In November of 1999 I was living Ljubljana Slovenija. I'd been there since the previous June and by this time was feeling really really comfortable in the city. There were lots of people whose paths I crossed all the time, and who I had begun to recognize, and/or feel like I knew a bit. One of these was the woman who lived in the red porno booth just outside Tivoli Park on Celovska Cesta. And by 'lived' I mean worked, and by 'porno booth' I mean the red booth where you buy bus zetoni (tokens), and magazines - some of which were porn, and prominently displayed.
When we bought bus tokens we would have to look at her and only her - kind of a game to not let our eyes stray. (Tangent: it was never as big a deal for me to not look at the naked lady magazines as it was for the other missionaries - huh, wonder why...) I went so far as to hold longer-than-neccesary conversations with her. I got to really like her - she spent so much time in that small booth every day, and yet she was never mean or cranky to me. I wondered about her from time to time, and her life.
This November, for English class we were going to have An American Thanksgiving Dinner. Thanksgiving isn't observed in Slovenija and we missionaries thought it would be fun to show our students some of the cultural quirks of the holiday. We missionaries spent a great deal of the day preparing the dinner for the 30 or so Slovenes, and when they started arriving for class we arranged them into 'families'. I thought I was funny, and tried to teach some of the people in my 'family' to use passive-aggressive English. The dinner got underway and we missionaries were serving, back and forth from the kitchen. Everyone seemed to enjoy the food, though most everyone was eating small small portions, as per usual for Slovenes.
I don't know what made me think of her, but The Red-Booth Lady crossed my mind. There we were all in the church eating dinner together, and there she was out in her porno booth all alone. I don't know if she felt alone right then, or if she even cared, but I felt for her. I went into the kitchen and made up a plate of Thanksgiving dinner for her. Missionaries weren't supposed to go anywhere alone, but I couldn't get any of the elders to come out with me, so I asked one of the guys in the English class to come out with me on an errand. We walked out of the church with the warm plate of food, down the stairs and across the courtyard. We walked out onto the street and down a couple yards to the red-booth.
She looked up when I stopped in front of her window, and I held out the plate and a fork. I explained in Slovene that upstairs were were celebrating the American holiday of food, and I thought of her and that she might like a plate. She smiled. She really smiled for the first time since I'd known her. She put her hand on her heart and tipped her head, and said Thanks! Najlepsa Hvala! I smiled back at her and went back inside and continued the English class. Later I went back to get the plate and fork, and she said thank you again, and said it was a delicious dinner.
It would make a more missionaryish story if she had brought the plate back to the church of her own volition, and saw what nice people there were while she was there, and stayed, and came back on Sundays and took the missionary discussions and gotten baptized and was now the Relief Society President. But none of that happened. I didn't get much of a chance to talk to her again, and was transferred across the country to Maribor the next month. When I did come back to Ljubljana she wasn't working in the red booth anymore - I never ran across her again. Not a super-missionary ending to the story. However I don't care - her smile when I gave her the plate is enough. For a moment she was more than the lady in the porno booth to me, she was someone I cared about.
Monday, November 19, 2007
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Slovene Sunday - Angelic Ice Cream
A cheery Slovenija story, as a matter of fact.
Once, during my first 4 or 5 months in the country, while I lived in Celje my companion Elder Jensen and I were walking down the street. I forget where we were going, but it was in the direction of our apartment, so I imagine we were going home for lunch or something. I remember the sky was overcast, so the light was making everything more vivid. He and I were walking a block north of our usual route, not past the theatre but on the street that would take us past the hospital instead.
When we were about 100 yards from the hospital entrance two people stepped out the doors and continued down the street ahead of us - a man and a woman, both dressed in white from head to toe and very obviously nurses or hospital staff. With the diffused light making the yellow brick of the hospital glow gold, the leaves of the trees look fluorescent green, and anything grey, black or blue melt together, the white of their uniforms shone brilliantly. I decided immediately that they were angels.
The angels walked about a half a block ahead of Elder Jensen and I. The woman was short and round with dark curls up on top of her head. She wore white tennis shoes. The man with her was taller than she by a good foot, and had dark hair also that fell across his forehead - I could see when he turned to talk to her. I told Elder Jensen that they were the Angels of the Celje Hospital. He, in the spirit of humoring me, agreed and said they they were two really strong personalities, and that they probably handled most of the crises in the hospital. Since no one else walking down the street seemed to notice them, look at them or whatnot, we began to believe they really were angels.
As we followed them down the street, we wondered what they were doing out of the hospital. They crossed the street far ahead of us, and we watched them go over to the red ice cream booth. As we drew neared, they pointed, ordered and paid for two ice cream cones. I smiled at the two angels who left the hospital to get ice cream cones. They turned to head back to the hospital, and I saw the lady angel going HAUM HAUM on her cone and the guy angel had ice cream on his upper lip. We dark-clad missionaries of God nodded to the light-clad emissaries of God, who nodded back while licking their lips. They returned to their business of guarding the hospital of Celje, and Elder Jensen and I decided we deserved a cone each, too. With Angleški Juha flavored ice cream.
Once, during my first 4 or 5 months in the country, while I lived in Celje my companion Elder Jensen and I were walking down the street. I forget where we were going, but it was in the direction of our apartment, so I imagine we were going home for lunch or something. I remember the sky was overcast, so the light was making everything more vivid. He and I were walking a block north of our usual route, not past the theatre but on the street that would take us past the hospital instead.
When we were about 100 yards from the hospital entrance two people stepped out the doors and continued down the street ahead of us - a man and a woman, both dressed in white from head to toe and very obviously nurses or hospital staff. With the diffused light making the yellow brick of the hospital glow gold, the leaves of the trees look fluorescent green, and anything grey, black or blue melt together, the white of their uniforms shone brilliantly. I decided immediately that they were angels.
The angels walked about a half a block ahead of Elder Jensen and I. The woman was short and round with dark curls up on top of her head. She wore white tennis shoes. The man with her was taller than she by a good foot, and had dark hair also that fell across his forehead - I could see when he turned to talk to her. I told Elder Jensen that they were the Angels of the Celje Hospital. He, in the spirit of humoring me, agreed and said they they were two really strong personalities, and that they probably handled most of the crises in the hospital. Since no one else walking down the street seemed to notice them, look at them or whatnot, we began to believe they really were angels.
As we followed them down the street, we wondered what they were doing out of the hospital. They crossed the street far ahead of us, and we watched them go over to the red ice cream booth. As we drew neared, they pointed, ordered and paid for two ice cream cones. I smiled at the two angels who left the hospital to get ice cream cones. They turned to head back to the hospital, and I saw the lady angel going HAUM HAUM on her cone and the guy angel had ice cream on his upper lip. We dark-clad missionaries of God nodded to the light-clad emissaries of God, who nodded back while licking their lips. They returned to their business of guarding the hospital of Celje, and Elder Jensen and I decided we deserved a cone each, too. With Angleški Juha flavored ice cream.
Monday, November 5, 2007
Slovene Sunday - Trumpet Out Louise!
Summer of 2000, I was living in Maribor, currently with my companion Elder Wettstein. We were lucky enough to have the neighborhood of Nova Vas in our area, which neighborhood was filled - FILLED - with tall bloks, or apartment buildings. We knocked on doors there very often because of the sheer number of people all concentrated in one small area.
One fine day, as we were heading through the mazes of buildings on our way back to the bus stop so the we could make an appointment at the church back in Center, I heard a trumpeting sound. As we drew nearer to the outer edge of the particular clump of bloks the noise got louder, and I was able to pinpoint it - we rounded one corner, and there, halfway along the avenue, leaning on the railing of her balcony, was an old babica. She seemed to be enjoying the late afternoon air, waiting for the sunset, arms crossed, very relaxed-looking. And she had a bugle in one hand.
Every so often she'd raise it to her mouth, and toot out a merry little melody out into the courtyard, just in general. She was tooting away as we walked directly by her, and I smiled at the sight of this old lady, enjoying herself by playing her bugle. She saw me smile, too the bugle from her lips and saluted me with it. I grinned and waved at her, and she put it to her lips again, and played a jaunty little marching tune as Elder Wettstein and I walked out of sight.
One fine day, as we were heading through the mazes of buildings on our way back to the bus stop so the we could make an appointment at the church back in Center, I heard a trumpeting sound. As we drew nearer to the outer edge of the particular clump of bloks the noise got louder, and I was able to pinpoint it - we rounded one corner, and there, halfway along the avenue, leaning on the railing of her balcony, was an old babica. She seemed to be enjoying the late afternoon air, waiting for the sunset, arms crossed, very relaxed-looking. And she had a bugle in one hand.
Every so often she'd raise it to her mouth, and toot out a merry little melody out into the courtyard, just in general. She was tooting away as we walked directly by her, and I smiled at the sight of this old lady, enjoying herself by playing her bugle. She saw me smile, too the bugle from her lips and saluted me with it. I grinned and waved at her, and she put it to her lips again, and played a jaunty little marching tune as Elder Wettstein and I walked out of sight.
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