Homesickness

No not me. I mean, not yet. But I`ve heard some stories about my fellow citizen who went over the pond during 70s, 80s and 90s and settled there, in USA and Canada.
People in general start to feel homesick after some time, after all excitement about living in another continent has gone. To ease that, some of them do weird things. I`ve heard a story about an old man who brought entire device for making alcohol drinks (rakija). Of course, he is not permitted by law to sell it but he is making it for his family and friends. And he is doing it for years now.

Some of them went a step further. One of my friends wanted desperately to have sarma for lunch, time after time. Traditional Serbian (or Balkan) sarma is made of minced meat, rice and sour cabbage leaves (sauerkraut) To achieve that, he has bought a blue plastic barrel, the one that is usual for storing a garbage in Vancouver. Since his landlord didn`t give him permission to keep it in cellar, he put it in backyard. He also went to Capilano river and dug out a piece of rock to put it on top of cabbage in that barrel. He was taking a really good care of it, changing water when it was needed (if you are interested you can find entire process here – it is in Serbian but you will get a general idea; and no, we are usually not using electric drill to remove that root :doh: ) and when it was just about to be ready, someone, thinking it was a real garbage barrel (probably because of smell), dropped some bones that were left over after someone`s lunch. My friend was furious. I will not go into details :left:

Another interesting story about sour cabbage. One man from Belgrade tried to smuggle it in his hand luggage, he packed leaves in welded plastic bags, few of them, in order to prevent smell from going out. Unfortunately, he was suspicious to customs officer at Vancouver airport. A conversation was something like this:
– Sir, what is in those plastic bags?
– It is some ingredient for a traditional Serbian dish.
– Would you please open it.
– No, it won`t be a smart idea.
– Please sir, open it.
– We better don`t…
They better didn`t. He said they almost called special service to remove biohazard materials and wanted to arrest him. Who ever had the opportunity to smell sour cabbage leaves, knows what I am talking about :left:

But the top of the list, according to my opinion, is holding a man from New York who emigrated during 70s. I was not told a firsthand story so parts of it are unknown but it goes something like this. He was working about 20 years in USA, tried to settle and make some money to make a decent living. Years were gone and finaly he was able to invite some of his family members to come and visit him. As it is usual, he wanted to make a traditional Serbian lunch to show his family he didn`t forget his homeland. But there was a problem: it is impossible to buy entire porkling in a shop. Being innovative and nimble, he went to a nearest pet shop and bought alive piggy, brought it home, killed it on his balcony, washed blood and let it dry a bit, hanging on some rope. Unfortunately, someone was walking near the building, saw blood on the pavement, looked up and saw piggy hanging on. I don`t know what that person thought but soon a place was flooded with police, SWAT, helicopters…. They were all arrested and had a lot of trouble explaining they were not a sect, cult or something worse. They were fined, of course and soon everyone tried to forget entire episode.
Except people from pet shop.
Few months later, that man received a letter from people in pet shop, they were asking how is piggy doing…. :left: :insane:

I hope I did not spoil a general picture you, my readers, are having about people from Balkan. Homesickness is not easy to bear with. People are ready to do the craziest things you can ever imagine. Knowing all this, I was thinking what "form" of homesickness I will have :sherlock:
Canada, be prepared.
I am coming.