from the local butcher. It is the "grey" market, meaning things independent people have gotten by whatever means to sell at a discount. At places like this -- Dragana confided that there are approximately 2,000 such in Belgrade, a city of two million -- the average working people buy what they need, as they cannot afford to shop in the expensive establishments downtown.

Dragan is a tinkerer. He does most of the repairs needed for the appliances and machines they live with himself or with the aid of friends. If he lived here in America, he would be like lots of avid learning, average guys, just helping each other out in a pinch. That is what happens in a society of people without lots of money.

The people of Serbia yearn for a better life, as do people all over the world.

They look at the American way of living and thinking with both envy and suspicion.

It seems that we Americans have only been able to show them our corporatism, and not that real capitalism is based on building small local businesses that actually support our communities. So much is the pity.

I made two trips to the market with Dragan and Dragana. It reminded me of my old neighborhood in the Richmond district of San Francisco, where there was still that kind of local flair; the village market where people went from place to place to get separate items... It had a feel that is not part of the mall culture of my own country. It had a feel of getting back to home.

There is a very European custom in Serbia, as one departs beloveds, of kissing each other on the cheeks three times. And then "Ciao!" you are gone... But I let Dragan and Dragana know that I would return.

---

NEW YORK CITY, 4 July, 2001 - I'm still on Serbian time.

I left Belgrade at what was 1 p.m. yesterday. It's now my 7:58 a.m. and I have not slept yet. It's almost 2 in the morning here in NYC. I've taken three planes, a bus from JFK to Grand Central, the subway to Penn Station, and now finally a train to BWI -- in the hopes that my pal Robin Miller will be at home this morning and willing to let me get cleaned up and crash there until I locate my things.

You see, Lufthansa failed to get all of my stuff -- that is clothes, books from Dragan and Dragana, my zip drive or any of the disks, my razor, dedorant, etc. -- from Belgrade to London.

We suspect that it was lost in Munich. I won't know for sure for a couple of days, though. Meanwhile, not knowing where I'd be physically, I advised them to send the bag on to Mike in California. His was the only address and telephone number I could remember. It was all I could think of at the time, being tired, stressed and already late for my flight here to New York. Seven hours of sleepless hell. But anyway....

Now I must hope that Robin is at home this morning (at 5 a.m. here -- 11 Belgrade time) by which time I'll almost have gone the full circle on this long run. My White Dove dream of going to Belgrade, and then on to the Roman archaelogical site of Romuliana, near the Bulgarian border, has been fulfilled.

All will be revealed.

Thursday, 5 July, 2001 - Millerland(formerly part of the United States of America): Robin found me on his doorstep, like a stray kitten, yesterday morning when he went out to fetch his morning paper. He was jocular about the discovery and invited me in for coffee.

I slept very little during the passage from Belgrade to New York City and needed a shower and some rest. Robin and his lovely wife, Debbie, fed me, let me shower and gave me a place to sleep. Robin and I talked about the trip, the latest with his upcoming book, our various plans.

Try as I might to get some sleep, I could not until 7 a.m. this morning. I got a catnap this afternoon.

I'm still tired.


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