Croatian Friends
During our time in Croatia, we had the privilege of encountering some very dear people. We lived next to them or bought bread from them or asked them a bazillion questions.
Kharmen lives next door to the house we rented. She and her young friend Ava noticed that E had trouble riding the adult bikes at our house, and they offered Ava’s own treasured bike for E to borrow for the week. She also shared her pomegranates, limes, stories we only vaguely understood, and smiles we had no trouble understanding. We both teared up at goodbye.
Ivan and his wife have been married 14 years. They greeted us with a cheerful, “Hello, America!” whenever we came in their store by the town ferry dock. When we didn’t have enough cash with us one day to pay for our grocery items, they said, “Don’t worry — bring it tomorrow.” The next day when I brought the money, Ivan found the receipt in a stack stashed on the top of the cash register, easily identified by the handwritten “America” across the top.
Bozo (“Bor-zho”) will graciously talk to anyone about anything, even the crazy Americans that come to the little fishing and windsurfing town of Viganj in the off-season. He told me, “People are just people, no matter what country they are from. Fifteen percent of people are eccentric and you can ignore them, but everyone else — we are all just people.”
from the Muppets take Manhattan: “So, peoples is peoples. Okay?”