On Trash and Interesting Things about Croatia

It's been a cold few days, especially yesterday, when there was a very strong wind howling all around the house. Today is also briskly cold, but at least it's sunny. And we don't have the snow that is present in much of the rest of Croatia and Europe (I've seen pictures on TV). But I know it's warm and sunny back home in Georgia, and even when I left the daffodils and a few trees were already blooming. So now it's probably a gorgeous spring there. After my excursion Saturday (when I took the pictures you can see below) I did not leave the house on Sunday, except to throw out the trash. There are dumpsters along the road, one only a few meters from our street gate (which is down some steps and a walkway from the actual villa).

Trash cans, by the way, inside the house, are very small here, more like the size of what we use in the bathroom (for the kitchen). I think it's all part of a different mentality here about consumerism and waste. At home, I've known people who seem to enjoy producing as much trash as possible, filling up even huge trashcans sometimes multiple times per week. I've often thought that some people think it's a sign of their success or something to be able to throw away a lot of stuff. It kind of drives me nuts and I work very hard at home to recycle and try to produce as little trash as possible. Fifteen years ago there was a resurgence in environmentalism, I think, and we were all worried about recycling, toxic waste, and overflowing landfills. But it didn't laste long, I think, and packaging and junk mail just keep increasing and people seem less aware, if anything, about the impact of all our junk on the environment. It's like we're conditioned to produce and process a lot of garbage. But here there is less trash, and people (I think) re-use things more. It's not that they don't want to buy things, but maybe people do buy less because salaries are lower on average. I think the range of salary for college professors, for instance, is between $700 and $1000 per month. But even when you buy things, food for instance, there won't be so much superfluous packaging, so there's less to throw away as a result. Anyway, I haven't filled up my little trash can in the kitchen more than once a week.

I made a big pot of soup yesterday, the first really ambitious cooking I've done since I got here. It's a variation on my mom's German mother's soup recipe, called grumbla noodla (at least that's how it sounds), basically it's potatoes and homemade noodles with milk in it. But I add a bunch of other vegetables as well (garlic, onion, tomato, green pepper, celery, carrot, cauliflower, and broccoli). And since it was all I had, I made my noodles out of whole wheat flour (from the health food store). It turned out quite delicious, and I'll be able to eat leftovers all week. Just the thing to do on a very cold and lazy day, make a hearty, vegetarian soup!

Today I visited the rector's building in the morning, where the international relations office is for the university. This is where the very helpful people are housed who found my apartment and will help me register for a residency permit with the police, and so on. Once we talked about a few bureaucratic matters (papers they need for my permit and how I'll get paid), I asked Darko about some of my family connections to Croatia. He helped me look up a few names in the phone book to see where they might live today. The Kosmuch (as we spell it in the States) or Kuzmić (or Kosmac), as it's spelled here, name shows up in various parts of Croatia, mostly around Zagreb, the center of the country, and the coast (a few in Rijeka). We also looked up the name my mom got that she thinks is the village my grandmother's mother came from, Bistra Vodica, which Darko said means, "clear water" in Croatian. [NOTE (months later): I actually found out later that it was Mrzla Vodica, meaning cold water, and I ended up visiting this village -- see July entries]. We had no luck finding that exact name. But it was interesting to look it all up. Darko has some ancestors who went to the States, so we looked up those names too. In fact they were in Akron, OH, where some of my family also settled. So I may help him to contact those people.

I also walked through a new section of town, to get to the rector's building, and then around that neighborhood. It seems to be the richest, biggest mansions in town, some very beautiful houses or villas. This was all up a hill from where I live, so I climbed a bunch of steps to get there, then walked through winding streets to get back down to the center.

Part of what makes this town interesting is all the influences and history. There were Celts here, Gauls, Romans, Italians, Austrians, Hungarians, and of course Slavs. But the particular region didn't really suffer so much during the recent war (far enough from the border I guess). So there are many influences and much cultural mixture. As I learn more about this, I'll write more.