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| Hotel Continental |
SKOPJE, MACEDONIA When you go to Skopje, do not stay at the Hotel Continental. Too tired to inspect the room or care that the TV and the air conditioning didn't work, I fell asleep only to wake around three with an upset stomach. As I sat down on the toilet, it shifted under me and almost tipped over. It had broken off from its foundation. Balancing the stool under me, I was able to finish my task but then found it wouldn't flush. Returning to bed, I noticed the sheets I had been sleeping in had blood spots from a previous resident(s). I checked my computer to see if it had charged, it hadn't - none of the electrical outlets worked. Upset, I went downstairs to the front desk. The clerk was puzzled that I hadn't reported this earlier but nevertheless, on my insistance, gave me another room. Over a breakfast that was inedible, Nick reported that his toilet was also broken and that his shower hose had broke off after turning on the water. We decided to catch the next bus out of town.
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| Roma Girl |
Hotel Continental symbolizes a third world culture that I had not as yet experienced on this trip. Outside the hotel, filth, and poverty abounds. Under a highway overpass, between the hotel and the bus depot, a community of gypsies, amidst the squalor of heaps of garbage that they had either collected themselves or others had brought in for them, had set up a couple of scrungy tents and a hut made of cardboard, tin, and loose pieces of lumber. I tentatively approached a family of four huddled around a small fire, black smoke rising from the burning rubbage. I held out some money. The father got up and took the money and motioned that he wanted more. I shook my head, "No more." His son, no more than six, shouted something that must have meant "money." I took out my camera indicating I wanted to take a picture. Seeing the camera, the dirty, but very cute, three-year old, with mud on her face, ran to me and started posing. I snapped a couple of pictures wishing I could take her with me. Had this always been their life and would it always be this way?
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| Skopje Street |
Before the bus left, Nick and I had an hour to walk around the town center - broken down shops and buildings, trash strewn streets, a mixture of minarets and steeples, and no McDonalds. Groups of men sat around drinking coffee - maybe talking politics. They looked at us suspiciously but were also anxious to engage in conversation. "American," one pointed at me. His buddy, toothless and smiling, "Obama good!" The first one countered, "Obama bad, Bush good." A third added, "America bad!" As we continued our walk, an older man started talking to us in German. "This is a good country. The weather is good but the people are poor. They're bad too. They use drugs." At the bus depot an older man, speaking English, eagerly volunteered information on exchanging money, buying tickets, and getting to the right platform. Although our stay in Skopje was short and brutish, I doubt if I'll ever forget the experience. Would Paris have been more fun?
