Gračanica – inside the monastery

“is it here that a taxi has been called ?” The little old man has spoken in serbian, but we understand the general meaning of his question, when he appears on the first floor of the building. the young woman we interviewed asks us where we would like to go and, even though we would prefer to go directly to our guest house in Velania, we assure her that the bus station would be fine. our conversation has made us realize why a serbian cab driver wouldn’t be too comfortable driving in the middle of Pristina, and we couldn’t help but notice how carefully she had chosen the driver to call, “He has a Kosovar car plate”, she had told us with a shrug, “they’re mandatory for taxis”, her sigh said enough.
“it’s the station close to here, right ?” she asks. we had no idea that there was another bus station. “well, the main one, where we took our bus to Gracanica this morning”, we reply. she nods, “yeah, I think it’s the one. I remember there used to be one about ten minutes from here”. I try not look too surprised by her incertainty. but after our interview, I doubt that anything she says could really surprise me anymore, I’m too stunned by everything she told us, probably. she translates our destination for us and our cab driver nods.
we shake hands and I thank her again for talking to us and giving us a bit of her time. her smile doesn’t hide anything anymore when she replies she’s been happy to talk with us.

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the hotel number 1 is like the hotel palestine in baghdad or at least what we imagine of it. sitting at our table, waiting for our dinner to arrive, we watch cameramen and photographers going in and out, greeting each other, grabbing a beer then going out again. it’s the night of the general elections, but nothing “hot” will happen tonight. yet, there’s at least one journalist at each table, most of them foreigners. the tv is on in a corner and periodically, everyone glance at it. the table near ours is crowded with various russian journalists, they talk passionately while drinking vodka like we’re drinking our wine. on the other table next to us, a lonely middle aged writer is typing non-stop on his laptop. two photographers sit down at the table next to him, they drop their heavy gear on the table and start looking at their pictures. David suggests as a joke that I also put a camera with a big lens on our table. I smile and pull my small leica out of my bag. I snap the shutter twice, to fix this moment I definitely enjoy. on the right corner of my frame, one of the photographers is looking at me.

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I suppose we all got tired of only taking cabs for our moves in Pristina, it doesn’t take long for the seven of us to decide to climb back to Velania on foot after our dinner downtown. there’s something deeply comforting in being able to walk back to your hotel in a foreign city, especially if it’s a 15 minutes walk in a maze of dark little streets. sander and I talk about journalism on the way up, we all walk slowly, enjoying one of our last nights in Pristina. looking up, we notice the incredible amount of stars we can see, as if there was no light pollution at all. for a second, transfixed by the sight, we stay silent. Pristina is as quiet as can be and I’m breathing these moments as if I was never coming back.

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the traffic is impossible as usual at the entrance of Pristina on the four lanes road near the bus station, when Am?lie and I come back from gathering information about our upcoming bus trip to Gracanica. on a simple “let’s walk?”, we gladly decide to lose ourselves in the general direction of Velania hills. it’s a sunny end of afternoon and the big playground surrounded by towers we cross is crowded with mothers and their kids. there would be tons of picures to make here but I’m happy with just walking slowly and looking around, the big green towers around, the laundry drying at the balconies, the parabolic antennas, the benches with women of all ages and everywhere, kids playing. soon, we arrive at a small circular shopping mall which stairs lead to a pedestrian passageway accross an avenue. we turn around for a while, looking at the shops, half of them are shoes shops, many others sell clothes, a few of them cellular phones. the typical proportion we’ve seen in Pristina so far. we soon climb to the pedestrian alley, again, crowded with kids playing and people eating ice-creams. I take a couple of pictures. my face is hot, my eyes are feeding themselves with everything and as usual, Am?lie and I are having an interesting conversation. I frame our shadows, we’re in no hurry, I guess this is happiness.

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the little old man drives in the congested traffic as though all hell broke loose behind him. but of course, in and around Pristina, everyone drives as if they were eager to die in the most impressive car crash. I don’t wonder anymore about the high number of car dumps along the main roads and the incredible state of ruin of the cars there. still, the old man doesn’t give a shit and embarks us in shortcuts that include bits of sidewalks or unpaved roads that make me wish for a 4×4. and miraculously, we arrive in fifteen minutes at the bus station, but even more of a miracle, we arrive in one bit by the back entrance where a bored guard collects his 1 ? toll from any car without authorization. when he comes near the cab’s window, our driver shows him his “disabled” round blue sign on the windshield, and as the guard shrugs and opens the gate, the little old man turns to us and grins with a giant wink. baffled, we burst out laughing. he stops far from any taxi, passenger or car, and still without uttering a word, he tries to show me how much I owe him. desperate to understand, I gather as many dinaras as I can and let him choose. he takes everything above 20, then gets out, opens our doors and shakes our hands with comically joyful bows.
as he drives away, I notice he never had any taxi sign on his car and I wonder if his deaf mute routine has already saved his life. I imagine him driving back to his serbian village, 5 km from here at most, as though the devil himself was after him. “how much did you pay?” Am?lie asks. “Dunno, something like 750 dinaras. it was worth it though…” and looking at the 30 dinaras I have left, I can’t help but smile.

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Scott Joplin – The Cascades