On one hand, I knew I had to help them, after all, I would also need all the help I could get once on the road: that was the mantra I kept on repeating – I was buying good karma for the future. On the other hand, I had to take a rational decision and sort out my priorities, at least during the exam sessions.
I was quitting. I would only host an Australian girl who was coming that day and that would be final. I was taking a break of a couple of months, for a greater cause.
The doorbell rang. I opened the door. A blonde girl stood in front of me, smiling at me innocently, she looked me straight into the eyes and said:
“Hi, I’m Chloe.”
Day 794.
“To Sofia?” Daniela asked me, “that’s the name of some girl or?”
“No, Sofia is the capital of Bulgaria,” I replied. Daniela was funny. Without knowing it she had touched upon a totally different story...
“After my trip to Sofia,” I continued, “I started travelling around Croatia...”
Day 229.
Still not a word from her.
Without giving it much thought and without much planning I stuffed my backpack with some basic things, I went to the toll booths in the southern part of Zagreb and headed off towards the coast.
It was the middle of the summer, Zagreb was almost empty, and I had a few days off at work, thanks to a known Croatian tradition of taking long weekends, and thanks to the kindness of my bosses.
I visited my friends in Zadar, the same guys I now felt extremely grateful to for leaving me to go to Amsterdam alone. God only knows if things would’ve turned out the same way if I hadn’t gone there on my own and if I hadn’t walked into that fast food joint and gotten Coke instead of Fanta.
I went to Ričice, my mother’s home village, where I used to spend a couple of weeks every summer when I was a child. That was the first time I went there on my own; that is, by using my thumb. It was interesting to arrive there and observe the beauty of the area from a different perspective, with different eyes. I started noticing all those little things that I’d been missing before, laid back in the car, having fun with family and friends, taking the beauty of the area for granted.
And its beauty was breathtaking. The Dalmatian debris, stone houses, greenery on both sides of the road, a cute little village with a small hill in the middle and an accumulation lake. Since the Red and Blue lakes[9] were only a few tens of kilometres away, it wasn’t difficult to name that lake - Green lake. Above the lake, which was actually of a rich green colour, was a quarry in the shape of stairs: when we were children we thought it was a giant stairway.
It was a wonderful little place that I’d been looking at for all those years without actually seeing it. Even my grandma’s oblatne[10] tasted better.
I visited Široki Brijeg, my father’s home town in Herzegovina, another place I visited regularly every year, but which was now more colourful, more lively; my small cousins were more playful and the conversations with my family members were more intimate.
“What the fuck are you wearing?” my uncle asked me, referring to my style, which had changed significantly since the last time we saw each other. I was wearing light Nepalese fishing pants, made in Thailand and bought in an Indian shop in Zagreb; my haircut was asymmetrical: on one side I had something that appeared to be a tail, but it was only a moment of inspiration of a friend who did my hair for free, “you look like a faggot.”
“What’s wrong with faggots?” I asked, smiling provocatively. I knew that I shouldn’t get into a fight with people who had grown up in a conservative Catholic environment but I simply couldn’t let it go. I kept my tone peaceful with strong arguments hoping that the conversation wouldn’t grow into a serious fight, knowing from the very start that the discussion was doomed. Strangely, I was having fun; I grew closer to the people I had those conversations with. I wasn’t a coward who agreed with everything people would say, I wasn’t afraid of speaking my mind and dealing with the consequences, I didn’t care about what other people said after I was gone. I believe that was the reason why I earned their respect, even though they would never agree with me.
“Have you ever met a faggot?” I continued. “Well, I have and, actually, they’re quite nice people.”
“You are a faggot” – that was his response. I could sense that the conversation was turning into a fight so I gave up. I changed the subject and went to sleep soon after that.
I woke up early the next morning and decided to move on: I wanted to go towards the seaside.
I was leaving my father’s hometown satisfied. I knew that everything was exactly the same as the last time I was there. Only one thing could’ve changed – me. I liked the new me, I liked how the new me observed the world, noticing the details, having an attitude.
“I’m not going to the coast, but you can come with me to Čavoglave,” the driver who picked me up near Imotski told me, “after the celebration I’m going to the island of Pag so I can leave you there.”
He was a war veteran who didn’t have a left leg. He was quiet and withdrawn, but friendly. He was off to Čavoglave[11], to the celebration of Victory Day: the expected number of the visitors was 100,000. The celebration was supposed to be accompanied by a concert by Thompson, a guy known for his right-wing political attitude.
“Why not?” I replied. I readily accepted everything the Road offered me, no matter how weird and unpredictable it may seem.
Honestly, I didn’t feel like going to Čavoglave. I didn’t feel like going to the Thompson concert to be in a crowd of 100,000 people. I didn’t feel like celebrating Victory Day. Still, when I was in Amsterdam I didn’t feel like drinking Coke...
If I ever get a tattoo, I’m going to have a Croatian flag, Madonna and the church of Široki Brijeg, right on my heart – I remembered the idea I got a couple of years before. In those days I used to listen to Thompson, go to church regularly, feel national pride by shouting insults at Dinamo matches. I’d even ended a nine-month relationship because my girlfriend back in those days wasn’t sad enough when one Croatian general was arrested.
“We’re too different,” I’d said to her.
“We’re too different,” I said to myself, observing the driver who would’ve definitely approved of my reasons for breaking up with the girlfriend.
How was it possible that I’ve changed so much in a couple of years? What was the reason?
When I started going to university, I moved with my parents to the suburbs of Zagreb and after eighteen long years got my own room. My freedom. I had my own computer and a fast Internet connection, and since I’d only recently ended a relationship that was everything to me, and since during the first years I rarely went to lessons, I had plenty of time for surfing. Curious as I am, I peeked at every page I came across: I read forums, watched documentaries, studied different topics. The one thing that made Internet so different from other sources of information was the fact that I could read about a subject from different sources; I had access to different perspectives, a great variety among them.
I didn’t have many opportunities to do that before. Church, school and family mainly supported the same ideas. You couldn’t go against them because no one ever told you anything that opposed those ideas. You knew that the family was sacred, you knew that your homeland was the best (especially if you grew up in the early nineties when the war was going on) and you knew the flow of history – it was described in school books. You knew that your religion was the best and that if you’d ever experimented with different religions you would end up in hell.
Things weren’t like that online. The representatives of both sides were pretty much alike. You could find extreme examples on both sides; you could easily study the arguments and judge who you found more convincing and choose your side.
That was where I perfected the theory. I still kept on going to the church, but I listened carefully to the words of priests, finding several faults and many things to disagree with. I kept on listening to stories about
Croatian history and politics during Sunday family lunches, but now I was more informed and knew how to ask awkward questions to which nobody knew the answers.
I started dealing with other theories, although this was only the theoretical side of things. Apart from the people from the virtual world with whom I would exchange a few sentences, I didn’t know a person in real life who lived life differently, who talked about different things, a person with a different attitude and lifestyle.
Not until I met Nina, when I was in my third year of university.
“Why do you go to church?” she asked me curiously one Saturday afternoon.
“I don’t know...” I tried to come up with an answer. “In my family, going to church is a tradition. I go there to find some kind of peace, a conversation with God, with myself...”
“So, have you ever found peace and talked to God and with yourself during the service?” She wouldn’t stop asking.
“Well, maybe the last one,” I confessed, “I’m bored quite often so I start talking to myself about all sorts of things.”
“Couldn’t you do that somewhere else?”
I didn’t like her questions. They were forcing me to think about notions that I’d never thought about. I felt stupid when I wasn’t able to give her normal answers to the most natural questions.
“I guess I could...” I shrugged.
The following day she accompanied me to Mass.
“Do you agree with this priest when he says that homosexuality is a disease?” she whispered to me during a somewhat homophobic sermon.
“Not really,” I replied even more quietly.
“So why don’t you say something to him?” She was smiling inconspicuously.
“The things he says are his business, and it’s up to me to agree or disagree,” I continued, “but I seriously doubt that any kind of a discussion with a priest in the middle of a service would change anything, but only create chaos.”
“Whatever you say,” now she was the one shrugging, “but it seems to me that by simply being here and not reacting you’re supporting him, you’re justifying him. You’re part of his crew. That’s it.”
I kept thinking about her words during the rest of the service. Was I truly supporting the priest when he said stuff like that? Was my being there and not reacting a signal of silent approval? Was I defending the Church’s sins from the past and all the accusations it’s been dealing with lately? Was I approving of and encouraging these actions by throwing a few coins into the church piggy bank every Sunday?
I’d never thought about it like that. Maybe it was time to start.
“And why do you go to football matches?” she asked me not long after we went to church together.
“Because I love my club, the energy on the stands, the sense of pride when we contribute to the victory,” I replied instantly.
The following Saturday she was next to me at Maksimir stadium.
“Why do you want to kill the guy who is lying on the field?” she asked me after a foul that made everyone in the stands treat an opponent to shouts involving killing, gallows, Serbians and usual stuff like that.
“Oh, we don’t mean it for real” – I was justifying the entire stand – “it’s all a part of the folklore. It’s part of the fun; the aim is to provoke the guest team. Nobody would actually kill him.”
“And what if his parents are in the other stand?” she asked me sadly, “how do you think they would feel when a couple of thousand football fans shout these things? Do you think that these ten-year-olds standing next to us, with cigarettes in their mouths, realize that it is all a part of the folklore? Are you sure that one of them won’t take it too literally and one day do something serious to someone, just because that someone supports another football club?”
I was looking at her and absorbing her words. I put myself in the shoes of the player who was being carried off the pitch, in the shoes of his parents, in the shoes of the kids from the north stands, in the shoes of everyone who was there listening to the words of hatred. The words of hatred masked in folklore, thus, partially justified.
I kept on going to the matches, but I didn’t sing the songs inviting acts of hatred, or provoking the supporters of the other team in any other way. I cheered on my own team and let the others be.
Nina was my muse when it came to observing life in another light. She taught me to reconsider things instead of simply taking similar experiences from the past and applying them to present situations. She taught me that it was okay to have a different opinion from the people who surround you, despite the fact that they may not accept you. It was okay not to be accepted, in fact, sometimes it was even a very welcome characteristic.
Nina was a great teacher and a great friend. Still, she was the only one. Very often, when I wasn’t with her, I caught myself thinking if she was, actually, an exception. Was she different from everyone else, interesting, but, consequently, untenable? Can a person like her function in this world leading a normal life? Can a person live outside the system and not be condemned to failure?
And, more importantly, can I?
After all the lessons Nina taught me, I met many CouchSurfers.
Nina wasn’t the only one anymore.
Most of the people my roommate and I hosted in our apartment only confirmed that it really was okay to be different, think differently and live differently. They also made me realize that the path wasn’t that easy, oh no, but it was worthwhile.
So, after a couple of years, I found myself in Čavoglave. I wasn’t right-wing anymore, I wasn’t much of a fan of songs with a strong national impulse anymore, I didn’t go to Sunday Mass anymore, but the most important thing at that moment was that I wasn’t judging those people who still were everything that I no longer was. Why should I? Just because I’d made certain realizations was I above others? The others were less worthy than me, narrow-minded, stupid? Not at all. They were just – different. If I wanted the others to respect my diversity, I had to do the same thing and respect theirs.
“Do you believe in God?” a fourteen-year-old girl asked me, after I ate a few pieces of dead lamb and splashed it all down with beer, in the company of her brother, her father, and my driver. I guess my outfit, my haircut and my way of traveling made her ask me that.
I avoided her question cunningly, taken aback by the directness of a teenage girl. I started quibbling about the difference between faith and religion, about each and every person being connected in one way or another, but by the look in her eyes I could tell that she didn’t understand what I was babbling about. Finally, I just laughed and confessed innocently that I didn’t have a simple answer to her question. I told her that we could talk about it some other day, in some other place, in different circumstances.
She wasn’t satisfied with that answer.
As much as I wasn’t satisfied with her question.
After the end of the concert, with the help of my driver, I ended up on the island of Pag. Since we arrived there in the middle of the night, I had to manage with the accommodation. A part of me was hoping that the good driver would offer me a place to spend the night and carry on my journey the following day, but he’d already done enough for me.
After a bit of snooping around, I found a secluded spot in a bush nearby where I spent the night in a sleeping bag. That was my first wild camp.
The next day, after spending a day on the beach, I felt like going to the mainland. I got onto a ferry and took a look at the map of Croatia. I could’ve gone home, but I knew it was already late and that I wouldn’t make it. I don’t like hitchhiking in the dark. Where could I spend the night on my way to Zagreb?
In Senj.
My best friend from high school used to spend his summer vacations in Senj. I hadn’t talked to him in years, but I had his phone number somewhere.
Hey, dude! I’m hitchhiking around Croatia, I’m in Senj tonight. I know that the odds of you being there are small, but if you are, call me!
I was the first
one to leave the ferry, I dropped my backpack so that everyone could see me and with a wide smile on my face and with my thumb stuck out I started looking for a ride, at least to the highway, because I knew that the road leading to it was steep, long, and winding.
The cars were passing by, one after another. The drivers were smiling and waving at me. Until all of them were gone.
Since I had no idea when the next ferry arrived, I didn’t have much choice but put my backpack on and head off slowly feeling a bit disappointed and bummed out.
I was followed by a sunset: it was wonderful to see that the sun was still by my side; however, it wasn’t wonderful when I realized that I would arrive at the highway just after sunset, that I would have to find at least one ride before I got to the next town and the fact that I didn’t have a place to stay overnight. I’d spent the previous evening in the bushes, would I have to do the same thing that night?
At that moment I received a message.
I’ve just arrived to Senj. Let me know once you’re here.
I jumped a little bit, laughed from the bottom of my heart, looked at the sky and said: Thank you, God.
Wait a minute. God? Only yesterday a girl asked me whether I believed in Him, and I didn’t know what to say to her, and now I was suddenly thanking Him. So, do I believe in Him or not?
The fact was that during the past couple of years we’d drifted apart a bit: I’d been following my own path, with my own rules, not the rules of the Church. I got bored with the Church, I didn’t find what the priests were preaching interesting anymore, and some of them said things that made me want to leave the church out of pure protest. All I could see in it all was mass brainwashing of people who didn’t feel like using their own brains.
However, after I’d given it a thought, I realized that I held grudges against the Church as an institution and some priests, not against God. I still thanked Him spontaneously in the moments of happiness. Should I work on our relationship: sort it out once and for all?
1000 Days of Spring: Travelogue of a hitchhiker Page 4