On the Road of Time – Chapter 9

On the Road of Time – Chapter 9

The Albanian border crossing was not as elaborate as the one on the Greek side with its lounge, café, shop, tourist brochures and piles of newspapers and magazines lying there laden with dust and soiled by flies. And contrary to the behaviour of the Greek officer, the Albanian officer greeted us with a smile and welcomed us in our language. We in return greeted him with the Albanian words “mir dita” (good day); thus establishing a cordial mutual relationship. “Are you Macedonians? From Skopje?” he asked as he examined our passports. “Yes, we are Macedonians,” I answered. “I can tell by the licence plate on your car. Please let me see your international driver’s licence and proof of insurance for your vehicle. It would be a shame if you don’t have these documents because without them you will not be allowed to enter Albania. I am sorry but that’s the law here,” explained the policeman. I gave him an envelope which contained all the documents that he was looking for. “This will take a while,” he said, “please have a seat and I will call you when I am done.” The policeman then shut the window over the counter, leaned over and began to write things down. About twenty minutes later he called us back. “Everything is in order,” he said. “How much do we owe you?” I asked. “There is no charge for you sir, but the lady will have to pay one euro. Will you be paying in “leks” (Albanian money), in your money, or in some other currency?” he asked. He then said, “Keep this receipt, they will ask you for it when you exit Albania. Also later you will be paying an additional two euros for use of our roads.” Although he did not ask us for our visas he did not forget to ask what the purpose of our trip to Albania was. So I said, “The Greek policeman asked us the same question.” “What did you tell him?” he asked. I replied, “…to look for a bride…” We all burst out laughing, which caught the attention of those behind us waiting in line. “Goodbye and enjoy your stay with us,” he said as we departed. Both sides of the border crossing were surrounded by forested hills, shaded in dark clouds, ready to start raining. The wide asphalt road, part of which was constructed by the Macedonian firm “Granit”, stretched along the narrow gorge on whose slopes, clumped like mushrooms, were concrete bunkers with grey lids; remnants of a recent bygone era. Along the way we saw a traffic sign at an intersection indicating: “Right to Bilisht” (Bilishcha in Macedonian) and “Left to Kapsthice” (Kapeshtitsa in Macedonian). We turned left. The road was paved up to the entrance of the village located about five hundred meters from the intersection. There was no road after that… Where to now… Beyond the paved road, on what looked like a cobblestone path, was a narrow lane paved with pounded rocks and mud, laden with puddles of muddy water. It seemed like the 20th century ended here and we were entering the 19th century. I came out of the car to examine the road and see if our SAHO was capable of jumping over the rocks and swimming through the mud puddles. We decided to risk it. We drove down the narrow lane about twenty meters or so before our left tires got stuck at the edge of a compost heap. At that point a flock of screaming chickens ran off in all directions as a pack of barking, village dogs charged at us. It seemed like the loud barking awakened the villagers. Bolted wooden gates flung open and women and children silently stared at us from their yards. Filth from the spinning tires flung over and was sprayed along the lane, which ended several meters down. In front of us was a tiny lawn, which probably was the town square and a little to the right were three tables. I guess this was the village inn. I got out of the car, walked over to the men sitting around the tables and greeted them with “mir dita”, in Albanian. There were bottles of coca cola and juice on the tables. The men looked at me suspiciously and continued to play their game. The game they played is called “Iuch.”

It is a popular game in the Balkan villages. I said “mir dita” again and asked if anyone spoke Macedonian. There was silence. “Does anyone speak Greek?” I then asked. Again there was silence. They remained mute and I too remained mute and mute I left to return to my car. “Hey, you!” I heard a voice calling. I turned. “Wait!” said one of the men in Greek as he started coming towards me. “Are you foreigners? What are you doing here?” he asked. “We are visiting,” I said. “Who are you visiting? Are you looking for something?” the man asked without looking into my eyes. He looked to the side and somewhere far away. “We are looking for the road to Trstenik,” I said. “This is what the village was called before.” “There is no such village,” he replied. “How about Trestenik?” I asked, remembering that that is how it was written on the Albanian map. “Yes there is a Trestenik. Turn left and then go straight along the road,” he replied. “Is the road any good?” I asked. “Very good…” he replied. “Thank you. Be well!” I said and left.

After slowly pulling out of the compost heap we turned left, drove down the village lane, scared the chickens off the street at the end of the lane and, after being barked at by every dog we met, came out of the village and got on the “very good” road. We lost track of the many rocks we ran over, the many puddles we drove through and the amount of mud we scattered around, driving along the “very good” road. And as we continued along, a horse drawn carriage came towards us from the opposite direction. The wheels of the carriage jumped as they hit the stones, tilting the carriage sideways and jostling the people riding on it. “Stop the car!” piped up my wife. “Don’t go any further because we will have nothing to return in. The car will be destroyed. Turn around.” I stopped in front of the horse and said “mir dita” through the open window. One of them gave me the same greeting and that was the extent of our conversation. “Trestenik?” I asked while pointing my hand in our forward direction. “Trestenik,” said the man and shook the reins for the horse to get going. I too shook the reins of my car to resume the trek on the “very good” road, constantly wondering how long before we would break down and how many nuts and bolts we were going to sow on this road. The road was rough and full of deep potholes. All around from there to the border of the village was a single flat green valley planted with wheat. There was not an inch of land that was not plowed and planted. We continued to drive and about twenty minutes later we came to the first houses in Trstenik, or as the Albanians call it Trestenik. I remember Trstenik from my childhood days. In those days there were only a few white houses and the yard was surrounded by a high wall. The yard wall was also painted white. Trstenik was then a great Chiflik which included almost the entire field that lies from here to Bilishcha. Trstenik is now a large village but judging from the clothes people wear and the exhaustion and fatigue on their faces, it is a poor village. We greeted the villagers with the customary “mir dita” but we hardly got a response. They were dubious about people who had foreign licence plates on their car and who spoke a foreign language. A tall woman came out of a house and said something in Albanian. We didn’t understand what she said so we asked her if she spoke Macedonian or Greek. She said she spoke very little Greek. She said she was a retired teacher and that she had learned some Greek from her children and grandchildren who work in Greece. Other villagers gathered around us and we found it strange that none would look us in the eyes or in the face. They looked down or far away when we made contact, seeming as if they were telling us to leave this place at once. We told the retired teacher that sixty years ago we had spent a night here, in one of the meadows between Trstenik and Lobanitsa. We also said that the meadows must be behind the hill east of the village and that we very much wanted to see the place. “There is no road that goes there,” she said, “there are only fields.” The bunkers, I thought, one can see the round white concrete covers from here. I said “faleminderit” (thank you in Albanian) but I was not sure if I had said it right because none of the villagers who were gathered around us replied, they just shook their heads and stood there in silence, digging and straightening the soil under their feet with their rubber boots, seemingly wondering when we were going to leave. We didn’t leave immediately because from here I could clearly see my village, my birthplace. Even though I had been there the other day I had a renewed desire to see it again so I stood there for a long time, staring at the beautiful and memorable landscape with tears in my eyes, feeling immense sadness. I was feeling hurt, very hurt being forced to abandon it... It was hard to picture Telok with heavy tears in my eyes... …Yes there, there is Telok beyond the Sveti Iovan church. Every year on May 8th the villagers from the surrounding villages gathered there.

More than ten lambs were roasted on spits and the music and dancing did not stop until way past sundown. To the left is the leafy green Nakovski oak tree grove which my grandfather Giorgi purchased from the Turkish Beg after his first pechalba (migrant work) in America. Past the grove is the Sveta Bogoroditsa church which was destroyed in the fall of 1947 and rebuilt in 1980. Golema Bogoroditsa (The Great Mother), considered the biggest holiday in Krchishta, is celebrated on August 15th. Golema Bogoroditsa was celebrated during Turkish and Greek times, that is until the village was eradicated during the Greek Civil War and Golema Bogoroditsa was completely abandoned… Many people came to visit us that day, not just relatives but also residents from the villages Dolno Papratsko, Novoseleni, Lobanitsa, Kosinets, Dmbeni, Smrdesh, Breznitsa, Vmbel and all those who were working in the cities... I closed my eyes for a moment and I could see people celebrating and full of joy. I stood there with my eyes closed afraid that if I opened them, my memory of that world, like an unforgettable dream, would immediately disappear. Further over is Stenite and beyond that is the chain of mountains – Orle, Odre, Gorusha, Aliavitsa. Is it a dream? Is it a ghost? No, it is real. My birthplace is close; it is so close I just needed to run, cross the little river that divides the two countries and climb on Telok. But here they placed a great divide between our people so that we couldn’t see each other or visit our birthplace. No lamb has been roasted on a spit in Telok for the last sixty years. Krchishta, for the last sixty years, has not celebrated the Great Mother, a celebration held every year on August 15th without fail. For sixty years the Poprashcheni, Novoseltsi, Kosincheni, Lobancheni, Dmbencheni, Smrdesheni, Vmbelcheni have not come to stay with us because they are all gone, swallowed by bad fate and spit all around the world. They uprooted us from our birthplace. They told us that a great battle was coming and that we needed to leave, to go to Albania to save ourselves. A year later they told others, the ones from Koreshtata, that they too needed to leave, to go to Albania to save themselves because a great battle was coming. And from there they put us on ships and sent us to foreign climates under the eaves of others... They relocated us - moved us and told us – “now you’re free”... Our houses are gone, our villages are gone, we are gone, disappeared by name, by home and by people... our foundations too are gone... others brought their own names and made our places their homes. Sixty years have passed in silence without the beating of the drum, the playing of the flute, the ringing of a cowbell, the flocks of sheep taking to the hills, the cry of a newborn, the ringing of the church bell. The hearth has been extinguished and the spark has gone, taken by the wind... That is what someone wished us and that’s exactly how it turned out. From Trstenik, with my fogged-up eyes full of tears, I could see Telok, Stenite and the Sveta Bogoroditsa church. That is all that’s left of my hometown Krchishta when seen from here, so very close but for me so very far... We did not go to the place – the green meadow – where on March 25th, 1948 we spent the night awake, lying on bare ground and covered with moist ferns, waiting for dawn to arrive. We did not go to the place where we spent the night of March 26 where they divided us. We knew which direction to go, but we could not find a path that would take us there. Now the entire place is a field. We did not go there, even though we wanted to, to find the place, to trace our first childhood footsteps in a foreign country and to once again take the same steps on the road that led us to the distant countries. We wanted that very much because it was from here that our one way journey into the world began. We did not forget the place, we remember it well. We also remembered the night filled with quiet, silent, secret and sad sighs involuntarily coming out of our chests…

That night, under a starry sky, hugging one another we, then young children separated from the lap of our mother for the first time, sobbed quietly reflecting the full moon in our tears. Our eyes were filled with stars, one of which broke off and fell, it fell somewhere far and fizzled away. Someone said it broke off someone’s happiness, someone’s destiny... Was it our destiny? The colour of the moon that night was amber, shining warmly non-stop reflecting in our eyes, nailed into the infinity of the starry sky. That night the sky was starry and was cut in the middle, from end to end, by the Milky Way. That is how we remember it... That night we were also burdened with a great desire and hope that soon we would return home and, awake, we awaited the arrival of dawn. As the night came to a close and as the stars high up in the sly were falling asleep, we awaited the day with great hope, while sending the night away with pain… The trucks to take us arrived at dawn and we left Trstenik in silence… We left Trstenik feeling sad but filled with compassion for the people of Trstenik, not only because of their poverty but also because of their silence, their distance and their coldness. Was it because of their lack of hospitality that we felt sad? Definitely not! We believe the people of Trstenik (Trestenik) are not at all like that. In their eyes we could see that they were a different people, good and noble people. Here, perhaps among themselves, there must be something else; what it is we don’t know. But we feel that something is bothering them, something deeply ingrained in them and until we find out what it is we will always be there with them. We left Trstenik and did not throw any stones of doubt behind us against the people for whom we had the warmest and most sincere wishes, for whom we had acceptance for their silence and for whom we had compassion for their bitterness and anguish. From our visit we could see that time stood still here even though the houses had electricity and two tractors were parked in the village square. Everything here seemed like it belonged to the last century. There was a half open wooden gate at the village exit through which, in the yard next to the entrance of the house, we could see a grey concrete bunker. In front of the bunker entrance we saw tall green rye grass growing. The villages in the area were linked by narrow lanes which surely remembered old times and the great impression cultivated soil can make. They were the hallmark of the labour and sweat of these silent people who barely spoke a few words and who did not look you in the eyes, but looked at the ground or away. Later in an interview conducted with a Macedonian in Elbasan, I was told: “It does not surprise me how these people responded. In Enver Hoxha’s Albania every stranger was considered an agent of some sort and anyone who saw them had to immediately report them to the authorities. It seems like you had no idea what terror was. They are still afraid. In those days they terrorized us at every opportunity and fear became part of life, part of everyday life. Fear was the largest and most powerful guardian of the government...” Several meters away from the village exit we found ourselves in the midst of a large flat, level wheat field. Gentle wind was blowing down from the direction of Mount Morava caressing and gently rocking the green wheat stalks and bending their heads in great waves. It was an incredible sight to see, which took our breath away and at the same time made us happy, glad that there was hope for the people here. Soon the wheat would ripen and be harvested and if God was willing there would be bread for everyone… We left the village Trstenik behind us, but all this area on both sides of the village road where wheat grows and stalks wave in gentle waves is also Trstenik. Wheat grows straight up and the heads are loaded with grain. The bread slowly ripens in them. It was a fascinating sight to see this green carpet growing in the heart of the ring of surrounding mountains.

I drove slowly. I drove slowly but not carefully, not constantly looking at the road to avoid rocks and mud puddles. Also I did not look at my watch checking the time. I got the impression that time was darkening and that it was taking us back. The weather cleared up when we arrived at the first houses of the village Visochishta. This is where the pot-holed, stone laden village road ended and the asphalt paved road began. The asphalt was black and it seemed like it was still warm. We stopped and I came out of the car. My wife very quietly asked: “What is it? Did something happen?” “Yes,” I said with a concerned tone of voice. “We have dirtied the asphalt…”