Road to Prizren

for our last night in Belgrade, we decide to try the splavovi : the bars and nightclubs on boats on the banks of the Sava river. Sander, the dutch journalism student who’s staying at our youth hostel as well joins us. we warn him that so far, we haven’t been too lucky with the nightlife in Belgrade but he doesn’t really mind. it’s past 9 when we find ourselves waiting for a bus that will never come to bring us on the other side of the river. it takes us a long time and a lot of talks between us and with anyone willing to help us out before we finally find and climb down the stone stairs leading to the bank of the Sava. there, trying to avoid to walk on syringes and to disturb a few fishermen, we finally find the main alley leading to the splavovi and the said splavovi. naturally, they’re all closed.
starving and tired, we eventually walk back to the center. the first restaurant we aim for is closed and most other open places are only bars, we can already picture ourselves eating old cookies for dinner at our hostel. our last try before giving up leads our steps to Francuska and the metal gates of a tall and old building surrounded by a garden. a quick glance shows us that the terrace is closed but when we enter in the building, a waiter leads us in the underground restaurant. we’re almost alone in the big room, classy in a deliciously old-fashionned way. in our guide, we soon read that we’ve landed in the Klub Knjizevnika, one of the oldest restaurants in town, which used to welcome the intellectual, political and even dissident elite during Tito’s times. we might not have the faintest luck in finding good bars, but, counting the “?”– the oldest tavern in town — and this one, we’re definitely spoiled with the restaurants and food here.

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the incence scent strikes me, as we enter the dimly lit tiny chapel. standing in front of a turning book holder, a monk sings the orthodox ritual prayers in serbian. I’m hypnotized by the way the light right above him softens his face and for a while, I can only look as his lips moving and his fingers turning the pages. another monk approaches the light and turns the book holder, while the first one makes a sign to a monk I can’t see, probably to signify him when his turn will come. at last, I can detach my eyes from the book holder to look at the room, which is barely big enough for seven monks, let alone seven monks and five journalists. I’m not sure that it was a good idea to ask to come to their service, I feel like we’re a bunch of ruthless invaders violating their privacy, but finally, the soft orange light on the monks’ faces makes me partially change my mind, after all, our job is to invade privacies to tell our stories. I can only suppose that as long as we do it respectfully, I should be thankful for being there and sharing these precious moments. I don’t take any picture, but I fix the paintings everywhere on the walls, I fix the icons and candles, I fix the melodies and the words of their prayers and most of all, I fix the light on their faces.

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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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Pristina – Christ the Saviour Cathedral

so it appears we’re staying in a prostitute hotel in south mitrovica. a three stars, no less. my brother’s girlfriend had warned us about every hotel except one at the outskirts of the town, but we still needed a cheap place to stay and all the decent hotels in north mitrovica had been booked by journalists and tv crews long before we arrived. with all our heavy bags, we finally check in at the hotel Jaffa, which looks comfortable — if not cheap — enough. it takes a full day before David confirms that this one is indeed a brothel, and accessorily, that the walls must be made of nothing more than thick paper. we finally understand, highly amused, why there are no single bedrooms, why our cab drivers always give us startled glances and make us reapeat our hotel name, why there are mirrors along the beds, or why men having coffee outside stare at us in such a weird way, every time Am?lie, David and I go out. that said, the hotel Jaffa is rather clean, the beds are huge and our gear is safe, which is all we could ask for.

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Prizren – Monastery of the holy Archangels

it’s only around 3 pm and I’m already in love with Prizren — its sleepy narrow streets and shiny mosques at every corner, its 16th century ottoman bridge and the Gazi Mehmet Pasha hamam, the cobbled Shadervan square and its fountain where teenagers fool around and a couple of old men play backgammon in the sun. I’m fascinated by life here, by the amount of juvenile energy everywhere. half Kosovo’s population is under 25 years old and unless you lock yourself in your hotel room, there isn’t a minute when you won’t notice it, wherever you are.
around 4 and a half, as we’re wandering in the small alleys, the first muezzin begins his call to prayer, soon joined by every minaret and in a few seconds, the whole town is echoing their ritual melodies.

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standing on the ruins of the Kaljaja Fortress perched on Sara Mountain, a few inches away from the precipice, I turn back from the sight of the Saint Saviour church below me and pause to look at everyone’s small silhouette : St?phane at the opposite side, the Bistrica river beneath him, Leila on top of the entrance door, facing the city, Sander on her right, at the farther corner from me and David walking to the back of the fortress. we’re almost alone there now and, each of us gazing in a different direction to embrace the magnificent view, it feels like we’re the last sentinels of our castle.

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her smile is a warning or a punch in the stomach, as it punctuates her chopped sentences. it slices our questions, it closes every door her words just opened, and for more than an hour, we witness the struggle between stories that still need to get out and smiles she turns into stop signs to hide her tears. she will never cry in front of us, but she will be fierce and ironical, vulnerable and strong, bitter and overwhelmed by guilt, cold and looking for approval, disillusioned and torn apart, all at the same time. her smile is a slap on the face, it tries to lock every door her immense sadness opens wide. we leave Caglavica still engulfed by her emotions.

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