The women of Montenegro

#163

My Dear Friend of Democracy,

There was this old man. In this old hotel in Montenegro. He was the hotel owner, and we were his only guests. It was hot. The old man didn't need a shirt, just a cigarette in the corner of his mouth. And conversation. We were welcome guests. Perhaps because he could speak German. He said he had lived in Switzerland for a long time and then built this hotel in 1991.

Its golden days were long gone. The hotel was only half-heartedly fighting against decay. The former swimming pool had been buried in thorn bushes, the restaurant had been abandoned years ago, and a portrait of Tito, the long-time authoritarian ruler of Yugoslavia who died in 1980, faded in the stairwell.

Perhaps fewer and fewer guests had come because the highway directly in front of the hotel had to cope with more and more traffic. Everyone drives a car in Montenegro. And almost everyone drives fast. In any case, the many cars made noise in the hotel room as constant as the hum of the air conditioning.

Perhaps it wasn't the cars, but the old man. After ten years, "my wife ran away," he said. And then he said this sentence that made me think about it, a sentence that might reveal something about the gender relationship here in the Western Balkans. The old man said that Swiss women love their men "for real," while "the women here in Montenegro are only with men out of self-interest." The old man made a contemptuous gesture with his hand.

Not a nice sentence. Perhaps bitterness. But it occurred to me that the old man was maybe right in some ways. In Switzerland, equality between men and women has advanced. Social advancement is possible for many there. Here in Montenegro, it was or is different, I suspect. Social life seems to be dominated by men. Marriage was or is maybe one of the few opportunities in life for women to gain wealth and prestige. It is, therefore, understandable that women in Montenegro choose their partners more based on their own advancement.

So, the old man had observed correctly. He had just drawn the wrong conclusion. He had criticized the wrong gender.

And I imagine the swimming pool in the old man's hotel filled with cold, clear water and roses blooming next to it. And I have the idea that it would still be like that today if more women in Montenegro could choose love.

See you in Europe,

Johannes