Yugoslavia August 2000

During this week, I needed and wanted to be with mygrandmother as much as possible, so I spent most of the time in Backo Petrovo Selo, where shelives. It is a different world. This is my grandmother and her street.

Life is unbelievably relaxing here - when one manages toforget about all the political and economical problems. Hereare my sister Gabi and my father taking a siesta, and hereis Gabi in grandmother's garden cooling off in the evening -even at night the temperatures were around 28 C.

And this is the street traffic. Only one good thing comesfrom all the embargos and poverty - people can't afford todrive cars any more, and there is no petrol, so the streetsare quiet and the air is clean.

Grandmother (86) and her friends. They are having acoffee. Most of then have just finished making the tomatojuice for the winter - for each household it usuallyinvolves cooking and mashing about 50 kg of tomatoes byhand.

Theseladies are of a tough kind - my grandmother, for example,still insists on chopping by herself all her firewood, heapsof it. And she refuses to let us install running water inher house - she prefers her well.

They are used to working hard: there are large families andlarge gardens to tend to, and life's small comforts aren'tnearly as awailable as in the west. The pensions comeseveral months late - if they come at all, basic food isn'talways awailable, and one has to grow own vegetables andchicken and to know a freindly cow and be able to make allsorts of things that we only read about, such as cookingone's own soap, storing enough pickles and meat in theautumn to last for a whole winter, and burning one's ownbrandy.

It is an agricultural area, once rich, now unrecognisablyempowerished and dissassembled by the current situation inYugoslavia. Here an old abandoned rail switch-house.

A sad picture of departed greatness (well, at leastcomfort). As Anna says: even though we laugh and joke alot, it is impossible not to experience poignant sadness atthe sight of dilapidated and impoverished lands and people,those that I remember rich, generous and unbelievablyhospitable...

Typical street images.

And a typical back yard. This is the grandmother of mygrandmother's neighbour Andrea - a lovely 18 year oldarchitect-to-be. She lives in my home town Novi Sad, whichis about 50 km away from this village, but still comes backto see her family every weekend; the family ties are verystrong in Yugoslavia. During my childhood there, there washardly any weekend in any month that we haven't visited mygrandparents. I am very grateful for having had the chance to spend so much time with them.

My aunt Evi and her friend Evi, and Bela bacsi. The ladies are retired nursery teachers, and Bela is a blacksmith. He is making carts and wheels and tractors and just abouteverything makeable from iron. His workshop is on my grandmother's street, and he is talking to us every time wewalk past. Here he was trying to find a byer for about 20 years of his life - not the best one's though - saying he had too many already. The price wasn't too bad either.

And this is Tisza, my favourite river in the world. At its cleanest in the last 30 years or so, because all ourfactories are at a standstill.

Great swimming. But the best part is not visible from here:Tisza smells lovely, like rain water, especially now that itis so clean again. It is green, and full of fish: we werestanding on the top of the boat and watching shoals of fishswim by; they were jumping out of the water like in afisherman's sweetest dream. It is also quite pleasantly warm,around 24 degrees C.

The banks are sandy and straight at parts and thousands ofs wallows nest in the bank walls. The bottom of the river is muddy, and a special kind of caterpillars, called TiszaFlowers, lives there. They come out in May or September,after 5 years in the mud, turn into white butterflies, livefor about 24 hours, fly, mate and die. Then the river iscovered with Tisza Flowers and since the fish love eating them there is no fishing for about a week. But the sight is more than worth it.