In the Sacred Bosom of Rurality

After a month of wandering around urban centers we decide to set off towards the fascinating rural world. With our heavy backpacks we eat kilometers, slowly managing to detach ourselves from the tentacles of shiny and perhaps futile comforts of the city.

After a few days we finally immerse ourselves in that timeless place called nature. We are overwhelmed by his majestic and egalitarian hospitality, finding ourselves in a mystical universe that knows no boundaries nor makes any distinction between its inhabitants, trees, sheep or farmers.

A shepherd with his cows bids us good morning, bringing a bit of light into the thick fog that permeates the road in the early hours of the morning and an unexpected hitchhiking passage. A man loads us onto his military off-road vehicle showing us the best of this valley : from the magical view from the highest peak in Serbia to the rakia used as a means of convivial communication, from cutting wood in the forest to tasting the boiled brain of a cow that has just passed away.

Like a hurricane this valley makes us savor all its spontaneous hospitality.

Ecco, we have finally met the Holy Rurality.

We follow other paths and a radio at full volume attracts us near what looks more like a rudimentary workshop than a house. In the midst of the sweet bustle of apples and tools, a short man walks pleasantly in his kingdom, a few nods and a glance are enough to find ourselves welcomed like children and hired as woofers by this extraordinary man.

Eyelids that protect the eyes from the cold and sinewy hands that tell stories of apples picked and radios repaired. As much wisdom as the time spent in these mountains and a contagious innocence in every gesture.

A man, Vladimir Aleksov, who from his little house in a small village of earth and straw embodies the kingdom of peace.

Uncontaminated places and people spontaneously chosen as bearers of that now rare art of hospitality.

And it's about time, in a historical moment in which they make us believe that hosting these flows of refugees is impossible as well as unwanted, we should draw on this precious treasure more than ever before.

Wanting is power.

Best wishes Vladimir.

Have a good trip / good way

Skopje, 25 November 2015

#migrart #migrants #balkanroute