March 18, 2010
Zabljak, Montenegro
PLUS:
- "Kathleen, What Do You Mean, 'Forget Nicaragua'?!"...
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Dear Live and Invest Overseas Reader,
"'What's the policeman doing with his lollipop stick, Mammy?'
"Our 2-year-old son's guess was as good as mine," writes
Overseas Retirement Letter Editor-in-Chief Lynn Mulvihill from
Montenegro this morning.
"Twenty minutes earlier, we had parked our rental car on a snowy street in Zabljak, a village in the north of Montenegro, to pick up some groceries. With the village car-parks full, we had little choice but to leave the vehicle at the side of the road.
"We returned, supplies in hand, to find a young policeman hovering around the car. (His 'lollipop' was a small stick with a stop sign on it, which the Montenegrin police use to halt traffic.)
"With our limited grasp of Montenegrin and the cop's lack of English, verbal communication was difficult. Between the policeman's hand gestures and tone, though, it didn't take long for my husband to understand he was being accused of illegal parking.
"If that were the extent of the trouble, though, I wondered, why weren't we being issued a fine and moved along? Instead, the young officer was joined by more colleagues...with more lollipop sticks...and then a man with a camera. It turns out that, while we shopped, somebody had given us a bump, leaving a dent and some scratches near the driver door.
"And that somebody was none other than one of the local cops.
"With sub-zero temperatures outside, I sat inside the rental car, keeping my two sons busy with oranges, while Dara was outside, now surrounded by six of the local constabulary. Lots of head-shaking, hand-throwing, and increasing frustration (bordering on disbelief) at Dara's pleas of incomprehension.
"Still, no sign of hand-cuffs. Worst-case, they'll take the car and leave us stranded in the snow in the outback of Montenegro, I figured...
"Eventually, after passports and insurance documents had been checked at the scene, the Zabljak police force asked us to follow them to the station, where they issued Dara with a form and allowed us continue on our way.
"The experience confirmed something we'd already concluded: You can't get far in this country without making an effort to pick up at least a little of the language. It's not so bad in restaurants when your beef turns out to be pork...your son gets served five boiled eggs for breakfast...or the 'cake' you order is a packet of butter cookies served with a pot of steamed milk and a banana on the side.
"But this isn't a place where you want to get on the wrong side of the local police.
"We didn't let the incident affect our time in Zabljak, though, and went on to enjoy some sleighing at Savin Kuk, the region's ski center. More to come on that...
"Since the breakup of Yugoslavia and Montenegro's subsequent split with Serbia, the official language of Montenegro has been Montenegrin. Of course, this is a national choice rather than a linguistic one, and there is little difference among the languages spoken in Montenegro, Serbia, Croatia, and the other Balkan states (with the exception of Slovenia and Macedonia, which I'm told are distinct).
"You won't find many Montenegrin language books or courses, but we purchased some Serbian and Croatian books before our visit. Although I have studied French and German and have basic Spanish, I find this language a challenge. It's not helped by the fact that Montenegrins use two alphabets—Latin and Cyrillic—and change from one to the other as they see fit.
"English isn't commonly spoken, even in well-touristed spots. Most visitors here come from Russia, neighboring Balkan states, and Western Europe (especially Italy). Last weekend in Zabljak, we found we were able to communicate in German. When all else fails, if you have another European language, it's worth a try."
Kathleen Peddicord
P.S. Lynn is scouting from one end of little Montenegro to the other with our
Overseas Retirement Letter readers in mind. Is Montenegro an emerging overseas haven you should be considering (language challenges aside!) as a place to spend perhaps part of your year? Lynn's early reports have my interest, and she promises to file further from the road. Watch this space...
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"Sorry, but 'la mairie' is a town hall; 'le mairie' doesn't exist."
-- Richard B., United States
Mea culpa. In yesterday's report from
Le Béarn, France, we confused our "le's" and our "la's." Thanks for setting us straight.
Meantime, Correspondent Lucy Culpepper's full report on settling in in this beautiful, historic, undiscovered, and, yes, very affordable corner of France has hit
Overseas Retirement Letter subscribers' e-mailboxes. If you're not among them,
get on board here now in time to read this special issue.
"Kathleen, I have to take exception to your note recently suggesting readers should 'forget
Nicaragua' if they want reliable Internet. There are Internet hotspots all over this country now, and many of them (including in the Galerias Mall) are free.
On our property, the bandwidth capability is so high that call centers and trunk line can be installed. While these things are not without a cost, the underground fiber optics, cable TV, and Internet in our community, specifically, are world-class."
-- Kent Payne, Nicaragua