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Memories from Serbia 1

Date: December 2016

So my sister and I arrived without a plan, to find a hostel janitor who speaks no English and could only smile politely at my attempt to speak Serbian by speaking Polish with an accent. The room's underheated and there's a funky smell in the bog.

Day two improved as it mainly consisted in drinking in every pub we could find. All are thick with smoke and feel like reentering the best parts of a mispent youth. One pub had a fire, the next a cat, and we even found an old man ranting about politics in a thick Serbian accent.

'Fucking Bastards NATO' he told us. '5 thousand dead. Is that justified? Just bombing people?'.

I gave him my most innocent and gormless look and asked why NATO were bombing Serbia.

"Many theories" he said, and changed the subject.

I suppose that's not wrong.

Finally the next day we managed to start the actual mission and met up with some people involving themselves with the local refugees. Modern internet babble constantly talks about the virtues of 'lived experience' instead of bothering to read a book (or even Wikipedia), and since I've barely managed that I was very curious about what was going on, but asking anyone about their 'lived experience' was the last thing I wanted to do. The last time I was working with refugees in the UK I once asked someone the basics - "What's your name? Where are you from?", and received some hours of a story involving the murder of his family, torture at the hands of the Taliban and rather a lot of crying. Asking people what they did and 'what's Afghanistan like these days?' as I would with the German backpackers seemed insensitive.

Nevertheless I did get a very dry account from an Engineer of some sort. I could barely pronounce the title - 'Executive civil maintenance constructions engineer for the ...' something something. The Taliban had a tendency to target the educated. He was working with the local government and one contacted him to simply say he should quit his job or lose his head. He travelled on foot through various countries in order to get to the EU but like so many here had been stopped at the borders leaving Serbia. People who attempt to cross the borders are 'pushed back' as they say, which was then illustrated by smartphone pictures of a young teenager beaten with blunt instruments until the skin split open across his face and hands. The engineer is currently sleeping under a shelter by a bus stop, and some thousands more sleep in an abandoned house five minutes from the busy city centre. He has no set plan on how to cross the border or when he will try. According to local activists and refugees a wire fence goes the full length of Hungary and Croatia, the GPS in their phones alert local authorities any time someone nears the fence. Armed militias with aggressive dogs patrol the borders and the dogs are sent out in packs to sniff for people who might be crossing. Any suspicion activates drones to go to the area to scout for people which can then send in the teams of people with batons.

I was soon after introduced to the kid who'd been 'pushed back'. He'd healed well, and the story was told to me again as people patted his head, as if to indicate he'd been a cheeky sod and he gave the kind of awkward smile that suggested he'd just been busted stealing his father's cigarettes.

The locals have a mixed reaction to the refugees but certainly not all bad. One man has set up a burger selling van next to where some hundreds of refugees sleep, giving away cheap, hot food. I imagine he's making a killing.

The next day we got up at 8am to work with another organisation - Hot Food Idomeni, the only people in Belgrade giving out hot food. They once had a caravan to prepare food but that burnt down in an accident involving a heater, so they're now inside an old car-wash. We arrived frozen, but quickly moved the room past boiling point as a dozen volunteers from Germany, England, Poland, Ireland and Scotland cut vegetables for a few hours to make pots of soup around 80cm tall each. We made three pots all in all - about enough for 900 meals of vegan soup - then cling-filmed them shut to take them in a van to one of the main refugee areas.

Many of the refugees manage to have enough funds sent over from home for some food or gloves and a coat. Ponchos are very popular at this time of year. Others have nobody to send over money, so for this lot, this charity is the only meal they get every day. Those with enough food typically wait at the side and refuse any soup so others can have multiple portions.

The Germans, true to stereotype, were both heavily involved in making sure that the food was there at a predictable hour and that everyone stands in line. As people are hungry many push forward a little, and a little jostling in a group of some hundreds can become a serious problem. Many of the children see the queue and its control as a game and clearly enjoy sneaking in (obviously) early and getting caught, or pointing to someone in line with a cheeky smile and telling you that person is queue jumping.

Despite the issues, they all maintain a good sense of humour, and royally took the piss out of my sister's hair (shaved at the sides).

The whole experience was full of very new decisions. Children were always allowed to cut in line, receiving food immediately. One young person arriving prompted a decision - was he a child or not? I noticed a little bum-fluff on his lip, and said 'today, you are a man. Back of the line'.

Just as with NATO there are many theories about the refugee crisis. A few UK newspapers have proposed they're just trying to scrounge off our local Job Centre Plus. In this case, people should probably tell our engineer friend about the recent sanctions and presumably he'll start walking back to Afghanistan. Alternative theories suggest that since the UK have been selling arms which landed in the hands of various militias working in Afghanistan, we should stop selling arms to them.

Whatever your theory, if you want to send anything along (and pay for some excellent vegan soup) you can send a Christmas Donation along to this organisation, who could do with some more carrots and some very large kettles. Afghanis usually take their tea black with four to ten sugars.

[ Hot Food Idomeni no longer works in Serbia ]