The Balkans' bakers keep on rolling

The Balkans' bakers keep on rolling

By Nick Thorpe
BBC News, Kosovo

Almost all the bakers of the old Yugoslavia were Albanians, from one small corner of Kosovo. They have lived through war and upheaval but the toughest test for some came in February this year when Kosovo broke away from Serbia.

幾乎前南斯拉夫所有的麵包師傅都是來自科索沃的阿爾巴尼亞人。他們歷經戰火和動亂，但對一些人來說最艱巨的試煉莫過於今年的二月，科索沃自塞爾維亞獨立。

The first poppies of summer are blood scarlet on the shores of the White Drim river as we drive out of Prizren, up onto the slopes of Mount Pashtrik.

當我們駛離Prizren市沿著Pashtrik山的山坡向上爬時，今年夏天第一批鮮紅血色的罌粟花在White Drim河岸邊正盛開著。

The lunchtime bread in the largest village, Djonaj, is white and so fresh it melts like chocolate in your mouth.

午餐時間在最大的村莊Djonaj所享用的麵包，又白又新鮮，像巧克力一樣入口即融。

Dine Rexhbecaj is 50 and home for a short break to see his family. He has eight children, six girls and two boys. They live here while he works in distant Zagreb, in Croatia, seven or eight months of the year.

50歲的Dine Rexhbecaj利用短短的休假期間回來探視家人。他有八個小孩，其中六個是女孩，兩個是男孩。他們住在這裡，而他一年當中有六到八個月的時間是在離這裡很遠的克羅埃西亞的Zagreb這個地方工作。

"I like my work," he said. "But I would hope for something better for my children. Now that Kosovo is independent, I hope they can find work here and not travel abroad."

"我喜歡我的工作，"他說。"但我還是希望我的孩子們能有更好的選擇。現在科索沃已經獨立了，我希望他們能在這裡找到工作而不須要再離鄉背井到國外去了。"

'Bread money'

The village streets bustle with women and children on their way home from school. Four little girls, each dressed in a different shade of pink, giggle by.

村裡攜來攘往的街道上都是女人和下課返家的小孩。四個身著粉紅色深淺不一的小女孩，咯咯地笑著從我們旁邊經過。

In a graveyard beside the road, children play ball, and brown cows graze among red and black Albanian flags.

小孩子在路旁的一座墓園裡打球，紅黑色的阿爾巴尼亞旗幟間，可以看到有棕色的母牛在低頭吃著草。

Houses are being repaired with money sent from abroad, "bread money" one might call it. It goes towards new bathrooms in the traditional extended-family compounds, and to repair the tall outside walls and daunting gateways.

修繕家園所需的金錢都寄自國外，也可以稱之為麵包錢。這些錢幫助這些傳統大宅院蓋了新的浴室，修補高聳的外牆和令人望而生畏的大門。

This is a male-dominated society but the men are gone, scattered to the four corners of the Balkans, to Serbia and Croatia, Bosnia and Slovenia.

這是個以男人為主的社會，但是現在男人都出外去，分散在巴爾幹半島的四個地區，塞爾維亞、克羅埃西亞、波士尼亞和斯洛維尼亞。

Working a baker's dozen of hours each day, they roll out the much sought after burek - spinach or cheese, potato or meat-filled pies - round breads and crescent-moon-shaped rolls, star-scattered with sesame seeds.

麵包師父每天十幾個小時的工作中，他們做出許許多多極受歡迎的布雷卡 – 一種有菠菜或起司，馬鈴薯或肉餡的派 - 圓麵包和新月型麵包捲，佈滿了芝麻。

And when they finish their long shifts, the fathers can only dream of the children growing up without them.

長長的工作時間結束後，這些做父親的只能想著成長中沒有自己陪伴的孩子。

"I started work as a baker in Montenegro when I was 13," Alush Maloku tells me in Planeja, a village at the end of a mountain road, hunched against the Albanian border.

"我13歲的時候在蒙特內格羅開始學習當麵包師傅，"Planeja村的Alush Maloku告訴我，這個村子在山路的盡頭，推進到阿爾巴尼亞的邊界。

"Then I came home and worked as a shepherd for 12 years."

"接著我回家當了12年的牧羊人。"

Then he went back into baking, this time in western Serbia. All these places were part of one country, then Yugoslavia.

接著他又再回去烤麵包，這次則是到了西塞爾維亞。所有地方都是屬於前南斯拉夫這個國家。

In 1979 when his father died, he came home to run the village shop. As the eldest son, he had to care for his family.

1979年他的父親過逝，他回家經營開設在村子裡的店舖。身為長子，他必須照顧他的家庭。

Trade map

We are sitting barefoot, cross-legged on a rug on his porch, looking across the valley at the ruins of his old house.

我們光著腳盤腿坐在他家陽台的地毯上，望著位於河谷另一頭他的老家。

American B52 bombers blasted the Serbs into submission here in 1999 after the Albanian villagers had been driven out. The Serbian army, living in quarters nearby, sustained some of its heaviest losses in the air raids.

在阿爾巴尼亞村民被驅逐之後，美國B52轟炸機的轟擊迫使塞爾維亞在1999年投降。塞爾維亞軍隊，特別是在附近的幾個軍營，在空襲遭受了幾次最嚴重的損失。

Unexploded bombs still lie buried deep in the earth. Alush said he knows of five people from a neighbouring village who have lost limbs as they stumbled across war litter.

好些未爆彈仍深埋在土裡。Alush說他知道鄰村有五個人都是因為不小心碰到這些戰爭中投下的未爆彈而失去了手或腳。

"We paid a high price for liberation," he says.

"我們為了自由付了極大的代價，"他說。

"Why do all the men here become bakers?" I ask 79-year-old Azem Collaku from the village of Zym.

"為什麼這裡的男人都會成為麵包師傅? "我問一位來自Zym村79歲的Azem Collaku。

He rolls out a mental map of Kosovo, divided by traditional trades.

他攤開了一份被傳統貿易劃分開來的科索沃心智地圖。

The bakers from the Harsi i Thata - the dry hearth - so called because of its paucity of water. The builders from a certain valley. The farmers from the flat, fertile lands between Prizren and Djakova.

麵包師傅來自Harsi i Thata也就是乾燥的爐灶之意，源自於當地缺乏水資源。建築工人來自某個山谷。農夫則是來自Prizren與Djakova間平坦肥沃的土地。

Azem worked for 40 years in the family bakery in northern Kosovo, in the ethnically-mixed town of Mitrovica. In 1999, when the Nato bombing started, the hostility of the local Serbs to the Albanians increased.

Azem在科索沃北邊自家的麵包店工作了40年，那是一個有著多元化民族的城市Mitrovica。當1999年北約轟炸開始時，當地塞爾維亞人對阿爾巴尼亞人的敵意便開始增加。

Like all the Albanians here, he tells the history of the Balkans in bakers' terms.

像這裡所有阿爾巴尼亞人一樣，他也用麵包師傅的遣辭用語來講述巴爾幹的歷史。

"We knew we were in trouble when the Serbs stopped delivering our flour," said Azem.

"當塞爾維亞人不再運麵粉過來時，我們就知道我們有麻煩了，"Azem說。

So they had to stop baking.

因此他們不得不停止烤麵包。

"The strange thing was, the day we fled the city, the flour we had paid for weeks before actually arrived. But by then it was too dangerous to stay," he added.

"奇怪的是當我們開始逃離這城的那一天，我們幾個星期前所給付的麵粉卻在這時候送到了。但是那時候情勢太危險了誰也不敢留下來，"他又說道。

Radical youths

His son Afrim worked in the Serbian capital Belgrade until January this year. Then Serb refugees from Kosovo smashed the windows of the bakery in a spate of anger, on the eve of Kosovo's declaration of independence from Serbia.

他的兒子Afrim在塞爾維亞首都貝爾格勒工作直到今年的一月。那時候從科索沃來的塞爾維亞難民在盛怒下砸碎了麵包店的窗戶，就在科索沃宣佈自塞爾維亞獨立的前夕。

"They didn't like the idea that we could come to work in their country, while they couldn't return to Kosovo," said Afrim, almost sympathetically.

"他們不喜歡我們能到他們國家工作，而他們卻無法回到科索沃這種想法，"Afrim幾乎是充滿同情地說著。

But he is hopeful the bakery will soon re-open after the defeat of Serb nationalists in last weekend's elections.

但自上星期的選舉中塞爾維亞主張民族主義的激進黨遭受挫敗後，他對麵包店將重新開張充滿了希望。

Only a month ago, radical youths in Sombor, in northern Serbia, handed out free bread outside an Albanian-run bakery to try to drive it out of business.

只是在一個月前，Sombor市的激進青少年在一間阿爾巴尼亞人所經營的麵包店前發送免費的麵包企圖迫使它停業。

And like-minded youths posted a film clip of themselves on the video sharing website YouTube setting fire to another Albanian bakery.

而理念相同的青少年則拍下他們對另一間阿爾巴尼亞人所經營的麵包店縱火，並將影片放上YouTube。

In the Kosovan capital Pristina, Ramadan and Lerim from the village of Djonaj load logs into their wood-burning ovens, and mix flour and water and great cakes of yeast from Serbia into a stainless-steel drum.

在科索沃首都Pristina，來自Djonaj村的Ramadan與Lerim將木頭放進燒著柴火的灶裡，並將麵粉、水與好幾大塊酵母加進一個不銹鋼圓筒裡。

"There is no better job than this," Ramadan explains. "You can sleep soundly knowing that the money you spend you earned with your own sweat."

"沒有比這更好的工作了，"Ramadan跟我們解釋。"知道自己所花用及所賺的錢是靠著自己的汗水而來的，你可以安然的熟睡。"

He blows out the candles, by the light of which he kneaded the new loaves. Only the early morning sunshine breaks through the windows here.

靠著燭光他揉捏出一條又一條新做的麵包，現在他將蠟燭吹熄。只剩下透過窗戶照射進來的微微曙光。

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/7404612.stm

Published: 2008/05/17 11:07:05 GMT

© BBC MMVIII

A Basque encounter with pirates

A Basque encounter with pirates

By Nick Rankin
BBC, Spain

When a Spanish fishing boat, with its cargo and crew, was seized off the Horn of Africa recently, it prompted Madrid to call for the extradition of the hijackers and for international action against piracy.

最近，一艘西班牙籍的漁船，連同貨物與船員，在離非洲之角不遠處的海上遭到挾持，立刻引起馬德里當局要求引渡這些強盜並請求國際對海盜行為採取行動。

For centuries, bold Basque sailors have ventured out on the seas that crash on their homeland in the Bay of Biscay.

幾個世紀以來，勇敢的巴斯克水手就已經航行到比斯開灣的外海去冒險，比斯開灣洶湧的海浪不斷地拍擊他們家鄉的土地。


Basques, chasing whale and cod, were probably the first Europeans to reach North America.

追捕鯨魚與鱈魚的巴斯克人很有可能是最早抵達北美的歐洲人。

The Portuguese, Ferdinand Magellan, is credited with being the first man to sail around the world, but actually he died in the Philippines and it was a Basque, Juan Elkano from Getaria, who brought his ship home.

葡萄牙人，費迪南德麥哲倫被譽為首位環球航行的航海家，但事實上他在菲律賓時身亡，把他的船開回家的則是一位來自Getaria的巴斯克人Juan Elkano。

So when a Basque-owned tuna fishing boat called Playa de Bakio was seized off Somalia, with five Basque among its crew, the story was a big one in the Basque country. The press were keen to find out all about the kidnapped fishermen and their anxious relatives. Pictures were vital.

因此，當這艘名為Playa de Bakio的巴斯克捕鮪魚船以及船員中有五名巴斯克人，在離索馬利亞不遠的海上遭到挾持時，隨即成為巴斯克地區的頭條大新聞。記者們莫不努力的想找出任何與被綁架的漁夫以及他們焦急的親屬有關的大小事物。照片更是不可少。

"This is gold dust," said my friend Vincent, the Reuters photographer, tapping a good image of the fishing boat in the newspapers, next to personal ones of the crew.

"這實在是太難了，" 我的朋友Vincent，同時也是路透社的攝影師，輕輕敲著報紙上一張漁船清晰的影像，對著身旁的一位組員這樣說。

"I wonder where they got those."

"我懷疑他們是從哪兒弄來的。"

Ransom

In the bad old days, foot-in-the-door journalists used to steal framed family photographs off the mantel, but nowadays a second with a digital camera is all a good snapper needs.

過往艱困的歲月裡，得寸進尺的記者常竊取擺在壁爐架上鑲了框的家庭照，而如今一個好的攝影師只需用數位相機拍下那一瞬間。


The day before Vincent had been photographing the daughter of one of the kidnapped sailors and he still had her phone number. I called her mobile to offer a crumb of reassurance.

在Vincent為到其中一位被綁架船員的女兒拍照的前一天，他還留有她的電話號碼。我打行動電話給她，希望能使她稍為安心。

I told her I had made a BBC radio programme about Somali pirates and had learned they did not usually harm foreign captives. All they wanted was the ransom money.

我告訴她我曾製做過一個關於索馬利海盜的廣播節目，而且從中得知他們不常傷害外國俘虜。他們要的只是贖金。

She told me the company was prepared to pay and I said that in that case her dad would soon be back safe. And indeed, after a million or so euros changed hands, the crew were freed.

她告訴我船公司已經準備付贖金，於是我說如果是那樣，那麼她的父親很快就會平安歸來。果不其然，在大約一百萬歐元到手後，船員就被釋放了。

A Basque newspaper interviewed Andrew Mwangura, the sensitive man who runs a charity that helps distressed African seafarers.

一間巴斯克的報社採訪了Andrew Mwangura，這個感情細膩的男人辦了一個慈善的團體，專門幫助那些痛苦的非洲船員。

"Hello, Andrew!" I said out loud reading the paper because I had spent time with him in Mombasa.

"嗨! Andrew! "正在看報紙的我大聲的喊了出來，因為我跟他在Mombasa(孟巴薩，肯亞第一大港)一起待了一段時間。

Andrew Mwangura explained that Somali piracy was a rational economic activity in a lawless country. There was no government to regulate the fishing grounds in the Indian ocean off Somalia.

Andrew Mwangura解釋說，索馬利人的海盜行為在這個無法可管的國度裡是種合理的經濟行為。而且沒有一個政府在離索馬利亞不遠的印度洋明定漁場。

The hijacked Playa de Bakio may have been licensed to fish for tuna, but scores of other European and Asian fishing boats trawl illicitly in Somali waters, running big risks for high returns.

被挾持的Playa de Bakio或許有補鮪魚的執照，但是大多數歐洲及亞洲的漁船，為了高報酬而甘冒極大的風險，在索馬利人的海域進行非法的拖網捕漁。

Mwangura estimated that this pirate fishing off Somalia is worth over £50 million a year. And so the Somali pirates in their turn levy a kind of privatised tax or toll on any foreign vessels they can seize, claiming territorial rights.

Mwangura估計在索馬利亞近海這種掠奪式的捕漁，一年價值超過五千萬以上。因此現在索馬利海盜向任何一艘他們有能力挾持的外國船支強行徵稅或通行費，以示他們的領海權。

Civil War horror

A few days later, in the cemetery at Gernika, I ran into my own personal pirate.

幾天後在Gernika的一座墓園裡，我也遇到了一個海盜。

Gernika is a place whose history has been fought over. In 1937, during the Spanish civil war, the town of Gernika was burned down. There were two different stories about what happened.

Gernika這地方的歷史向來是爭論不休的。1973年，西班牙的內戰時期，Gernika城鎮是一片焦土。而對於事情的發生則存在兩個不同的版本。


The Spanish victors of the civil war claimed that the communist citizens of Gernika blew up and burned their own town. The Basques said their town was fire-bombed by foreign aeroplanes as was indeed the case.

西班牙的內戰勝利者宣稱支持共產主義的Gernika居民炸毀並焚燒自己的城市。巴斯克人則說他們自己的城市被外國飛機轟炸才是實情。

I wrote a book about George Steer, the Times journalist, whose truthful report of the Nazi bombing inspired Pablo Picasso to paint his famous, black and white picture, Guernica.

我為時代雜誌的記者George Steer寫過一本書，他誠實的報導了納粹的轟炸驅使畢卡索繪製了他著名的黑白作畫，Guernica。

The Basques have now put up a bust of this reporter, George Steer, in the town - and every year on the anniversary I accompany his son, who lays flowers at the tomb of the dead.

巴斯克人於是為這位記者George Steer在城裡立了一尊半身像 - 每個週年紀念日，我都會陪著他的兒子到死者的墓前獻花。

After this year's ceremony, I was told that someone who had written in Basque about George Steer wanted to meet me.

今年的典禮結束後，有個以巴斯克文為George Steer寫書的人說要來見我。

Intellectual pirates

He was my age, with the rough scruffy look that is the badge of authenticity among left-wing, Basque nationalists.

他跟我一樣年紀，看起來粗獷、不修邊幅，這在左派巴斯克民族主義者中是貨真價實的標誌。

"Your book made me cry," he said, "so I copied it."

"你的書讓我感動得哭了，" 他說，"所以我就拿來抄襲了。"

He handed me a slim volume for young people. The cover was instantly familiar, because it was the same as my own.

他遞給我一本薄薄的少年讀物。封面一看就眼熟，因為跟我的書一模一樣。

I still did not quite grasp that someone had picked my pocket and was now presenting me with my own wallet as a gift.

我仍舊不清楚是誰先搜括了我的口袋，現在才將我的皮夾當成禮物送給我。

Only later did I find all the pictures were lifted, without credit or permission, and realise that the publishers were the same intellectual pirates from Navarra who had also ripped off G L Steer's original Spanish civil war book and copyrighted it themselves.

一直到我發現所有的照片未經許可的被剽竊之後，才知道Navarra這些出版商全都是些盜版商，他們同時也剽竊了G L Steer的原著西班牙內戰這本書並逕自將版權歸於他們。

It is territoriality again, anything about Basques they feel belongs to them.

又是所謂的領土權，他們認為任何與巴斯克人有關的東西都是屬於他們的。

Although they flout international laws of ownership, the Somali pirate and the Basque publisher both claim their action is somehow in the national interest. As Dr Johnson said: "Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel."

儘管他藐視所有權之類的國際法規，索馬利海盜與巴斯克的出版商都宣稱自己的行為是關乎國家利益。這就如同Johnson博士所說:"愛國主義是惡棍的最後避難所"。

Madrid called for the hijackers of their trawler to be extradited to Spain and for international action against piracy.

馬德里當局要求引渡這些挾持他們拖網漁船的強盜，而且請求國際對海盜行為採取行動。

I won't hold my breath waiting for law and order to reach Somalia. But the Basque country is in Europe where intellectual property rights are more protected.

我不敢期待等到法律與秩序降臨索馬利亞。但巴斯克地區所在的歐洲可是有更多對智慧財產權的保障。

I am minded to go fishing for trouble, with a heavyweight copyright lawyer.

我倒是有意帶個著作權法權威的律師，悠悠哉哉的去找麻煩。

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/7392623.stm

Published: 2008/05/10 13:11:40 GMT

© BBC MMVIII