Balkan hitchhiking

"It's way easier than taking the bus, this Balkan hitchhiking", said my new friend Emma after our little trip to Mitrovica in Kosovo. It really is easy: I always got a new ride immediately, never had to wait more than five minutes, when I continued my trip from Prishtina towards Macedonia and Albania. The only thing that made traveling slow was that every driver wanted to invite me for a cup of coffee at a petrol station. :-)

One man even wanted to show me his house. Don't let your imagination fly, his wife was at home and he was honestly just proud of the house he had built himself. This man, Rahman, had moved to Kosovo from Bern, Switzerland. "Here I have freedom", he repeated many times. In Switzerland he had been very stressed; you need a permission for everything, but in Kosovo you can do anything. In Switzerland you pay all kinds of taxes, also for your dog - in Kosovo he has four big dogs. He owns a factory and 10 hectares of land and earns more than he did in Switzerland. We also talked about local salaries. His workers earn 300 EUR/month, a lawyer from Kosovo earns max. 5,000 EUR/month whereas a EULEX lawyer may earn as much as 25,000 EUR/month. I had talked about the salaries with other people, too. According to my CS host Johann a EULEX employee gets 7,000 - 12,000 EUR/month. A boy on the hike told me that her mother, a doctor, earns only 300 EUR/month. Of course I was also curious about the war. Rahman had seen people getting killed and after that he had cried almost every day for 4-5 years.

A Macedonian man who gave me a ride from the border to Skopje, the capital, was extremely helpful: he suggested to meet me after a couple of hours when I would have done my sightseeing and then take me outside of the centre to a good hitchhiking spot. There was a lot of construction going on in the centre of Skopje. Erecting a triumphal arc or Roman columns seemed a bit strange to me, though - we live in the 21st century after all, shouldn't they come up with some more modern ideas?! Anyways, a city that has mountains around is always pleasant and I liked the art galleries in an old mosque and hammam as well as the pedestrian streets in the old town.

The last driver of the day was Asmir, a 21-year-old (that day was his birthday!) Muslim boy with a trendy hairstyle. He was the first person here who has asked me to fasten my seatbelt! Asmir was delivering some sales articles to his father's 99-shop, where everything costs 99 MKD (~1.5 EUR). He works 7 days a week, from 7 am to 9 pm; in wintertime he can finish earlier. Sometimes he can take a day off, but usually he meets his friends after work; they go for a coffee for an hour. His friends drink on weekends, but Asmir's parents don't let him join them, because he must work. The friends are unemployed, living on their parents' money. Young people don't have much interest in studies, because anyways they won't get a job. The unemployment rate is about 40 %, like in Kosovo. Asmir had studied economy, but dropped out after the first year, because it was too expensive (2,000 EUR/year). The average salary in Macedonia is 200 EUR/month, a police earns 250 EUR; factory workers, sellers at markets and petrol station workers earn 150 EUR. All of Asmir's cousins are working in Switzerland and in the summer they come back with their fancy cars.

When Asmir was 16 he was dreaming of a career as a football player, but then he had to start working at his father's shop. He seemed to have a respectful attitude towards his father. He has a girlfriend and they might get married after three years. Now it was too early to talk about it. I told about the high divorce rate in Finland and he said that a divorce is accepted in his culture, too, but "if you start something you should take it to the end". You shouldn't only look at the bad things, but notice also the good things. When I asked about the general attitude towards gay people he replied: "Gays here are losers!" At the Gay Parade in Skopje all the participants had gotten beaten up. "How can you love a man if there is woman, who is more beautiful?" Asmir asked.

Asmir prays once a week, on Fridays, which is an important day for Muslims. His uncle says he should pray more often (5 times per day is the rule), but Asmir thinks it takes so much time and he's still young. I was very thankful for Asmir for the ride and also the local food, burek, he bought me on the way. He refused to take any money from me, he just said I could offer him food when he comes to Finland. Obviously, he's not coming to Finland, and even if he did, he wouldn't find me, as we didn't change contact information. I told him he's a good person and probably gets to heaven even if he doesn't pray often enough. Then we laughed that even if we wouldn't meet in Finland we might meet in heaven. If heaven does exist, I suppose it's the same heaven for Muslims and Christians.

I stayed the night in Ohrid and for the first time on this trip payed for my accommodation. The next day I did some sightseeing and swam in the lake, which had so clear and refreshing water. In the afternoon I started hitchhiking to Tirana, Albania. From the border I got a ride to Elbasan in a truck. The driver, Slagjan, was from Macedonia and had been driving the truck for 21 years from Macedonia all the way to Italy, Spain and Germany. He spoke some Italian, which I could understand a bit based on my Spanish skills. "This is getting interesting", I thought when he asked me how much a woman costs in Finland. How on earth would I know?! I've never bought a woman in Finland, neither worked as a prostitute. The price, he told me, is 10 EUR in Macedonia, 5 EUR in Albania and 20 EUR in Italy. I took the conversation as small talk and didn't feel myself threatened, neither was afraid. I was "bene donna", as he told me, and was dropped off in Elbasan where I hitched another ride to Tirana, where I met my Couchsurfing host Enkel.