It Is Whatever

Sunday 28 October

I awake to a tribal-like Sid crouching over me in the sofa bed. “What the hell d’ya think you were playin’ at?” Sid insists. I don’t know what he’s banging on about but eventually remember thinking that in my sleep I thought I was Mr’s Sid but Sid was still Sid. It wasn’t homosexual at all. Just unfortunate.

Jumped in a taxi and headed towards a refugee camp. It’s pretty grim. We are greeted by Milo and his family whom we met last year. They welcomed us in to their home where we sat around and drinking tea and playing recorder and tin whistle. Sid asks if they mind him snapping some photos. They don’t.

The entire camp is a row of corrugated metal and timber structures. Gino explains that everything around us, tables, chairs, oven, fridge, T.V. It’s all been found or salvaged. “Now that’s recycling!” Gino quipps. He’s right. These people are fantastic.

We head outside and start walking about. Sid’s clicking away. We head into the toilet. It’s one toilet block for all the families. It stinks. It’s got no door and inside is one steel sink about 2 metres long and covered in green fungus. The row of cubicled toilets are like those old french ones: the hole in the ground. None of the cubicles has a door on it. “Jeez!” we all take turns in saying intermittently. It stinks real bad. Sid stopped taking photos at this point. I argued that he should be taking some. He didn’t.

Out in the fresh air a group of kids had gathered to view us from afar. The seem to love my cowboy hat and boots. An old granny comes out to sweep her step. I remember when Ireland used to have grannies like that. We walk some more about the place. There’s a pig housed up in a sty which must have room for at least two more pigs. Literally. There was a bunch of pumpkins stored in the eaves of one home. Eventually the bus pulled up and we all climbed in and I began singing Prince songs at the kids.

We arrive at Sirona, a boat which has had Maradona onboard if we are to believe the photographic evidence. There’s already Jelena and the rest of her kids from yesterday’s camp. About 100 or so. Aware that it might look like there was favouritism with us arriving with the other kids I shook hands individually with all of Jelena’s new batch explaining that it was great to meet them and that I hope they have a fun time. They all have their photo and want to have their picture taken with me, Gino, me and Gino or just of themselves.

Onboard it’s great fun. George and Dimitri are already onboard. As are the tango dancers. They’re all below deck gearing up. Jelena decides it’s best to have the kids her kids inside the boat at all times as it’s just no safe for them to be in a position where they could lob themselves or each other overboard.

After 10 minutes when all the kids are running all over the whole of the boat some music starts playing up on the top deck. Jelena’s kids are breakdancing and giving it all that. The other kids, the ones living out in the camp we were at this morning, just look on in amazement. It was pretty obvious that they’d never seen anything like it.

All the kids are ordered downstairs for the entertainment. The tango dancers take the floor. They are poised. The kids look on. I begin to play and sing Amapola to which the dancers move. Then I play Tom Waits’ In The Neighbourhood. The kids seem to love it. Then George comes out and begins his magic show. It’s going great. Until, well kids just aren’t designed to be stationary if for long periods of time when there’s a whole boat to explore. They vote with their feet. Still some stay on and catch the second dance performance from the tango dancers. George does some more magic and then Dimitri comes on and does his bit. They’re very serious magicians. Then there’s the big finale which George insists we have all the kids in the room for. I miss it as I’m trying to negotiate with the captain to give us 10 minutes after docking so the kids can have good old dance. That’s all they want to do. The captain agrees, George’s finale is over and the kids are now on the floor ripping away. It’s great. I see the best thing I think I’ve seen all weekend: two very different kids from two different camps with surely two very different stories having a dance with each other. I think this is the one photo Sid never captured over the weekend. He was busy outside snapping other things and that was the trouble: there was too much to capture.

We dock and Milo and his kids head off home after we bid them farewell. Jelena has organised that her kids get to go to McDonalds. I walk the 100 or so kids through the centre of of Belgrade playing songs like 1999, The Sash – a song played by orangemen in Northern Ireland – and the theme music to Escape To Victory. The general public greats us with confused contentment.

We feed the kids and bring them back through the city centre and to the bus. Never played the banjo in the rain before. It sounds more thuddy than plinky. Say goodbye to kids and head off ourselves to Mirko’s.

Cup of tea and then Slobbo, Jasmina’s friend, pops up. Gino instantly suggests that I move out here and move in with Slobbo and the two of us live happily ever after. “Sure why not?”, he asks. Slobbo invites us all out for a drink so we leave Mirko to his soccer and jump into Slobbo’s brand new Yugo car. Didn’t know they still made them.

Slobbo is a fast driver and generally a very abrupt lady. A no-nonsense woman. The chemistry that Gino tells us all that exists between Slobbo and I cracks Sid up. We finish our drink and head back to Jelena’s to pick up her kids’ cameras. Slobbo’s a scary driver. It’s just the Serbian way.

We hang out with Jelena for a while. We’re late for her and we’re going to be late for George also. We been late all weekend. We have a laugh with Jelena and say sorry to George who’s been waiting out McDonalds for an hour. He doesn’t mind having been left to stand out in the freezing cold. He had Dimitri with him. We begin our trek to finding another place to have a beer.

After walking about two miles we walk by the Puz Theatre. It had the same gendarme (or whatever it is called) waiting in his portabox on the same street. Sid explains it’s the Naughty Box and we crack up for about another half a mile. We eventually arrive at the beer place. it’s an old house someone bought and then turned it into this bar-house. It’s truely ace. I play the piano and nobody shouts at me nor asks me to leave. until it’s closing time.

We say goodbye to George and Dimitri and head back to Mirko’s for the last night’s cup of tea and sleep. I get the bed this time.

Saturday 27 October

Meet up with 100 kids. Gino and Sid distribute cameras whilst I play banjo with for the kids on the bus and in the theatre foyer. Theatre starts and we pop down to the boat to pay for Sunday’s cruise. Return back to the theatre in time for the show’s end and bring the kids to a disco which was held some concrete structure. It was the first disco ever had in the place. It was newly done up on the inside. The false bottles behind the bar were priceless. Actually they were dead cheap but they gave us a laugh.

Many of the kids know how to breakdance. This is impressive. There’s some food and then kareoke. Many of the songs are in Serbian. Great to hear the voices. Unpredictable vocal sounds and unpredictable melodies. Electrifying.

Leave the kids to it when the balloon-modelling clown arrives. Pop by a football stadium with a significantly heavy police presence. We asked them if they minded us taking their photo. They were hesitant but after a few ‘Och gone ahead’s they did surely. Well one batch of them did. The rest just would look at you and hold aloft one single side-to-side finger. That was enough.

Go to the Belgrade’s Annual Book Fair. Serbia’s a big place for the smoking. Clouds and clouds of the stuff in the hall. Everyone selling a book has a fag in their mouth, hand or pants.

Back to Mirko’s and have some grub.

Off again into town. We decide that I’ll play a gig in the same place I played last year. We get through the doors, see an empty stage and tell the first guy we see, a waiter, that we’d play here no problem. And that I am Cormac Heron, the banjo player from London and yes surely I’ll jump in a taxi, pick up the banjo from Mirko’s and come back and rock out on my banjo. The waiter loves the idea and enthuses it upon the assistant manager who asks if I am serious. “Of course he’s serious!” explains Gino, “He plays the banjo!” offering further confirmation of the whole weirdness of the thing. The assistant manager asks that I follow him and I tell Gino to stay put. Eventually we all arrive at another bar in the building and the manager approaches to hear what the assistant manager has to say for himself this time.

The assistant manager begins his spiel. The manager turns to me and simply says, “No!” Gino asks him what does he mean no and that this is Cormac Heron from London. The manager looks at Gino and Gino then picks up the air-banjo, looks at the manager, takes a deep breathe and then says aloud, “Ding! Diddle-ling! Diddle-ling! Ding! Ding!”

“Out! Out!”

We’re walking down the road and decide to hit a gig Sid fancies but the building is closed down. Try another jazz gig but the bouncers are meats who are able to explain that “No room”. I enjoy the language barrier with them as they are just aching to pound some poor unsuspecting bastard. We wish them a pleasant evening and hope to catch them again sometime. Gino befriends some student guy who has less luck than us with the meats so we all go for a drink.

First places after a longish walk through the replacing of pavements weren’t happening much and then when we found a suitable place Gino found the loitering of the bouncing staff too intolerable so we were on our way again. (Why not? We were on a roll). Eventually found one place, had two drinks and then headed home.

Tomorrow we gotta do all this again.

Friday 26 October

Touch down in Belgrade airport and haggle our way eventually into a taxi. Already things have changed here in one year. The taxi, not only has working seat-belts with permanently upright seat-belt locks but has sat-nav and the whole works. This was a proper car.

The taxi pulls up outside a block of concrete flats which is pretty well constructed with a minimalist feel. Lack-of-money minimalist feel. But then that’s the whole majority of the town. Standing outside the entrance is Mirko, Gino’s serbian father-in-law.

Gino and I stayed with Mirko in October 2006. Mirko is the father of Gino’s wife, Jasmina. Mirko is an affable man maybe in his 70s but looks lean as a bean. You can’t help but have a good feeling about him.

Last year Mirko would tell me stories about how he used to win trophies for table tennis and how he’d parachute. He used to talk too about the football. I liked the way he used to say “Ar-sennill!” Almost like a man. (“Would Mr. R. Sennill please make his way into the office now please?”). Back to Mirko.

All of Mirko’s talking was done in Serbian. Gino has picked up stuff though and is able to do a rough translation. Very rough at times and none at all when he decides to pop out the door for a while without any explanation nor reason. Still Mirko and I would continue chatting away. Him in Serbian and me in general agreement with whatever language I felt like really. Made no difference to him. I used to blather away to him in Irish but it would have had the same effect if I had’ve talked in english, french or scottish. We had some great chats together. Sometimes I would lose my own thread and he would be able to remind me. Just by him sustaining the same facial expression or whatever it was he used. He was universal.

The thing about Mirko’s face is that when it’s neutral it looks very solemn. Very wise and worldly yet parochial at the same time. And when he smiles it’s like the someone’s given the town of Belgrade a new lick of paint and a funfair with the London Eye but much bigger and with proper speed.

For all of the specialness of our relationship however poor old Mirko could never remember my name. You could see the pain stretched across the length and diagonals of the face with Mirko, first of all, trying to understand “Cor-mac” and then the struggle and almost despair at the thought of having to remember it. He decided last time I was out there that he would be satisfied with the knowledge that my name was too much of a challenge for him for he had given me his own name. One that is popular in Serbia.

“Koki!” Mirko exclaims and clasps my upper arms with his hands and kisses me on the cheek. “It’s three times here our boy.” Gino reminds me. Aw it’s great to see Mirko again. In through Mirko’s door, cup of tea, drop the bags and out the door into a taxi for a good 40 minute trek to some new settlement for Internally Displaced People (IDPs). The houses that are complete in the settlement are in good shape. Sid says it looks like the wild west. He’s right, it is.

We meet the childrens’ carers and friends. One of them looks like Pablo Picasso. I explain this to him. He laughs. They offer us strong wine. We decline. Gino asks for beer but they explain in their Serbian that they are very sorry and that they have none. We get down to business: baseball caps and cameras for all the kids.

After that a smiling Serbian man walks in clutching a blue plastic bag. Out he pulls four beers. We all go “Haw!” and it is agreed to distribute the booze. Up we get and Pablo drives us to the local crossroads.

It is a busy crossroads. Sid, Gino and I were playing a game of ‘Guess What Car The Taxi Will Be!’. Imagine the laughter when we saw Pablo waving hello to a fast approaching Lada. Old skool Lada. The laughter was soon silenced when out popped a tree of a man all growls, cigarette smoke and sheer bulk. Mad Max IX?

We loaded our bags and our wits into the boot and climbed in. We were about 9 seconds down the road when he pulled out a cigarette and started smoking it loudly. Gino tried sporadically to strike up conversation but no real success. Just a grunt or an occasional dirty look and then a double-take. Gino then started to look at the old meter bolted onto the bottom glove shelf in front of his knees, touchingly. There was a thunderous noise and the car started swerving along the road.

The big oak of an oaf of a driver started shouting at Gino. Sid clicked into daddy mode and started saying in a calming way, “There! There! Big fella. You’ll be alright there big fella.” I explained it to the man that it would be best to just calm down and carry on with the job at hand and to get us back to Beograd in one piece. I didn’t mind him not understanding a bleeding word. It made me feel better. I didn’t get a good feeling about this man. He was like Mirko’s antidote or antithesis or aunt-uncle-giant-thing. Ghastly man.

After about another five cigarettes Sid turned round to me explaining that “Holy Jesus look at him now. Look! Look!”. “What’s he doing?”, I enquired as the man’s enormity was obscuring my view. Sid then explained that “He’s just after taking a big swig of whiskey straight out of the bottle”. Now I started to get fearful. But then it was all ok as he started to talk lightheartedly about politics, religion and immigration. We all just smiled and made agreeing noises with one hand and clenching the seats with the other. As well as with our buttocks. Me even moreso as all the water I’d drunk with Pablo Picasso had run right through me and I was in bad need of a wee.

Jumped out of the taxiride from hell and after visiting the nearest possible lavatory we headed up to Jelena’s office. Talked and laughed and sorted out cameras and kids’ rain jackets for the tomorrow’s events. It’s Jelena’s birthday today. Happy birthday Jelena! She is great and the kids love her.

We leave Jelena to her birthday plans and head to the Headquarters of the Serbian Magic Circle. It is a fascinating place with a fascinating bunch of characters: a couple of tango dancers; an old, mostly silent, moustachioed gentleman who seemed to prefer to hover in the distance whilst he informed his own private opinions of us and the evening’s events; the former Mr Magic of Serbia for many years in the trot and; George.

George is a guy Gino met a trip or two ago. He has perfect english and likes to laugh often in an eyes-closed and hands-folded-in kind of way. He’s ok. They all talk about the bar where all going to hit next but the daddy in Gino and Sid’s parently eyes inform us all that we must go home to our bed and fold-out sofa. Which we do. After a bit of Thai Chi. And some tango dancing. And more magic. And goodbyes. And then everything together all again at the same time and at different times. And then quick excuses.

Dimitri, one of the young lads, walks with us up the road. He lives in the same block as Mirko. He seems like a nice kid. Like Billy Bibbet in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest.

We sum up the day with a cup of tea and go to bed: Gino and I in the fold-out sofa and Sid in the neighbouring bed. We’ll take a turn each in getting the bed we all agree.