Walking Down Srebrniceva
Foreword with Hindsight

This piece revolves around my living arrangements during my first nine months in Slovenia, from November 1996 to July 1997 (I'd arrived in mid- October but spent the first couple of weeks in hotel rooms before finding rental housing). At that point, overcome with homesickness, I packed my bags and returned to the States, only to confront the question: What now? After several months of struggling with that issue, I arrived at a solution: in November of '97 I returned to Ljubljana, where at this writing I remain.

My first days in Slovenia were difficult, and not only because of the language barrier or my rather primitive living arrangements (which I later found were not typical of Ljubljana, but which nevertheless proved useful to me, a city boy, in terms of learning things like patience, finding beauty in nature, and appreciation of simplicity). My initial contacts with "the natives" were less than encouraging; I soon found that many young Slovenes considered themselves sophisticated Euros with nothing to learn from an American or wanting anything much to do with one. "So you have come to teach us English?" said the computer sysop at the KUD France Preseren student center, with something between a sneer and a laugh; on another occasion, he made a completely out-of-the-blue reference to "the inescapable United States government" (point well taken) and a couple of other students, upon learning of my nationality, took it upon themselves to complain about the bureaucratic tangle they had to go through to visit my country, as if I was personally responsible for this (these being the last days when Slovenes still needed tourist visas to visit the US; of course, the Slovenes were no strangers to bureaucratic tangles from their own government, as I well know from my own experiences with it).

Most resident Westerners seemed hardly any better; the Brits, in particular, were patronizing and clubby and one of them, at an "expat nite" I attended shortly after moving to Ljubljana, remarked that in coming to their little preserve (their secret, I inferred; no Yanks need apply) I'd given myself "a very hard row to hoe, in-DEED."

All the people I met weren't like that, and I hung in, and eventually found friends, and kindness, and a niche of sorts. But you never forget your first impressions of a new country, your first few seasons...

Spring: Ljubljana became a better place to live than I ever thought it could be

I'd moved in October 1996 to Ljubljana, the capital of the Republic of Slovenia, which prior to 1991 had been the northernmost region of Yugoslavia. The constant autumn rain that accompanied my first months in my new home, and the gray, wet, dreary winter that followed, became merely unpleasant memories as Februar gave way to Marec on the koledar, and slush and early, unseen sunsets surrendered to a series of crisp, clear, increasingly warmer days. The women up the street on the small farm (or, if you prefer, house with a large fertile yard) began engaging in an endless turning over of the soil, which brought up lettuce and corn, first achingly slow to come, then densely greening the half-acre with the total certainty that possesses the most basic things. The Slovene tourist board calls their homeland "the green piece of Europe," and from all I've seen, they're right.

Welcome to my neighborhood: You'll never walk alone

Every day, returning home from my daily ventures, I stepped off either the number 9 or 19 bus at the Gostilna Breskvar (or Peach Inn) and, turning sharply right, walked with my fellow commuters down a narrow sidewalk to a modest concrete pillar, marked with painted-on barbed wire, commemorating the World War II-era boundary where such wire had actually stretched. Through the war, Ljubljana, occupied first by the Italians, then by the Germans, was a sealed city where most citizens were denied free entry or exit. Past the post, I continued over the Mali Graben (Little Canal), a creek with a combination Slovene-German name. After a heavy rain the waters would rise sullen and brown with mud, and leaves and branches would float downstream. The creek marked the symbolic boundary of my neighborhood, Rakova Jelsa, on the city's swampy southern outskirts. Occasionally, when I'd mention that name to a Slovene acquaintance, they'd react with dismay if not outright horror: "Oh, my God. That's where gangsters live...low-life kinds of people." I later discovered (long after I'd left) that Rakova Jelsa was locally notorious as the base of the "Ljubljana mafia," and was heavily populated with Albanians and others from the southern Yugoslav lands, traditional targets of Slovene snobbery. In my eight months there, though, I never had any trouble with the locals outside of the occasional surly grocery clerk. From what I could tell -- which may not have been much -- the majority seemed to be salt-of-the-earth working stiffs and their kids. The one thing all Rakova Jelsans had in common was the lack of a bus stop (one was rumored to be coming, but it's three years on and they're still waiting). There are no streetlights on Srebrniceva, and when night falls only faint illumination comes from the houses. At first, walking home late was scary.

Because of the lack of a bus stop, most of the occupants of the 9 and 19 buses, including me, would disembark at the Breskvar, and walk well accompanied through rain and snow and fog and lovely weather. Walking the ten minutes in either direction from home to the bus stop, one rarely lacked for companions at any time, day or night.

Ahead on the right, after the Mali Graben and usually some mud puddles, came the Pri Jelsa grocery store, which I generally avoided because the staff's abrasiveness had an adverse effect on my otherwise serviceable grocery-shopping Slovene. The Branka-B store, another grocery with a detached fruit-stand shed, had much friendlier employees, especially Branka herself, the store's namesake and the owner's daughter. Branka was perhaps 19 or 20. Her family lived above the grocery, and Branka was almost always around. If you wanted lettuce, cucumbers or carrots, you would tell Branka and in a minute she would meet you in the dim, moist interior of the fruit shack, weigh your purchases on a non-electronic scale, and charge you a pittance. She spoke good English, and was happy to speak either that or basic Slovene with you.

Take your purchases and walk or bicycle back up the short, dusty Branka-B driveway, glance at the lone Telefon booth placed Edward Hopper-like off by its lonesome at the crossroads opposite, turn left, continue half a block, and turn down another, longer road paved with cracked, uneven and potholed asphalt, Srebrniceva ulica, past a small aluminum sign with the legend EL-PLAST, just below the street sign. Small businesses were mixed on my street with residential housing (and the small farm) with nary a thought to zoning. Small dogs would race out, barking, nipping at my ankles or barking confined by a closed gate; the farther down Srebrniceva I ventured, the larger the dogs got. POZOR HUD PES, beware of dog, read the signs on the gates. Onward I trudged, past the place I mentally dubbed McHribar's Farm; it had a chicken coop patrolled by a rooster or two that sounded more like roosters than any I'd ever heard, cockadoodledooing at a hat's drop. The place was bedecked by colorful weathervanes and garden gnomes, along with a pack of tiny, eternally yapping mongrels. The ever-present gardeners were the lady of the house, a middle-aged Mother Courage figure in a bandanna, occasionally assisted by another woman, of indeterminate age, whom I imagined to be Mother Courage's daughter, or sister-in-law, or perhaps both.

And yet onward, past the fancy late-model cars and the eccentrically decorated houses (one featuring a huge spider crawling up a whitewashed brick wall; upon close inspection you could see the spider was painted on, shadow and all, a masterful job). Huge canvas-sided trucks sat right and left, and in a lot right across from number 52, my home. Immediately before arriving at number 52, on your right you encounter two huge German shepherds behind wooden fences. The second invariably runs behind the gate to the end, then sneaks up on you (at least in his mind), sticking his head over the gate and throatily barking. "Tiho, neumni pes," you mutter in response. Shut up, stupid dog. I saw you coming a mile away. (Oddly enough, whenever the dogs were allowed to run free, they bothered no one but stood still and silent in the center of the road.) Central Ljubljana is charming and, if anything, a bit over-civilized, but at those times walking home after dark, going the last few hundred yards to key-in-lock and lights on, the thought, "I'm in the former Yugoslavia!" sometimes flashed into my head. When I occasionally borrowed my landlady's bicycle and pedaled home after dark, I zoomed down the center of the road by feel and instinct. All the dogs would then commence barking in a sped-up version of the usual chain reaction. Srebrniceva was a great place for stargazing on clear nights; I saw Comet Hale-Bopp more than once in the spring, a smudge low across the sky like a half-erased chalk mark.

Before sunset, throw into the equation a half-dozen neighborhood kids playing in the street and in the yards; launching themselves off a small home-made skateboard ramp, roller skating, bicycling up and down the street. Ksenija, the 12-year-old daughter of my landlady and landlord, would usually be among them, preferring the company of her juniors. My favorite kid eventually became Monika, five or six years old, a plump, dark-haired bundle of energy who lived in an upstairs apartment in "our" house. One day she faced me and declared squarely, in English, "I am Monika." I was immediately captivated, and started teaching her English words and phrases, which she learned in the rapid fashion of kids her age. After about six months, Monika's big brother, Aleksandr, whom everybody called Aco ("atso"), eventually started speaking to me in broken English, except when I spoke to him in broken Slovene. Aco and Monika lived upstairs with their parents, who had once actually owned the house but, Aco explained, sold it to Goran and Bojana a couple of years back although they continued to live there.

Continue another half-block past home base and you'll dead-end in gravel, loose stones and trash at the edge of the Ljubljanica River, with the occasional passing kayak or canoe. (See the rower waving at you? Wave back.) But there'll be plenty of time for that later; for now, turn in at the gate, walk past the two black puppies yelping as they nip at your ankles and place their front paws against your lower legs, hang a left, acknowledge the ladder propped up against one of the two cherry trees, bid a sober "dan" to Bojana or Ksenija or whoever's around, maybe inquiring about any phone messages; turn the key in the lock, and you're home.

Nothing too extraordinary ever happened on my street during my residency. Farmers farmed, homeowners put cement mixers in their driveways and endlessly renovated, and the next-door neighbor widened his driveway to accommodate his trucking fleet. On Saturday, April 26, a family a few houses away held a wedding reception, complete with an accordion player in hat and suspenders. Red, white and blue streamers decorated a sign hanging across their gateway which read Zivela Nevesta In Zenin (Long live the bride and groom).

How to build a garage in Slovenia: as close to my window as possible

I lived in a simply furnished one-bedroom apartment attached to the main house, where my landlord and family resided, though I had a separate entrance. I came to love the closeness to nature that I found just outside my front door, although not when it found its way inside -- I could have done without the mosquitoes and spiders invading my living quarters as the weather warmed, or the increasing dampness. On the other hand, there were cherries ripe for the picking in our yard, flowers and greenery, dogs and children: in short, life in full bloom. It was a state of affairs taken for granted by everyone else on Srebrniceva. Nature seemed to be considered something to use, rather than just for admiration; something beautiful, but also a base for this nation of do-it-yourselfers to build on. (As small as Slovenia is, the population is so spread out that there's plenty of space to go around in this basically rural land.)

As the corn on Old McHribar's Farm became as high as a slon's eye, my landlord, Goran, commenced the building of a new free-standing garage just outside my bedroom window. First the old, inadequate garage was knocked down; then was poured the gray cement foundation, then rose the red brick walls, then the rude roof beams. Almost all of this was done by hand, mostly by a poor schmo from down the block named Grozek. The perpetually unshaven Grozek was a good-natured fellow who resembled Robert DeNiro in a fright wig and an orange jumpsuit. Aco from upstairs dug the ditches and helped with the roof beams and other tasks, and Goran himself climbed to the roof on inspection/fixup tours that lasted until the last fading rays of daylight, after nine p.m. in June and July. One day I took a picture of Grozek cementing bricks, in a smiling pose with trowel raised high. When I gave him a copy brezplacno (no charge), he squeezed my shoulder with happiness.

My landlord's family

Bojana: a young-looking grandmother via a previous marriage. Bojana sells Tupperware, which she pronounces "tooper-vareh," and speaks approximately seven words of English. She isn't actually married to Goran, although they have a daughter. We became friendly, and once in a while she'd bring me a piece of pie or a dish of cold pasta, and when English-speaking friends would visit, she'd invite me into her well-appointed kitchen for a cup of strong Slovene coffee and translated conversation. Bojana kept careful account of my share of the utilities and the telephone bills. The latter are universally complained about, as the phone company is still a monopoly and charges exorbitant rates for calls outside the national borders, even to neighboring Austria, Italy or Croatia. As individual calls are not recorded in the bills, and requesting itemizations costs extra, my bill was based on an estimate, and my kept promise not to call outside of Slovenia. Goran: Speaks a gruff kind of dialect but a few more words of English than Bojana. Flannel-shirt handyman type. Adult daughter from his own previous marriage, who keeps in touch by phone and occasional visit. Goran's daytime activities remained a mystery to me. He keeps a nude centerfold hanging on the wall in his home office. Daughter Ksenija: Never spoke to me in English even though forced to learn a good bit in school. Shy; most at home around kids considerably younger. Is thinking of studying in America at a future time, or so Aco told me. Typical 12-year-old girl's room, with Flintstones- motif furniture and posters of the revoltingly cute Kelly Family musical group (huge in Europe) all over the place.

Leaving home

In July, on my last afternoon in Ljubljana, I packed my bags and prepared some food for myself and my friend Irena, a graphic designer who always seemed glad to see me when I went to the KUD student center to check my e-mail on its computers. Irena had agreed to give me a lift to the bus station. She met me at KUD in her big American-style station wagon, and I directed her to Srebrniceva in my best Slovene accent. We sat outside at the picnic table. We shared an exquisite Belgian Chimay beer and Hungarian chocolates, the kind with a liquid cherry center awash in cognac. I set out cold cuts and green grapes and an apple or two and we drank Egri Bikaver (Bull's Blood), the famous Hungarian red wine. We talked and smiled and I got little Monika to speak a bit of English for Irena.

I eventually finished "packing" my aging canvas bags -- shoving them closed and straining at the zippers would be a more accurate description -- and hefted them into Irena's car. I walked back towards the house and shook hands with Goran, who wished me luck, and a smiling Ksenija, to whom I said, in English, "See you in America," to general laughter. Then a kiss and an embrace for Bojana, and a kiss for Monika. "Adijo!" said Monika, breaking my heart. Ah- dee-yo.

"Bye!" I called out the window, with an edge of sorrow in my voice, as we drove off in the gathering darkness. I didn't want to go. I really didn't want to go.

But I left Srebrniceva ulica.

Driving to the bus station, Irena's car stopped behind one with a Bosnia and Herzegovina license plate. They're far from home, I remarked. "As far from home as they are," Irena replied gleefully, "they're still closer to home than you are!"

"To je res," I responded. That's true.

"To je res," said Irena.

Why did I go to Slovenia in the first place? After all this time, I still can't give an answer that's completely satisfactory, even to myself. There were also many difficulties, but none of them seem to matter now and I'd give almost anything to get back to that yard with the cherry trees and yapping puppies, and teach Monika some more words of English.

The names of some of the people in this story (and the number of the street address) have been changed. Everything else is true.
©2000-2002 Wes Eichenwald. This story may not be reproduced in any manner, written or electronic, without express permission from the author.