Making a Difference in Macedonia - Part Three
By Alexandra J. Wall
In general, the mood was upbeat, much more so than I would have expected. Despite Rahim's warning the previous night to expect dirty children, they were mostly clean and seem healthy. Many were overdressed for the warm weather. At first they approached us shyly, but it only took a few minutes before they realized that we were going to stay longer than just a few minutes. Some of us played basketball with them, some of us played volleyball, some of us danced around in circles; the children love to dance. The kids taught me how to say hello "tungjatjeta" (said tun-JA-tay-ye-ta) and thank you "faliminderit", and then laughed at my pronunciation. I said these words incorrectly and often, and was happy that they find the silly American trying to speak their language so amusing.
I took a walk around the camp, and found that once I left the Israeli section the mood drastically changed; a look of despondency and boredom prevailed. While it was possible to distract children out of their misery, the same could not be done for the adults. Tents were lined up next to each other, as far as the eye could see. People wandered around listlessly looking for something -- anything -- to provide them with something to do. And for the most part, there was nothing to be found. I saw a shed where food was distributed; later, a long line would snake from it. The German field hospital was also just a bunch of tents. At one point, I was approached by a blonde-haired, blue-eyed 17-year-old -- he will be 18 in five days, he told me. His name is Sejdi Berisha, and he was the first to tell me how three weeks before, four Serbian soldiers came to his house with guns and forced his family to flee.
"Four Serb soldiers are sleeping in my house," he said. He was one of the luckier ones; he was with his parents, two sisters, and brother, but his grandmother remained in Kosovo. The following day, his family was going to the Netherlands. He told me that British Prime Minister Tony Blair had just paid a visit to the camp, but he was even more excited about another recent visitor, actor Richard Gere. He mentioned President Clinton, and I expected him to say something about NATO and the war, but then he said, "Monica Lewinsky. Paula Jones. Scandal." Even in his broken English, he made me laugh. He told me he watched the Oscars on television, and mentioned Gwyneth Paltrow. He even knew the name of Cindy Crawford's new husband.
Nuredin Tahiri, who spoke good English, also approached me. He is an architect and the father of four. He had been at Stankovic I for four weeks already. His story echoed Berisha's, except that 20 soldiers forced his family into the streets. Like most of the refugees, he was at the mercy of those who make the decisions, waiting to know which countries will take them in and when. Canada was his first choice, but he quickly added that he'd go anywhere. "Anywhere is better than here. To go to the moon is better than here. These are not conditions for life here." Tahiri told me his 10-year-old boy understood what had happened to them, but his 5- and 8-year-old daughters asked when they would be going back and when they can return to school. I looked inside a few of the tents, but I was respectful of people's privacy. They were neat, but how disorderly can people with no possessions be? Later, I learned that quite a few of our group members had been invited inside. One woman told me she saw a baby who had been born just two weeks earlier. Another was latched onto by a little girl named Mervete, who took her to her family's tent. She tried to remove her shoes before entering, as is the custom, but the adults wouldnąt let her. They offered her something to drink; she politely declined. After a few hours there, we all had certain children that took to us, and became "ours." Mine was a little girl named Majlinda, who I would estimate to be about 7 or 8. I was not the only one she favored; Majlinda would go to whoever paid her the most attention. It was impossible to know whether she is there with her parents, as we could not communicate. But I believed she was; she didnąt have an air of sadness, as did so many of the children. At 5:30 p.m., we got ready to distribute the toys we had brought. The Israelis had the children form a line, and we realized that with an estimated 10,000 children in the camp, our several hundred Beanie Babies, dinosaurs, dolls, and other miscellaneous toys would be nowhere near enough. We devised a system to make sure each child only got one, by marking their hands. Up until then, we had been impressed by how well-behaved the children were. That changed once we started giving out the toys. Some tried to climb under the sides of the tent without us seeing; others tried to grab two or three.
Mothers came with the smaller children; we made them smile as well. In the evening, we met first with the Jewish youth group of Skopje and then with the Israelis. Goran Sadikarijo (the secretary of the Jewish community and president of the youth club) told us about the Jews of Macedonia. On a March day in 1943, all 7,200 Jews in Macedonia were arrested and taken to the Monopol tobacco factory. After being held there for 10 days, they were sent to Treblinka. Few returned. Now there are less than 200 in Skopje. They do not fear anti-Semitism, so much as instability in the region as a whole, and many say they would not mind leaving, although not necessarily to Israel. The exception is Sadikarijo's 18-year-old sister, who is making aliyah in the fall. They spoke to us of building a synagogue, and they showed us their sefer Torah, which Goldin estimated to be several centuries old. Stein, a secular kibbutznik, pointed out the fact that, ironically at the end of one of the most emotional days we've ever experienced, we were huddled around an ancient Torah scroll.
A number of us enjoyed a delicious meal with the youth at a restaurant. Rahamin Mizrahi, whose father is president of the Jewish community of Macedonia, told me that even the Israelis are amazed at how good the Macedonian tomatoes are.
The next morning, we returned to the camp for a short while. The same kids who had latched on to us the day before found us again. Somehow, our energy level was not what it had been. When I left the second day, my little friend Majlinda asked, "America?" I hugged her goodbye, and I was the one who started to cry. Kids followed us out to our bus to see us off. We'd only spent a day and a half there, but time in a refugee camp seems to pass sadly and slowly. Many of our new friends looked through the fence at us, waving and crying simultaneously. We couldnąt help being haunted by that image. We also kndw that we'd seen the camp in optimal conditions; in another month it would be blazing hot, and disease would be rampant.
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