Polyparty-ism - Search for Common Ground

Unbelievable and
different are the
personal destinies
of the people who
are eating in the
national kitchens
in Skopje, and the
hunger connects
all of them
National kitchens of poverty
Macedonians, Albanians, Serbs,
and Roma together at lunch
Dragi Jankovski
Mire Slaveski from Skopje is a
highly qualified technician in electrical
engineering with 23 years of
working experience in the steel factory,
who has been wandering the
streets of Skopje for almost 12 years.
While he was working, he was paying
the bills and the rent for the apartment,
and he was providing food for
his family. In 1990, he was laid off,
his wife left him, and his two sons had
been taken into the orphanage.
Every working day at 1 p.m.
sharp, Mire, Fizeta, Isljam, Miodrag,
Blagoja, Goran, Igor, Sabri,
Sheherezada, Svetlana, and another
three hundred people from Skopje
have lunch together in the two national
kitchens in Skopje. They come
from different parts of the city, speak
in different languages and belong to
different religions and nationalities.
They are all united in one place by
their hunger and their poverty.
About twenty volunteers from the
association Gjakonija provide their
single joint lunch and try to make
them feel welcome, to feel the
atmosphere of a home while
they get a piece of bread and
warm soup. The national
kitchens are located in the
premises of the churches St.
Petka in the settlement Crniche
and Sts. Petar and Pavle in the
settlement Gjorche Petrov.
Mire says that he is most
sorry for his two sons, who cannot
find a job since they
returned from completing their
military service.
"The older son, Zlatko, is
21 years old, speaks fluent
English and has computer skills, but
he cannot find a job. The younger son,
Marjan, was beaten up during his stay
at the orphanage, and now he suffers
psychological consequences. Social
Services have informed us that in
April we will have to move from the
social housings in which we have
lived for almost two years. I will
have to return to the streets together
with my children," says Mire .
He explains that when the
kitchens are closed, he does not eat
for several days. Apart from having
lunch in the kitchen himself, Mire
also takes food for his two sons.
For more than two years now,
Isljam and Fizeta Ihmet have been
coming to the national kitchen. Two
years ago, Fizeta left her husband and
her two children and moved from
Bitola to Skopje. Her husband, she
says, was maltreating her and was living
with her only for the money that
her mother from Sweden and her relatives
from Australia were sending to
her. When she arrived to Skopje, she
was all alone. She came to the national
kitchen with her female friend .
There she met Isljam Ihmet, with
whom she now has a one-month-old
baby boy. She explains that during the
last two years, she and her husband
have survived thanks to the food and
help they have been receiving at the
kitchen. Fizeta says that they will
raise their son with the help of the
volunteers of Gjakonija who have
given her diapers, food and have
helped her provide documents to get
social care and health insurance.
15-year-old Miodrag Zivkovich,
his mother and his sister are also coming
to the kitchen in St. Petka.
Miodrag is in the eighth grade in the
primary school Rajko Zhinzifov in
the settlement Topansko Pole. He
says that he wants to continue his
education and become a qualified car
mechanic. Miodrag says that his family
survives thanks to the good will of
the people at the national kitchen and
the money he gets from the sales of
old paper and from begging .
"My wife and my daughter used
to say to me: Do not go back to
Macedonia, you will starve there.
Still, I love my country and I wanted
to be there at any cost, even
if I had to live on the streets.
I never thought that I would
really live on the streets.
After 30 years of work in
Serbia and Croatia, I was
looking forward to going
back to my family house
built by my father. When I
came back there, my brother
and my step-mother kicked
me out because they have
taken the whole house for
themselves. I was left alone
on the street, I started drinking
and now I live wherever
107
Life on the margins, February 2003