The Kosovar Flautist

I have to make a new friend who speaks Macedonian.

Here’s why traveling in the Balkans is always fun and interesting*. Everyone speaks different languages… kiiiiiiind of. For the most part, every country that was previously in Yugoslavia (Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Monetnegro and Macedonia) speak some version of Serbo-Croatian. Now, Serbo-Croatian is a Slavic language and can be written in either the Cyrillic Alphabet (think whacky Russian letters) or in the Roman Alphabet (think good old fashioned letters, like ma and pa used when they were down on the farm... or the letters that you're reading right now).

While Serbo-Croatian is the lingua franca of every Balkan country but Albania, there are variations from country to country. Interestingly enough, during the fall of Yugoslavia, in order to drive a cultural wedge between Serbia and other Yugoslavian countries Slobodan Milosevic attempted to “cleanse” Serbian of “foreign words.” Despite his judicious efforts to rid his vocabulary of the foreign menace, he was guilty of more than a few gaffes.

As a complete non-sequitur, does anyone remember “freedom fries…” Any way, what was I talking about?

I speak Albanian, which is nothing like Serbo-Croatian, at all. It is written in the Roman Alphabet. I know a couple of words of Serbo-Croatian** but I cannot read the Cyrillic Alphabet. Whenever I see the Cyrillic Alphabet, I pretend that I’ve experienced a mild stroke in the reading center of my brain, which makes me feel less inadequate. My inability to read a single word in the Macedonian bus station meant that I needed to make a friend who spoke and read Serbo-Croatian\Macedonian(as there are greater variations between Macedonian and Serbo-Croatian- but man that's just confusing) in the Cyrillic Alphabet, while also speaking Albanian and\or English, and I had a two hour bus ride to do it.


I chose my mark given her proximity to my seat on the bus, and the fact that I thought she might have been a Macedonian Peace Corps Volunteer***. So I held the English book that I was reading high in the air and read in her general direction as if to say, “Oh you speak English!? I was just reading in English. I didn't plan this at all. Let’s be friends.” We would then commence holding hands and skipping as new best friends are want to do.

My English book held high in the air trick sadly didn’t work, even after attempting to cough at her, loudly and in English. I instead reverted to my plan B: I stared at the back of her head while thinking really hard Turn around! I’m really friendly and interesting. And I am in desperate need of your help. Somehow, this worked.

Side bar: I could never, and have never picked up a woman in a bar. This is not a skill I possess. I've made peace with this fact by deciding that television and "Cosmo" have lied to me. In fact, any time I have attempted such Don Juan-ery, I have ended up giggling and looking at my shoes, before asking what her major was in college. After falling inevitably into the deep black well of a painfully awkward silence I would slink away into the bowels of the bar to buy a shot of the cheapest whiskey they have, and pretend that I stopped existing.

I don’t understand the process:

Anthropologically, I assume that it works by displaying admirable qualities in non-verbal ways that allow one to fit into certain desirable categories, such as; SUPER ATTRACTIVE GUY, or OSTENTATIOUS CAR DUDE, or GUY WITH JOB THAT REQUIRES A SUIT. Since I fall into none of those categories, my plan of attack at “da club” was always to be EXCEEDINGLY POLITE GUY. A role which I fill by ordering a drink thusly:

Eric: Pardon me Miss\Sir (depending on male or female bartender) May I have a beer? Don’t trouble yourself if you’re busy. Eric smiles with disarming candor.

I would then wait patiently as if there were ladies at the other end of the bar whispering to each other, “Check out how polite the guy at the end of the bar is. I’d let him pull out a chair for me. I bet he leaves a huge tip, and doesn’t call after 9.” I would then proceed to not look at them at all, so that they know I'm not objectifying them. Mama raised me right.

Upon receiving my drink I would thank the bartender, leave a nice tip and then keep to myself with a good natured smile all the while thinking, I’m the politest mother fucker in this club!

This system works, never.

This is all a long winded way of saying, though I can’t meet women in bars, I AM A CASANOVA OF THE BALKAN MINI-BUS.

As we got to talking I found out that she was a flute player and a poet from Kosovo, who not only spoke Albanian and English, but also Serbo-Croatian (Macedonian).

Boo-ya!

Though not a word in Albanian or Serbo-Croatian I believe is universally understood****.

When my new best friend and I got off the bus in Skopje Macedonia, she whisked me to a travel agency and asked when the next bus for Vienna would be. The next bus was four days away, and I would not be assaulted by the Cyrillic Alphabet for four whole days. My new friend then ran to catch her bus, leaving me to fend for myself.
In slow, loud, English with a Slavic accent and a judicious amount of pantomiming (the international language) I asked when the next bus was leaving and where it was going.

“In five minutes, to Bulgaria.”

“I’ll take it.”

As I settled into my seat on the Macedonian bus heading to Bulgaria, I just kept thinking to myself something along the lines of: Crap, crap crap… Why am I going to Bulgaria right now? Just then I someone tapped me on the shoulder. It was the Kosovar Flautist.
“You are going to Bulgaria too!?” She asked.
“I guess so!”

The bus rumbled down the road out of Skopje towards Sofia, Bulgaria. I wondered yet again, where I would sleep that night as I stared out the window.



*Difficult and confusing. But in a fun way. Seriously, visit the Balkans.
** “Hi, how are you? Yes. No. I don’t speak Serbo-Croatian? Toilet? Cheers! I’m from America! Thank you. Sorry.”
*** Peace Corps has a presence in Macedonia and Albania and she had very western looking shoes on.
****Originally, from the ancient Greek root “booyarius” meaning to celebrate noisily after an engaging evening of Socratic debate at the vomitorium.