đdays 41-69: final shared days & starting the solo-adventure.
đłđ± Hier is een Nederlandse versie van dit stuk. Fleur en Krit hebben het vertaald, en het is ze gelukt dichtbij de Engelse tekst te blijven. Grote dank gaat naar ze uit!
an unexpected proximity to childhood
Friday 18th October, somewhere in Montenegro
Itâs only 19:15, but itâs been wholly dark for a while now. The days are short, the nights cold. During daytime clouds cover the mountaintops. They diffuse the sunlight and occasionally shed some rain. The Yugoslavs have been chopping and stockpiling wood for the past weeks; itâs been a recurring scene in the thousands of gardens Iâve passed. Some households decide theyâre done with the cold: their chimneys start puffing smoke, the houses surely becoming a cosiness of smothering warmth. Others are holding on just a bit longer.
The world is amber, brown, orange, red and a thousand shades in between. Iâm reminded of primary school, where Iâd go out and forage for the gifts of autumn. Me and my classmates would proudly return to our teacher, our hands filled with acorns, chestnuts, leaves all colours and sizes, branches and stones. Sheâd arrange it into an âautumn tableâ which all the kids and parents would see when they entered the school (yes, I indeed spent some years at a Waldorf school, in case it wasnât obvious yet).
Why would you care about my youthful autumn table? Well, because I wonder how present your primary school memories are in your life. Do you reminisce? What scenes come up, if any? How frequently? Iâm 24 year old, at the very start of figuring out what kind of stuff goes on in adultsâ brains.. I wonder how big a part childhood memories play in your waking brains. Perhaps itâs a function of travel, perhaps itâs a function of age, but Iâm uncovering scenes untouched for years, perhaps untouched since they happened. Wholesome scenes, embarrassing scenes, hurtful scenes, joyous scenes. Peopleâs invisible acts of love, my shortcomings to friends. Iâm wondering if your past is an obvious part of your current personhood, because for me, it feels like the umbilical cord to my past has just been tentatively reconnected, however badly done, as to allow memories to slowly be fed to me again.
I want to play catch-up to the place Iâm in now, camped on a small graveyard near Kolasin, Montenegro. The last youâve read on this website is the No Name Kitchen article in Bihac, Northern Bosnia. And let me check the calendar.. Yup.. That was⊠One and a half months ago. Only a mild delay; time is merely a concept, after all, right?
I used to be in a wonderful relationship with my best friend, and whenever Iâd ask her any question like âHow was your day?â or âWhat happened at the event?â that involved recounting events, her face would turn sour. âWhy would you ask such a boring thing?â sheâd counter. Hmm. While sheâs an extremist (I do still often enjoy hearing the basic plotline of a story) thereâs a point to her reluctance. For both teller and listener working through a dry list of events is not a juicy way to spend time. As such, I will not do such a thing now. What you will lay your eyes upon is a mixture of photos Iâm proud of and random pieces of text that I found exciting to type out. No pretence will be made to give you a rundown of what happened: surely large events will be missed. Yet this is what I want you to know - this is whatâs truly important!
signalling moods
The charmingly decrepit 1992 VW van I owned when I was 18 was extraordinary in many ways. One of those ways was how easily you could interpret what was wrong with it. The smoke from the exhaust was its way of telling the world how it was doing. Blue smoke meant oil was getting into the engine somewhere. The same with white smoke, only then it was cooling liquid. Black smoke meant the diesel wasnât being fully burnt.
I think I also give off these types of signals to reveal my state of mind. Spending time with the No Name Kitchen team in Bihac was so intensive that I was overwhelmed by the end of it. Yet this wasnât clear to me at the time. I carried on like all things normal. While I donât spew coloured smoke out of my bum, it is a warning sign when I start to forget and lose my stuff. As such, Alina and I waved goodbye to the team, hopped on the bike, and after 2 hours of cycling it dawned on me: my raincoat was back in Bihac.
Honestly, no surprise. Iâm convinced itâs not possible to function normally while presented so closely with the dystopian absurdity that is the European border regime. Bihac was a lot. Hats off to the activists at NNK for keeping afloat. I was satisfied by how we spent our time there, though. Alina and I cooked wonderful meals for the team, we made a fundraiser for them, joined in their routines. In spite of the intensity, I can confidently say âno regretsâ. The emotional processing would happen gradually over the following weeks, but damn, I wish I was able to recognise sooner the state of emotional overwhelm I left Bihac in.
Alina took a picture of me as we were building a fire.
Staying on the topic of reading moods, Iâve had to practice in the dynamic between me and Alina. Her and I are both particular people. God, I have so many idiosyncrasies. It must be frustrating to deal with me sometimes (this is what Iâd often think when stubbornly refusing a proposal by Alina for reasons unbeknownst to me as well). Keep in mind, me and Alina had essentially not seen each other for a year. Sheâd moved to Vienna, I stayed in Amsterdam. Reuniting and figuring out how to share.. well.. every moment was a learning curve for both. Some time after leaving the No Name Kitchen team in Bihac Alina signalled that something had been off: she had felt us drifting apart. Again, I had failed to signal this in myself in the moment. I was irritable and aloof but didnât connect it to kinks in the dynamic between me and Alina. All I can say is that after doing some healing relationship maintenance, we were in ecstasy for the last few weeks. I think it shows from the photos below.
Some things I ought to mention:
Yes there was a crash. It sucked. It broke both my wheels. We were both OK. It was unnecessary. Thatâs all the words I want to use up on it.
Alina and I consumed as much content as we could find on the history of Yugoslavia, the wars, ethnic tensions and the culture of the region. We read âThe Ministry Of Painâ by Dubravka UgreĆĄiÄ together. Phenomenal read. We bought Toblerone and watched an episode of BBCâs âThe Death Of Yugoslaviaâ each night.
then: Sarajevo
Before arriving in Bosnia, Roos (who started MiGreat) informed me of her love for Sarajevo. Well Roos, how right you were. I ended up staying in the city for 2 weeks: the city was so rich in experiences to offer. In our final days, Alina and I found ourselves in a cosy b&b watching trash TV while consuming böreks (iconic Balkan food) and ice cream. Went to a spa. Discovered âBeirutâ by Ibrahim Maalouf while getting drinks in a jazz bar. Had breakfasts and dinners on our roof terrace. Drunk wine & danced to The Strokes (thinking of you Pietro đ).
âI now walk into the wildâ
Diesel smell. Engines whirring. Suitcases with broken wheels. Inflatable neck pillows. Looks of discomfort. It was time to send Alina off at the Flixbus station of Sarajevo. Afterwards⊠I was alone. For moral support I inhaled Jon Krakauerâs retelling of Alexander Supertramp, the complex figure most of us probably know from the movie Into The Wild (still one of my favourite movies of all time).
I spent my time in the garden of Selim, who had built a hub for cyclists to come and gather, about an hour outside of Sarajevo. On âPidgeon Squareâ, with dozens of people curiously watching, I recorded the first book showcase of this trip. At some later moment I want to dedicate a blog post purely to the books Iâve read the past months, but this book deeply impressed me. I urge everyone to read it, itâs not a âcomplexâ read in a literary/theoretical sense and so I finished it within no time. Watch below in case you hadnât seen it on my Instagram.
Since Alinaâs departure Iâve grown into the solo-traveler mindset. But that, my children, we will keep for another time. Let me finish off with these wonderful snippets of life in Sarajevo. I hope you enjoyed the read!
Please do share with friends and family who you think are interested in following my project, and urge them to check out the donation page as well! Weâve now set it up that anyone can easily sponsor No Name Kitchen or MiGreat. Your choice. As of writing weâre at âŹ0,86 per 1km, and Iâd love to reach âŹ1,- per 1km. If we reach it, we should definitely celebrate. Got ideas? Send them to me through email, Instagram or my private number đ.
(psshht! you can now leave comments on my posts here. iâd really love if you just say hi. it gives me such joy to know whoâs reading this. please feel warmly invited to leave longer thoughts too. love, seb.)
