Stories
df cardwell said:
With that perspective, it is very difficult to appreciate the way people lived, and how they freed themselves, and what was their cost over the years. So, there was little interest after the Velvet Revolution to tell the small stories that were so important. Time has moved on, but there are still some who can tell their stories ... all over europe.
Yes, that is a wonderful thing. I traveled through Europe by train a couple of years ago with my camera. Every opportunity I had to meet people at each stop I made, I was so pleased because they welcomed me with warmth and respect. In Prague, I didn't particularly have a chance to start any deep conversations with the locals compared to other places I did, like Ohrid, Macedonia, the former Yugo state. There I felt I was almost treated as a member of their community, which might (or might not) have had to do with my Japanese background regarding the stories about war.
As you know the war in the Balkans was all over the place. Macedonia has survived without being directly attacked or having to pay the cost that other states such as Bosnia and Herzegovina did. But still the tension on the border with the conflict with the Albanians has not been quite eased. And there's Kosovo, which is another neighbor. U.N troops were stomping their land. So, it was partially (not virtually) a war zone until shortly before I visited.
On the bus to Ohrid, A young man, a college student from Skopje, told me about the recent history of the region. Its my first time learning from a Macedonian's point of view, of which information I don't think would circulate well outside the region. The E.U restrictions, U.S. interventions, and the U.N sanctions, were and still are very much the direct cause for this, leaving the Macedonians in very limited ways to travel. And problems with Greece is another thing.
So, he and I started to talk about what we had in common, the film, "Before the Rain" which came out in the early 90's. That just popped in my head because one of my friends in the U.S. knew the younger sister of the actress (played the "young girl") from the film shortly after the film was released. But at that time, for me, the distance was too great for me to have a clue or even to get familiar with the name of the place.
Its been known that the story of the film was a fiction, but it ironically depicted the reality that was soon to come in the region. But Id never met anyone to convince me that until I got there and met this young man, who lived through this period as a young boy and grew up with it including the time when he served as a soldier. And because he was so modest and generous (and very fluent in English), for the next four hours on the bus ride, our conversation went on endlessly (mostly by my asking him a lot of questions, though).
When I got off the bus, an older man asked me if I needed a room to stay, so I took his offer. As we were walking to his house, he started to tell me about the city of Ohrid, which I would call more like a village though, and his stories. He said he was a soldier in Bosnia for a number of years before he retired. And now he would accommodate tourists and make little cash, so he and his wife could go out for a dinner once in a while. He gave me a nice room, but with not great plumbing and almost no heat. There was an electronic heater, but because it would eat up the electricity so much he said, I rolled myself in a few thick blankets and with my pea-coat on when I went to sleep. It was in January, and its right by the lake.
I went out that night to get a little quick bite. The only place I found that was open was a café. I walked in and saw two young women working there, but no customers. I looked at the menu and saw all different kinds of crape, so I asked them to choose one for me since Im not a big sweets fan. They pointed at hazelnut, and one of them went behind the counter. They were sisters, and its their family-owned café.
The one who started making my crape, is the older one. Her name is Tanja. She was living in Belgrade in Serbia-Montenegro for school at the time, but she was on her winter break and came home to help the business. After she handed me the crape, she came to sit at my table, and we started to talk for a few hours. She said shes in the program to be a gymnast in college, and one of the things she had in her mind was to go to see the Olympics in Athens in 2004. She had no luck to go there because of the visa, which is extremely hard to get, etc...
My story goes on like this, and Ill save the rest of the story for some other occasion. Meanwhile I should polish up my writing skill (and English, which is my second language forever). But thanks for your inspirations.
Anyway what I was trying to say is that, yes I travel with my cameras, and more or less, I get into the communities of the people Ive never met before. And in there, I sort of see them opening their drawers to show me what (antique) pieces of stories they have kept for a long time. Or sometimes the stuff is right on the table. Either way, thats the wonderful thing I know of, and Ive been trying to, if not successfully capturing, have the moments of that on film to print.
In a short while (maybe in the next six months?), Ill be starting to post these images somewhere so people will be able see them. But right now, Im just still organizing them. So, stay tuned.
Firecracker
