Last week I was in Serbia to take photographs for an article about the roma people living there. This was a great experience which included meeting a lot of interesting people who was living in these camps or trying to help them.
The main problem the Roma in Serbia has today is that they have no type of identification. There is a possibility to go to another town to get this, but the trip plus the cost for the identification can be as much as 150 euro per person, which is of course impossible to save up to when you don’t even have money for your daily food. Without identification you are not allowed to get an apartment, hospital treatment or to work, which means no income. A lot of the people collects and returns paper though which barely gives enough money for food. The rest lives from food found in the trash.
The second problem is that these people have no fixed place to stay and are unwanted everywhere. A lot of them move to Belgrade in the belief that it is easier for them to find a job there. Some tries to go to other countries with trucks, paying with their last money/jewelry/possessions, to find themselves get thrown back to Serbia again. When they arrive they get left outside by the police (that follows them from the country throwing them out) outside the Belgrade airport with no money, no information and no idea where to go. Most end up on the streets and after some time hopefully move into one of the about 150 Roma camps in Belgrade, which is houses of cardboard built up on a trash yard. After some years the government will destroy the camp to be able to build on that ground, and you will have to start from the beginning again.
Most of the Roma children don’t go to school because of the parents needing them to work instead, begging or collecting paper. On top of this they can’t afford to pay for the food the children need to buy if going to school. Also, if the children is born or have lived the main part of their life in another country they can’t speak or understand the Serbian language which will disable them in school.
The pictures below is from one of the camps I visited, this one in Belgrade. The spirit of all the people I met was very high and everyone being very positive and warm, although they have been informed that their camp will be totally destroyed to the ground within two months because it disturbs the view of a newly built modern house with expensive apartments, where by the way their old camp were placed before getting destroyed. They will probably not be told the exact date and the government will not allow photographers or other media people on the place when this happens.
The old camp was destroyed to make place for the building in the background. In two months time this camp will be destroyed for creating a better view for the people living in the new building.. No replacement living place will be offered to the people living in the camp.
Just back to Bulgaria and the first weekend happen to be the opening season of rafting, great! One of my friends was earlier in the Bulgarian rafting team and last weekend I joined her to do the first rafting of the year. Below you can see the pictures from these days.
I realize it was a while since i wrote here. I’ve now moved back to Sofia about two weeks ago and have done a lot of things, but most of all, spending time with my friends here. On top of this one friend from Milan came to visit Bulgaria, and we rented a car for a day trip to Veliko Ternovo. This is the old capital of Bulgaria and a very beautiful picturesque city. Below you will find some of my pictures from this trip.
Tomorrow I will go on a trip to visit friends & family in Italy, Sweden & Denmark. When I return to Sofia I will write a blog post with tips on how to pack your travel bag small & efficient.
For the first time when I’m in a new country I miss my “real home”, which for now is Sofia in Bulgaria for me. I miss friends, the wonderful people in general, the nature (most of all the mountains), trekking, sports (indoor climbing and so on), warm thermal springs, the great tasting (and varied) food, drinking coffee while walking and a lot more. I also miss being on the road…
That’s why I will be going to Sofia tonight and stay for about a week. What I don’t miss is the cold weather and I know Sofia is covered in snow right now, while Istanbul will be extra warm this week. But I really don’t care right now, and I also left some winter clothes in storage in Sofia so that shouldn’t be a problem (I didn’t bring them to Istanbul because I thought it would be warmer here).
Too bad my Turkish flatmate couldn’t join me this time, would be fun to show him Bulgaria, but I know there will be more opportunities in the future. And when I come back to Sofia next week I will have visitors from Spain and Sweden which I also look forward to! Until then, enjoy some random pictures below from the last week here in Turkey:
Sunset in Istanbul
Istiklal street in Istanbul, with an ocean of heads
A common sight in Istanbul's suburbs
Building construction in Istanbul with low security for the workers
When you meet someone special, should you stay in/move to their country to be a part of their life, but at the same time give up your own dreams and goals? Or should you let that person do the same (if they want) to stay in your country or travel around with you?
I guess on both questions the answer should be NO.
After one week in Sofia I start to see and feel some differences between my last living place, Torrevieja, and here in Sofia.
Most obvious are the weather. From having to hide from the sun in Spain (still in October!) to having to buy more winter clothes in cold Sofia. Some days ago I was trekking up in the mountains in the outskirts of Sofia in the middle of the night to watch a meteor shower with a group of Couchsurfers, and it was below zero degrees with frost. Good think we had blankets and vodka.
Another difference is that almost everyone here speaks English or at least understands it. As usual people are a little bit shy in the beginning to speak but after a while you realize they are quite good at it. I’m still throwing out Spanish words by mistake, but have started to go to a language exchange to learn Bulgarian, as well as practicing the Cyrillic alphabet.
People here are really warm and helpful, but they seem to be wherever I travel. Just some people ignore you in the street when you ask for directions, but that is nothing new either. The rest stops and help you for 15 minutes, showing the path and distance on their GPS and so on. Maybe it sometimes have a small connection with how secure people are with speaking in English.
The prices here are incredible for still being inside Europe (almost comparable to Asia in some cases). You can get a kebab or slice of pizza for 60 cent, normal restaurant food for 3 euro, rent a central apartment with high standard for 200 euro a month, or a central room for 80 euro. Every time you get the bill somewhere it gives you a big smile =).
The food is great. Not only cheap as I mentioned above, but the variety and quality of the food here is really good, and I find so many food dishes here that I have never seen before. On top of that they need to write how many grams every dish is in the menu (it’s the law), which is very helpful. Be prepared though that it can take a lot of time to get the food, and that you won’t get it at the same time if you are a large company dining together.
So far I really like it here and plan to stay for at least 3 months (until January). In this time I will also check out other cities and countries close by as this area has a lot of unexplored places for me.
For the last week I have been traveling and meeting people so I’m a little bit late with the postings in this blog. Anyway, one week ago I went to Granada (on my path Torrevieja -> Granada -> Fuengirola -> Madrid -> Sofia). I was supposed to meet and stay at one CouchSurfers place, but she never answered my calls so I found a cheap central hostel instead. For me it’s always worth living central in a city just to save time, if not the bus/metro-ride itself is interesting or the area you have found. In New York for example I lived in the outskirts of Manhattan in wonderful Spanish Harlem which is a must see in my eyes, and still close to the Hyde Park and the rest of New York if you have good walking boots.
Ok so now back to the topic. Granada was just lovely as every Spanish person I’ve ever met before have told me. A lot of tourists of course, but still very easy to find “hidden” spots you can have for yourself or to spend time with locals. One of the highlights of the city was my walk up to the hills in Sacromonte. There are a lot of people here living for free in caves where they have furniture and all the living capacities they need. I had heard that there was a museum where you can see one of these caves, but I could not find it and just climbed up the hills random. Suddenly I was lucky and walked straight into the area where all these caves are.
Sacromonte caves in Granada
The best thing with this area was that it was totally deserted of tourists, apart from a group of 7 young persons I met and joined. These persons were local students that had just arrived 2 weeks before from Canada, France and Poland. After looking at the cave area we had a picnic break and then did some more trekking up the hills for some hours. Finally we found the way back and went to one of the guys apartment. After some drinks and snacks we went on to his favorite Marrakesh restaurant. The food and tee was great, as for the company, but the best thing was the restaurant owner who spoke 7 languages fluent (Arabic, Berber, Spanish, French, English, German and Italian)! He was also able to switch between them without a problem, sometimes in one and the same sentence. And his humor was great, joking around with us and sitting down at our table for a long time with the result that the food became almost cold before we started eating. Great day and evening and always fun with new friends!
More caves in Sacromonte, these even with solar power
Alhambra in Granada, view from the Sacromonte caves
Picnic and later trekking with Granadian students from Canada, France and Poland
It’s the last day here in Torrevieja and I’m thinking back to all the people I have met here. A lot of them I have met in my favorite pub and the rest I have invited to that place instead. This place is like my second living room and is very relaxed with great and interesting people. I’m not sure if I ever felt so home and relaxed as there, which of course makes it even more hard to live this city and its people.
Every Sunday (and also unplanned jam sessions) some friends who are in a band called Brainfood Soundsystem plays live reggae at “my” place. I love the positive energy of these guys and here you can find a sample:
For the last 10 years I have gave money to different kinds of charities. Some year ago I found Kiva (thanks to my mother), an organization which allows you to easily do microloans to a big part of the world where it is really needed.
The website gives you opportunity to browse through the database of people that need a loan. All these loans are for misfortuned people that wants to make their own income through starting an own business, instead of just getting money for the moment. Usually these people can’t go to a regular bank because they don’t have money to secure the loan, they have no credit record as they have never been employed before, or they are not able to fill in the paperwork as they are illiterate.
For each person in the database you will see their business idea and how much they want to loan. You don’t personally have to loan the whole amount to them, instead you put in as much money as you want and other persons do the same until the amount is collected.
When you have loaned out money you will get regular reports from Kiva about your loans and repayments. You are never guaranteed to get the money back, and you don’t earn any interest on these money. As you get your money back, you can relend them to other entrepreneurs, or you can select to withdraw them.
The minimum amount to get started is only $25, so you have no reason why not to do it! This is also a great long lasting present to give to someone.
Today I talked with the guy who will rent an apartment to me in Sofia, Bulgaria, because I wanted to know where and how to get the keys when arriving two weeks from now. He then told me that he had changed his mind about renting out the apartment. This puts me in an interesting situation as I already have bought the tickets to Bulgaria and canceled my current apartment here in Spain. I was in an (angry) shock.
Lucky for me the weather here has also changed from rainy storm to a warm blue sky. As I needed a break I went down to the beach for a swim right after sending out some requests to people about a new apartment. The beach had already been somewhat renovated and had just the right amount of people (mostly locals) suntanning. The water was clear and warm, not full of trash as I thought it would be after the floodings. When I came back to the apartment one hour later I already had two mails about apartments in Sofia, so everything looks bright again. I also found places to stay in Granada and Madrid which I will see on the way to Sofia.
This should be a lesson to me to have backup plans more often, but also a good knowledge that whatever happens everything usually works out anyway.
