Small Town Blues?

While we were out running errands the other day we ran into our Serbian teacher and his girlfriend; we decided to join them for treats at Srce, the local ice cream parlor. It was a wonderful impromptu meeting, and we lingered over ice cream and conversation. Later on, while we were finishing our errands, we came across two different acquaintances from the American Corner. It's surprising to me every time this happens. With about 180,000 inhabitants, Kragujevac doesn't really qualify as small-town, but to me it is.

Since we're here for such a brief period of time, we see a different side of Kragujevac than most of our neighbors. The people who really live here struggle with high levels of unemployment and poverty in a city whose main industry is defunct. The car factory Zastava once employed thousands of people; starting in the 1960s there was a migration to Kragujevac by people looking for factory jobs. From what I've heard, business was already declining when the plant was destroyed by the 1999 NATO bombings. Many of those people are still out of work, and there's no real backup industry, just unemployment. It's similar to Lowell or Revere - jobs evaporated when textile industries moved south and the cities began to decline.

In Kragujevac, people graduate from the university and have little opportunity for employment or advancement, and many end up bitter, feeling trapped here. There are certainly organizations investing in the future - the US government, for example, funded the American Corner, sent in an English Language Fellow, and, most significantly, runs a US AID office out of Kragujevac. But many of the locals I've spoken with don't see the possibilities of the future because they're too frustrated by the current problems. Moving to Belgrade often seems like the only way out, although for many it remains a dream because they lack the financial stability to make that kind of move. Others simply don't want to go because they prefer life in the smaller city.

I empathize with their frustrations and see the overall problems Kragujevac needs to address so they can move forward. For Dan and me, though, day to day life is rather pleasant. Because we don't depend on a Serbian salary, we're free to enjoy our small town experiment.

I was originally sad that we wouldn't be posted in Belgrade because I love city life. Now that we've been here for two months, I'm really appreciating our location. It's been relatively easy for us to meet people from different social and economic circles and we've been able to form some friendships. As I've said many times before, everyone is looking out for us. If I need to register with the police or get a new cellphone or get a haircut, someone knows someone else who can help me out.

This small town feeling is also a bonus for the work that we're doing. I think in Belgrade we would be lost in the crowd, and it would be difficult to make the contacts that we need to get the word out about our programs. Here in Kragujevac, we've been able to establish a base group of participants and get to know many of them. As foreigners, we're interesting enough for people to come to our programs out of curiosity, and we've even gotten some coverage in the local media. (I have no idea what the articles said, but it was cool to see my name in print in Cyrillic).

What brings this all up is that over the past week we've been asked a half dozen times how we like living here, and people are surprised that we're quite happy. I always have to explain that I understand the problems, etc., etc., but that we're really getting a kick out of small town life. I'm not sure if people believe me or if they think I'm just trying to be nice.