hitchin’ Serbian history again.

I leave Aurelie's home in the morning, last nights laziness made me change my schedule from 7 to 9 am... big mistake... I got used to the Albanian/Kosovan easy hitching around and figured it wouldn't take me more than 8 hours to get to Belgrade. Even though there are only about 500kms, i was very wrong, i am writing this on the bus, listening to Ty’s “Do you want more” and quite happy to be in a warm place after spending almost 10 hours on the roads to get only 200 kms further, to Nis.
I resign hitchhiking and to be at the right place at the right moment on Friday i will probably do so on the way back, get a train, cheaper, longer but who cares.... i actually tried this route for th 3rd time today and once again it was no good. Not that the second attempt was unpleasant, that was the time i ended up at the hippie festival. But i really would like to be in place and time for Infected mushrooms in Skopje on Friday.
I am on a bus for the second time today, i had to take one to get out of Skopje after 3 hours of unsuccessful thumb action on the roadsides and the gas stations. On this bus, a bunch of school kids tried to get me a free ride. One told the driver he had forgotten his card and gave it to me... Off course the driver was not so easy to fool and he kept the card. The kid then had to explain i have low money (i didn't ask anything, cool crazy kids!) and after failing to negotiate a free ride, pay to get his card back (with my money of course).
So i got some 20 km further and there i had to wait in the rain an hour for a rid across the boarder. Funny dudes, seem to be in some sort of fraud. Picking up some (fake?) papers from an Albanian dude across the boarder. So I got 70 km from Skopje... almost 400 to go. Again i wait over an hour to get 15 km further, to Vranje. There i wait again, on top of a hill, exposed to wind and not really protected from the rain by the bridge running over my head.
I am now standing there for over hours when finally an old men from Gnjilane stops. And what a ride this will be. Again, i love hitchhiking and immediately forget this morning. I meet local knowledge, a local front man in science, developing paint for ceramics and metals. And also a life full of incredible events. I will hear an other Serbian version of Kosovo history. but first the science talk, i am all interested in his metal paints, they are mineral based and very heat resistant. Something ideal for solar application and something that was researched in the lab i worked at in Lausanne. we exchange contacts and I question him about all sorts of details regarding his different paints. He also gives me the phone number of the boss of a Serbian group building solar collectors and heaters.
Now the history part, it did not begin after some question of mine, rather it was very surprising and sudden as i was answering his question about why French have a little hostility towards Serbians. As i was trying to explain the impact of the news on peoples opinions and mentioned Kosovo... he started and was unstoppable for the rest of the drive to Nis. He first explains that the division of Serbians and Albanians in Kosovo started well before the bombing of 99, under the regime of Tito. He gives the example of the factory which he was working for as a chemical engineer when it decided to expand. It had to hire 6 more employees. The places where put on competition and despite more than 400 (!!!) Serbs applying, 5 Albanians and a gypsy where chosen. When he asked the director which he was close to because of his engineer position why that was, he was first asked to shut up and as he was insisting, he was told that was an order from the regime. Since in Kosovo there are 90% Albanians, the jobs should be distributed in a similar way. Problem was that in his town, Gniilane, there were only one third Albanians... This sort of political decisions, along with the influence of radical Albanian political groups create tensions and made Serbs flee Kosovo.
An other thing he mention a couple times and that quite surprised me, is that many Albanians, he said about 50 % of Kosovo Albanians. well they were Serbs a couple generation before and just considered Albanian because they converted to Islam. This sorta make sense to me, i cant really tell an Albanian from a Serb but i sure do know the first are Muslim and the later Orthodox.
He then told me how since 1910, him and his family had to exile from Gnijlane 3 times. The first time, the region was under turk control. His grand mother had died after giving birth to his father and his grand father had been single for many years when he remarried to a widow. The widow of a turk man with whom she had had a daughter, now 15 years old. The Turks at that time wanted to take their young daughter away. The grand father reacted to this very violently, took back the daughter and kicked some turks ass, The turks then surrounded the Serbian house, the Serbian community reacted and helped the whole family, including the daughter to flee to the next Serbian village. The all lived there until 1912, year where Serbia liberated Kosovo from the turks and where they could go back. The step grand mother and her daughter however stayed since the later had found a husband. The grand father, father and wife moved back into Gnijlane.
They had to flee again, during the second world war when Italian fascists where occupying the place alongside the extremist Albanian faction (i unfortunately forgot the name of). They could come back after the war but again, only to stay a couple years since soon, the situation will progressively become unlivable because of the political pressure i mentioned before, influence of extremist Albanian groups and eventually the bombings by NATO. His parents are now dead, the father is buried in Gnijlane, the mother in the region of Vranje.

Damn this local histories are always so moving and every time what i think i had understood the pictures, i realize didn't completely and that there is probably no big picture. What i notice again and again however, is that Serbs are always willing to make their losers position clear and still generally tolerate foreigners very much (you might think that as a European you are not responsible but if you dig little and that is what Serbians do, you find out the European governments played a big part in all the conflicts since world war one(. But also that it is important to be careful about what you hear from people... for example, I clarified (i think i did) recently what i heard about Srebrenica. Someone told me the number of casualties in the massacre were blown up and that is impossible that thousands were killed since it is an 800 souls village... If this number might be accurate it is however not the count of people present at that time since there were many refugees. This of course does not mean numbers have not been blown up...

I arrive in Belgrade where Jeremie welcomes me at the bus station and takes me to the ? kafana. How nice it is to be so warmly welcomed once again in Belgrade! I start to become a local here :) We eat, drink and talk. Three things i love.