We now have a map on the kitchen wall to colour all the countries that Virtual Nomad has stopped in. At this stage, A (11) already knows all the countries and capitals in the world and even the older kids L (17), L’s boyfriend NA (18) and a visiting friend KD (15) have some kind of idea of where Bulgaria lies. In short, A can name the neighbouring countries and the capital while the older teens can say that it is “somewhere in Europe”.

But first, as always, food. We are proud of our very successful Bulgarian night. 

Mysterious delicious Bulgaria

The Bulgarian Night reunites eight Virtual Nomads for a long and lovely meal. As Sydney is moving towards the deepest heart of the winter, rich Bulgarian food is well received and appreciated. We indulge in six different dishes and dessert while listening to Bulgarian traditional music, especially the track that was world famous – Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares – The Mystery of Bulgarian Voices. 

I have been asked to remind who the Virtual Nomads are so from now on I will give a short introduction of who is participating. Our Bulgarian night consists of not only myself but my partner JK and most of our combined children my daughter L (17) and son A (nearly 11) and also L’s boyfriend NA (17). My stepchild FK (15) is away for the Bulgarian night. CH is the Special Adviser of the Virtual Nomad. She has visited more than 140 countries and participates in Virtual Nomad nights in between her travels. Tonight we also enjoy the company of two other seasoned Virtual Nomads who live nearby, KD and her son KD (15). 

The main dish is Guvech, a meat casserole with vegetables. It is originally a Turkish dish but popular in South Bulgaria, and the South Bulgarian recipe is the one that I follow. It is a slow cooked dish so it takes me several hours to prepare. It also needs constant love in the form of checking the temperature. I do not have a clay dish big enough so I need to use glass, but for the rest of it, I follow the recipe religiously, give it a lot of time and love. It involves chopping, preparing, mixing, and checking the temperature. The dish has diced beef and several vegetables including okra, eggplant, potato, tomato, broccoli and capsicum, but also fresh spices such as mint and parsley. As a vegetarian, I do not eat it myself but it is very well received – a perfect winter dish for a cold night in Sydney, accompanied by some Bulgarian salads. 

The most common Bulgarian salad is Shopska salad, which comes up in any search for traditional Bulgarian food. “It has all the best vegetables,” says L (17), who finds it delicious. It is a fresh salad with positive vibes. It has tomatoes, cucumbers, red and green capsicums, spring onions, olives, chopped parsley, olive oil, vinegar and some feta cheese on top. Some sources claim that the name ‘Shopska’ was first mentioned in a Bulgarian cookbook in 1940 and it is said to come from the Sopski or Shopluk region in Western Bulgaria. Some other sources say that it was developed by Bulgantourist as a response to Greek salad. Supposedly it should have the colours of the Bulgarian flag and was heavily promoted by Peter Doychev, who was the leader of Bulgarian Tourism. The origin has been disputed by Serbia as Shopluk is a region that is divided by Bulgaria, Serbia and North Macedonia. In 2014, it was the most recognisable Bulgarian dish in Bulgaria and is considered Bulgaria’s national dish.

With guvech and Shopska, we also eat banitsa, which is a typical Bulgarian breakfast food. It is super simple to make with filo pastry. Basically it is feta cheese, butter, some yoghurt and eggs. Filo in layers and filling between each layer. My banitsa has a slightly unorthodox shape, but it did not take away any of its culinary charm. It is an incredibly easy and quick recipe, but simultaneously very tasty. The whole banitsa vanished in the course of the dinner, even taking into account that one of the Virtual Nomads present, KD is gluten free. So seven Virtual Nomads hid the big banitsa in their tummies in record time. 

Another side dish is feta-filled peppers, or capsicums as we call them. As dictated by the recipe, I have deliberately chosen small capsicums both red and yellow. While heating them in the oven, I am a bit worried that they might turn out very dry, so I pour on generous amounts of olive oil, which the capsicums seem to like. They are a splendid side dish and, together with stuffed vine leaves, add wonderful favour to the dinner.

The final part of the menu is the Snezhanka salad. It contains cucumber (with most of the water having been squeezed away), garlic, fresh dill, salt and yogurt. It is very refreshing.

As a dessert, we have baklava that is mostly eaten by L (17) and A (10). It mysteriously disappears, which must be that old Bulgarian magic. 

Mysterious Thracians and one of the oldest states in Europe 

Bulgaria has been at the crossroads of several cultures for a long time. It was inhabited by the Varna people who then gave way to the mystic Thracians. They were skilful warriors, loved wine and music and had a deep impact on European cultural development. Most of the Greek and Roman gods and mythology are believed to be influenced by Thracian beliefs and rituals. King Teres 1 united the land but had to give it up to the Macedonians. Thracians survived many conquests from Persians and Macedonians to Greeks, Romans, Slavs and Byzantines. After different events (many of them not nice and friendly) Thracia became part of the Roman Empire. A famous Thracian was called Spartacus – a gladiator and a slave leader who rebelled against Roman rule. 

The name Bulgaria comes from a Turkish tribe, the Bulgars, who invaded the region in the 7^th century. This makes Bulgaria one of the oldest states in Europe. The first King of Bulgaria was a guy called Khan Asparuh (681-701). There were several wars and the country was united through Christianity (under Boris I 852-889). A fun fact is that the Cyrillic alphabet was born in Bulgaria during its peak in power. Then came Ottoman rule of the region that lasted for over 500 years (1396 – 1906).  Independence was declared in 1908 but the unrest was far from over. An alliance with Germany in both world wars caused problems with the neighbours. In 1946, Bulgaria became part of the Soviet-led Eastern block of states and a socialist state. Repression was widespread under Georgi Dimitrov (1946-1949) and Todor Zhivkov (1954-1989). His slightly odd daughter, Lyudmila Zhivkova, strongly supported Bulgarian art and heritage as the head of culture in the country, embracing weird, esoteric beliefs and projects. In 1989, Bulgaria adopted parliamentary democracy but it took a long time to generate economic growth or improve the living standards of ordinary Bulgarians. Reports by Freedom House and other organisations have reported a decrease in civil and political freedoms since 2009, and a deterioration of democratic governance. 

Bulgaria does not have the greatest track record with minorities. It has the highest proportion of Romani people in Europe, with an estimated 4-6% of the population. These are some of the poorest and least educated people, not only in Bulgaria, but in Europe. The Romani face discrimination, poverty and racism and, in 2016, only 23% of the Romani population in Bulgaria was employed, with 60% living in poverty. While the Romani live throughout Bulgaria, the biggest populations are in Faculteta in Sofia and Stolipinovo in Plovdiv.  

Another other minority community that has been living in Bulgaria for centuries is the ethnic Turks. Bulgaria has a large population of native Muslims and, due the falling birth rate of Christian Bulgarians in the 1980s, the state was worried about the growth rates of the Muslim population. In 1986, the ‘Revival process’ introduced assimilation techniques including changing Turkish names into Christian names. In May 1989, the country saw peaceful demonstrations by the Turkish minority, which were quickly repressed by police forces. By October 1989 around 350,000 Bulgarian Turks were forced to leave Bulgaria. 

Reading Bulgaria: the Samodivi and all the real people that are fictional 

I have a great Bulgarian friend, LV, who lives in Canada and I absolutely trust to provide Bulgarian recommendations. As occurs with other friends for previous entries, it is very hard for her to decide what to recommend, so she elects not to. But, as I have previously, I find my way around by finding people, almost without asking, who have heard or learned about Virtual Nomad and are eager to help. I find out that contemporary Bulgarian literature has two superstars; Georgi Gospodinov and Kapka Kassabova. I’m informed that Under the Yoke: A Romance of Bulgarian Liberty by Ivan Vazov is a Bulgarian classic and a must read at Bulgarian schools, but I can’t get a hold of a translation so I decide to read one book by each of the other two.  

My first Bulgarian book for Virtual Nomad is by the Bulgarian sensation, Georgi Gospodinov. His book, Time Shelter (2020, translated in 2022), received rave reviews and was called an instant classic / masterpiece. The translation won the International Booker Prize in 2023 – the first Bulgarian to do so. It sounds very promising. 

The central plot is about a psychiatrist, Gaustine, who treats people with Alzheimer’s and dementia. He creates a clinic with floors dedicated to different decades for patients to live their past. The detailed floors include artefacts and even daily news from the assigned decades. A man living in 1973 is obsessed with John Lennon, and comes in every day to read the news. When he arrives in 1979 (on the 70s floor), he has a premonition that the singer will be shot and wants to warn the FBI and the police about it. There are many more stories like that, of people lost in time and space. But then healthy people start to come to the clinic, wanting to escape, and finally entire nations start to think what are the best decades for them. 

“According to Gaustine, for us the past is the past, and even if we step into it, we know that the exit to the present is open, we can come back with ease. For those who have lost their memories, this door has slammed shut once and for all. For them, the present is a foreign country, while the past is their homeland.”

More than about memory, it is a book about nostalgia. What once was or what could have been but never was. It is about creating a past that is based on what we once lived or invented in our minds. The start of the book is promising: “All real persons in this novel are fictional, only the fictional are real”. The fear that our memory and present will abandon us, and every name of a high school class member that you can’t remember, will take you closer to losing your own core and essence. 

“Memory holds you, freezes you within the fixed outlines of a single, solitary person whom you cannot leave. Oblivion comes to liberate you. Features lose their sharpness and definitiveness, vagueness blurs the shape. If I don’t clearly remember who exactly I am, I could be anyone, even myself, even myself as a child.”

It is by all means a brilliant, poignant, clever and thoroughly researched book. It has moments of absolute brilliance. It is very dense, and made to be admired. It has many nuances and is meticulous in its subtle political analysis of Europe of 2020 and the continent’s past. It is spot on in some things, creative in others and very heavy in most of its content. It is an absolutely admirable book, worthy of awards and fanfare. I applaud it but find it hard to love. It is a cerebral, cynical and intelligent book that in the end did not move me emotionally. 

My next book is the other highly regarded Bulgarian contemporary author, Kapka Kassabova. I decide to read her book Border: A Journey to the Edge of Europe (2017). It is super interesting and I end up loving it more than Georgi’s Time Shelter. In fact, I end up loving it a lot. It is a captivating, fascinating and a really well written travel book. Kapka is an author who left Bulgaria in her teens to live in New Zealand and Scotland, first with her scientist family and then as an author. In this book she returns to the border region between Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey – the region of her childhood summers where dark and mystical things took place. The dark things refer to the stories of people trying to cross the borders for a better life. Firstly Eastern Europeans (mostly from Eastern Germany as it was rumoured to be an easier crossing point than the Berlin Wall) during the Cold War, many of whom lost their lives in the depths of the forest by the Greek border. The past haunts those who were asked to shoot people on sight. Today the refugees are mainly Syrians escaping the horrors of war, while trying to find a better future. The mystical refers to the history older than the soviet terror – the Thracian beliefs and old tombs, spirits and inexplicable phenomena. 

Kapka travels through the region in the three countries and talks to different people with amazing life stories – border guards, smugglers, refugees, ethnic Turks, forest rangers – all kinds of people with stories to tell. She travels through villages, ruins and mystic forests. I find myself tracking the places she mentions on a map. I have no way of knowing what is true and what is a fictionalised truth but I found myself completely immersed in the book and reading every sentence, sometimes twice. The writing is superb and the storytelling is outstanding. I have seen reviews that criticise some parts of the book as non-authentic but no one seems to ever be a prophet in their own land. Sometimes reviews are unfair, particularly when they state something like “this is not my experience of the region and I for sure know so much better.” My understanding is that the author has combined elements from different people to create some of the characters in the book in order to protect the original source. It is not a documentary and should not be read like that. Maybe I am just the right audience for it as I absolutely loved it.  

My last Bulgarian book is Mystical Emona by Ronesa Aveela – a pseudonym for two authors. I am tempted to read it due to the description that it stems from the Thracian and Bulgarian mythology – the stories of the Samodivi (nymphs), dragons and other legends that I have already learned a bit about from Kapka’s book. The magical realm of ancient Bulgaria is such an interesting dimension that I want to stay there just a little bit longer. 

While I am reading, I realise that I might not be the best audience for it. For the engaged audience it would probably be perfect. First of all, it is very long and long books are hard to keep together. Secondly, it is a romance story with mystical and fantasy elements which is not my genre. For me, while the mythological elements are interesting as an introduction to Bulgarian folklore, the romance itself feels a bit silly. A man called Stefan loses his wife and then returns to his homeland, Bulgaria, to the enigmatic Emona region where people still believe in and live with the mystical elements of old folktales. He is in fact (and this is revealed early in its 410 pages) a reincarnation of a nymph’s lover. Then the immortal Samodivi woman travels through time and space to reunite with him, but there are obstacles on the way – not least from his (woodenly written) nemesis, Nikola, who is a childhood friend but also possibly something more sinister. For me, and I hope not to offend anyone who is a fan of the story or the genre itself, the plot is poorly written, corny and ridiculous at times. It would have benefitted from a tough editing hand. Who can read – without chuckling – sentences such as “ Kalyna walked towards him, her beauty radiating in the fading light. Lipstick the color of raspberries enhanced her full lips. A white silk dress, accessorized by a golden belt, highlighted her perfect body. He stared in silence, his own unspeakable desire reflected in her sparkling green eyes.”

What the long book offers is knowledge about Bulgarian folklore and what pushes me through the gruelling 410 pages is the new vocabulary and Thracian beliefs that I then google and learn about. Maybe the authors wanted to write a book about that and then invented a silly story of haunting dreams and a passive Stefan, lusting after the dead wife and then the nymph. The beliefs and rituals are fascinating and the authors know a lot about them, so I research some of the things mentioned in the book regarding old Bulgarian beliefs, such as: 

• Red eggs have magical powers that can protect people from illness. 
• Fire dancing is called nestinarstvo (walking on fire – rejuvenates the soul and body)
• Grapes are holy food and blackberries are evil food. 
• Om Prokopi Pchelar, golden honey day, you leave sacred bread in hives before sunrise and the honey on bread makes the bees make more honey.
• Traditional healers are called Znahars – they can see what causes the pain and then find the right herbs for everything. It’s important to emphasize that they are not witches nor shamans but traditional healers.
• Fairies and nymphs are called Samodivi and they inhabit forests. The fairies of the water are called Rusalki. The Samodivi are daughters of the mighty Goddess Bendis. 
• Midsummer is called Eniovden, during which the healers collect seventy-seven and a half herbs. The summer solstice was associated with spirits crossing from one realm to the next and healers had an important role in the sacred rituals of protection.
• Witches – someone who practices the dark arts and terrible spells to bring destruction and suffering – are called veshtitsa.

Two and a half movies, and an old documentary 

An awarded Bulgarian movie (and the only Bulgarian movie ever shortlisted for an Oscar, not that it means anything) is The World is Big and salvation lurks around the corner by Stephan Komandarev (2008). It is a melancholic movie taking place in two timelines – early 1980s socialist Bulgaria (around the time of USSR leader Leonid Brezhnev’s death) and twenty years later. It is a co-production between Bulgaria, Germany and Hungary and tells the story of Sashko who illegally immigrates to Germany (having initially been detained in a refugee camp in Italy) with his parents in order to escape the communist repression. His grandfather, who travels to Germany to reconnect with Sashko, has lost his memory due to a serious accident. Based on the autobiographical book by Ilija Trojanow, the story is told in flashbacks that connect the two stories – the struggles of Sashko’s family to reach Germany and beyond and who will carry the weight of the deceit and the iron fist of the regime. Both storylines underline the experiences of the powerless, the alienated and the discriminated. There is a poignant moment in the movie when a well-spoken immigrant speaks to an Italian detention centre police officer on behalf of the detained. “We are escaping a dictatorship and just want a better life. We are not criminals” he says. The movie is also about the game backgammon – the game that builds the connection between the grandfather and his grandson.

Eastern Plays (2009) by Kamen Kalev is one of the few Bulgarian movies selected to be screened at Cannes. It is a tough movie, both the film itself and its backstory. Situated in post-Cold War Bulgaria, it examines the growing intolerance and racism, the ideological and social hangover after the collapse of the soviet system, and the drifting emptiness of young people when ‘freedom’ did not bring the amazing tomorrow they eagerly awaited. The main actor, Christo Christov, plays himself in the movie (a recovering drug addict) and the apartment used in the film was his actual apartment. He does not come across initially as a likable character. It hurts to say so as the actor died of an overdose before filming was complete. The story itself centers around two brothers – Christo and his younger brother Georgi, who is increasingly attracted to neo-Nazi ideology. Through Georgi’s violent involvement with the skinhead gangs, Christo comes across a beautiful Turkish girl who challenges his bleak and lightless vision of life. 

It is a debut from the director and it shows. It is both raw and honest, and messy and incomplete at the same time. The storyline is sometimes painfully messy, as if the movie cannot really decide what it wants to be. The characters, even if the story is based on the real persona of Christo (and he was a childhood friend of Kamen who inspired the story), are in the end, less important than the Bulgaria that Kamen wants to portray. People feel lost and betrayed by a corrupt government, with the gap between generations widening. Everyone struggles to find ways to escape the mundane existence of unfulfilled promises and find meaning in addictions, ideologies, mass media consumption, emotional dependence, and so on. 

Blind Vaysha is an eight minute animated short film that, yes, was nominated for an Oscar. It is about Vaysha whose left eye only sees the past while her right eye only sees the future. She is unable to see the present. The story is by Georgi Gospodinov, the writer of two of the books I have read for this Virtual Nomad stop (and the skeleton of the plotline is mentioned in his book, Time Shelter). Directed by Theodore Ushev, it is visually interesting and with great music. It’s an interesting story that becomes a bit preachy towards the end of its short duration, as an informed viewer already knows what it is about. 

Welcome Nowhere is a 2012 documentary about a large Romani community living in a ghetto of boxcars in Sofia under inhuman conditions. The houses of the community were demolished in 2001 to make way for a large supermarket, forcing them to live in boxcars without sanitation or running water. Ten years later, they were still there. The documentary is about a specific community (which then received government housing, albeit too late for some) but also about the attitudes towards Roma people in Bulgaria (and the rest of Europe). It is such an interesting documentary that it prompts us to look at the current situation. There are 12 million Romani people in Europe. While Bulgaria may have the densest Romani population, there are Romani in several European countries still facing open bigotry and discrimination. According to recent European Parliament statistics (2022), 80% of Romani people in Europe live below the poverty line. In 2019, Krasimir Karakachanov, Deputy Prime Minister for Public Order and Security, Minister of Defence and President of the IMRO-Bulgarian National movement party, proposed a Roma Integration Strategy. The Strategy includes, for example, policies to control the number of births for Romani women and free abortions for Romani women. Another proposal of the strategy was to re-establish “labour-education schools” which existed during the communist regime and were basically prisons for minors. The National Strategy 2021 – 2030 for Equality, Inclusion and Participation of the Roma fortunately looks quite different.

Mystery of Bulgarian voices and the end of the World

In 1987, the album Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares introduced Bulgarian female choral music to the world. The album received widespread international acclaim and several contemporary music artists, such as Paul Simon and David Byrne, collaborated and promoted it. The different Bulgarian regions have distinct vocal practices. A common traditional singing technique is closing the vocal folds while keeping the throat open, which then produces a particular sound.  

To finish the Bulgarian stop on a high note, I will mention Baba Vanga, the late psychic Bulgarian who allegedly predicted the events of September 11^th 2001, and other things. Vanga also predicted that the world will end in 5079 but the apocalypse will start in 2025 (although, according to some reports, she said that this would happen in 2023).  

Thank you JK for your generous proof reading

Next stop: Burkina Faso

We have placed a map on the kitchen wall and colour the countries Virtual Nomad has stopped in. Quite easy to find our next stop. The tiny Brunei Darussalam is situated on the island of Borneo, surrounded by Malaysia and facing the South China Sea. It has a bit more than 455,000 inhabitants, the majority of whom live in the capital, Bendar Seri Begawan.  

But as always. Food first. 

A substitute kitchen 

The Brunei kitchen is influenced by Malaysian and Indonesian culinary traditions. You cannot find pure Brunei food in Sydney so the next best thing is to find a Malay/Indonesian restaurant that serves dishes that are popular in Brunei. We decide to go to the Berempah Fusion Restaurant in Crows Nest. The Brunei night results in an ok but not outstanding dinner for the ten Virtual Nomads in our party. The food is fine but not spectacular. The restaurant is full, despite it being a Tuesday night in winter. 

As is the case in surrounding countries, beef panang is popular in Brunei so it’s high on our list to order. Panang is a curry that is mild and rich in flavour. Usually it contains peanuts, spices but less chili than, for example, a red curry would. Beef panang usually has the beef sliced thin and cooked in curry, peanuts and coconut milk. I hear from fellow Virtual Nomads that this particular beef panang is ok but not amazing. Apart from beef panang, we also order a variety of other dishes, the quality of which varies from good to passable.  

I get a vegan beef parang which is a bit underwhelming. 

A (10) wants his favourite – fried rice with prawn which is also very popular in Brunei. 

Brunei history

Brunei Darussalam is an absolute constitutional monarchy ruled by the Sultan, with the state religion being Islam. Brunei is said to have been founded by Awang Alak Betatar and named Barunai in the 14^th century. From 1368 to 1888, Brunei was at its peak as an empire, spreading around the island of Borneo and several other territories (e.g. some islands of the Philippines). It gradually lost territory from the 17^th century. During this time there were reasonably good relationships with some overseas colonialists (eg. Portugal) and not so good with others (a war with Spain in 1578). There was also conflict within the country itself (the Brunei Civil War 1660-73, a long war resulting from the loss of the Sultan’s son in a cock fight). Brunei became a

British protectorate in 1888 and stayed one until 1984. In World War II, Brunei suffered terribly at the hands of the Japanese until it was liberated by the Australian 9^th battalion. Brunei gained self-governance in 1959 and independence in 1984. The Sultan of Brunei, Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, who introduced Sharia law into the national legislation, is one of the richest people in the world, thanks to large oil and gas reserves. He is the world’s longest-serving head of state and one of the few absolute monarchs in the world. His wealth is estimated to be around $30 billion and he has one of the largest car collections in the world. In 2013, he introduced Sharia law (intended to be effective from 2019) which included the death penalty by stoning for same-sex marriage and adultery. Due to international pressure, in 2019 he announced that he would not apply the law. He has had three wives. His first wife is his first cousin (they are still married) and the third is a TV presenter, 33 years his junior. He divorced his second and third wife. 

The Brunei book

For the Brunei stop, I decide to read The Fisherman King by Kathrina Mohd Daud. Kathrina is an Assistant Professor of English at the Brunei Darussalam University. She studies Muslim representation in popular romance and has co-founded an all-female theatre group – Salted Egg Theatre. The Fisherman Kind is her debut and was shortlisted for the Epigram Books Fiction Prize (2020).   

The novel is a mixture of folklore, fantasy, old mysticism and modern romance, anchored in the folk tales of Brunei. The story is situated in the largest water village in the world – Kampong Ayer (which literally means Water Village). Currently home to more than 9000 people, it is the largest settlement on stilts in the world. In the book, water plays an important role as the main character (who is not very likable) is a young fisherman called Lisan. He returns home after eight years of unexplained absence to find his wife remarried. He is obsessed by the mystery of his roots and origins that may or may not indicate that he is something more special than ‘just’ a normal fisherman. The response to everything lies beneath the water, in the depths of the sea. The story unfolds over two different timelines – present day Lisan and the past with a forbidden love story between royal siblings. There is a central theme of birthrights, bloodlines and the superiority of the royalty, which for me is a foreign concept. There is also the sense of identity and the incapacity of people to see the value of real things, until it’s too late. There are also snake gods, spirits and haunted treasures. It reads a bit like mythology with unlikable characters. 

Movies: Martial arts ‘a la Brunei 

Not many movies have been produced in Brunei. The most notable are a 1968 production Gema Dari Menara, a 2013 comedy Ada Apa Dengan Rina and a 2014 youth martial arts movie Yasmine. As the 1968 movie is not available, we watch the other two.

Yasmine from 2014 is the first film from Brunei directed by a woman. Siti Kamaluddin is a Bruneian director, musician and filmmaker. She has directed several TV commercials and four films, including Mentari, which features stories from six different directors from ASEAN countries to celebrate International Women’s Day. Yasmine is her first movie and is clearly targeting a young audience as it’s about a high-schooler wanting to become a master in a martial art called Silat. It follows a typical teenage drama format: the ambition of a smart but not a popular girl; a parent who is not understanding but who comes around; the weight of the tradition in contrast with modern aspirations; being goofy and hanging out with goofy friends; two goofy and equally unpopular best friends and some friendship issues; a cute boy; a stunning but cold nemesis; a retired and hesitant but endlessly wise mentor; and a skill that the main character has a passion for (Silat in this case). There are the themes of dedication, focus, mental strength and some spirituality, as is often the case in martial arts movies. It is cute but not memorable, but a great watch for the Brunei landscape with interesting details. 

Ada Apa Dengan from 2013 by filmmakers Harlif Haji Mohamad and
Farid Azlan Ghani is notable for using a Brunei Malay dialect throughout the film – a dialect used by most Bruneians daily. It is a comedy about relationships and finding your true love. Hakim is 30 and feeling the pressure to find a significant other. He has a friend with a theory of how to find the perfect partner, and Hakim decides to follow that advice. The result is a story that was a great success in Brunei and some other ASEAN countries. It is a light-hearted comedy with uneven acting levels, and interesting primarily for the description of the urban lifestyle and working life in modern Brunei. It feels a bit clumsy and forced at times and most probably contains several cultural jokes that we do not get. It was overwhelmingly popular in Brunei and many critics called it hilarious. That just means that the joke’s on us for not understanding all the comedic details. 

Next stop: Bulgaria 

Now, how do we approach a country that is so enormous and as diverse as Brazil?

How can Virtual Nomads pay homage to the different climates, cultures, demographics and complex history of Brazil? What a task. We know we will fail to portray the full picture of Brazil’s cultural richness, diversity and varying geographical landscapes. First of all, Brazil has 26 states that are bigger than most countries – all of which are very unique and distinguishable from one another. But for a single night we will pretend Brazil can be experienced through an evening of delicious food. And music – that amazing gift of music that Brazil has given to the world. 

I want to apologise to our Brazilian friends for simplifying the Brazilian stop by only shortly skimming over an overview not intending to cover Brazil in its entirety. Hopefully our brief adventure pays homage to the exciting, diverse force of nature that is Brazil. 

A rainy Brazilian night in Maroubra 

There are several Brazilian restaurants in Sydney in almost any price-range. We decide to ditch the high-price venues advertising fancy churrascos and rather head to a family-owned small restaurant in Maroubra. Brothers Grill Brazilian Restaurant and Steak House advertises how it serves casual Brazilian food in a rustic environment, which is exactly what we get. The Brazilian night gathers almost all core Nomads – 14 of us – for a night of quite delicious Brazilian food with great service. We share big plates of different meats and vegetables.

Brazil in a nutshell

Brazil is huge. As the 5^th largest country in the world with an estimated population of 205 million, it is so large that it is considered a ‘megadiverse’ country due to the diversity of climates, landscapes, flora and fauna – but also people and cultural influences. It includes the largest part of the mighty Amazon, yet also a long coastline. It offers enormous cultural and ethnic richness, however has also been historically plagued by high crime rates, corruption and one of the world’s most pronounced levels of wealth inequality.

Brazil is so large that it did not exist as a country or a unified region before the arrival of the Portuguese in 1500. Brazil’s name is said to derive from the Portuguese word pau-brazil, meaning a red tree that was growing on the coast. The Portuguese set up large sugar plantations demanding slave labour, leading to an active slave trade from Africa. (Brazil was the last country of the Western Hemisphere to abolish slavery, in 1888).

Brazilian independence was declared in 1822 by Pedro I (part of the Portuguese royal family), who appointed himself Emperor. He was followed by Pedro II who spoke 14 languages and modernised Brazil, attracting large numbers of immigrants. Pedro II was overthrown and exiled to Europe. Several dictatorships followed. Getúlio Vargas did not like the fact that he lost a presidential election, so he forcibly took power in 1930. He later established the Estado Novo (New State) in 1937, marked by censorship and government brutality. His position weakened in 1945, however  he returned shortly to power in 1950 ( afterwards suffering a sad end in 1954). Some other presidents followed, but from 1964 to 1985, as did some of its neighbours, Brazil lived through an authoritarian military dictatorship, which was, of course, not great for the common people. The return of democracy catalysed some more and some less successful political leaders, as well as prolonged crises of corruption, police brutality and abuse of power of the political establishment. Currently, Brazil’s president is Lula da Silva, following Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2023), a very controversial president. Lula da Silva was also president from 2003 to 2011, then followed by Dilma Rousseff. Anyone interested in learning more about her impeachment is encouraged to watch Petra Costa’s superb 2019 documentary ‘The Edge of Democracy’.

Later, when we study Brazil at home with A (10), we learn many things: 

• Brazil has won the football world cup five times –  the highest of any country. We research the recently deceased football legend, Pelé (who died in December 2022), hailed as the greatest football player of all time. Pelé’s incredible posthumous impact is such that four months after his death, and after a petition that gathered 125,000 signatories, the Michaelis Portuguese-language dictionary included the word pelé as a synonym for “unique, exceptional, incomparable”. 

“Pelé” — um adjetivo que pode ser masculino ou feminino — é descrita pelo dicionário como “que ou aquele que é fora do comum, que ou quem em virtude de sua qualidade, valor ou superioridade não pode ser igualado a nada ou a ninguém” 

· You cannot talk about Brazil without mentioning music and the Carnival –  the biggest, brightest and most colourful carnival in the universe!

· 60% of the Amazon is in Brazil. The Amazon river is the second longest river in the world, and the rainforest  is the world’s largest – home to more than 30 million people.

Four books from Brazil (or rather five but we do not count one)

The best-selling author from Brazil is Paolo Coelho. He has sold over 300 million books globally and is considered to be one of the most influential authors in the world. His books have been described as part magical realism, part New Age, often focusing on spirituality and finding one’s life purpose. I have read some of his books in the past, so I will not for my Virtual Nomad booklog. Paolo’s most famous book is The Alchemist. While I am fully aware that it has been an important book for many, it has not been influential nor significant for me. None of the core Virtual Nomads are into Coelho’s spiritual philosophy, but we know people to whom his literature and teachings has been life-changing, so it is not our place to express judgement on the value of his teachings.

Therefore, my first Brazilian book for the Virtual Nomad stop is O Quarto de Despejo by Carolina Maria de Jesus, translated as Child of the Dark in English. I decide to read it in the original language. Carolina was a poor black woman living in one of the favelas of São Paolo, Canindé. Born in the state of Minas Gerais, she moved to São Paolo with her mother with the intention of finding a better life (the fate of her mother is not known).  Because she could read and write (not common in a favela), she started to write a diary about her life in the favela. The book was published in 1960 and is based on the actual diary of Carolina. It became an overnight sensation and a best seller. It is a rare piece of documentary literature that portrays the life of the urban poor in the 1950s/1960s in Brazil. More than sixty years after it was published (and nearly fifty years after the once-celebrated Carolina died of lung disease, forgotten and poor) it remains current for its portrayal of ever-present hunger (practically starvation), discrimination, poverty, violence, misery and devastating inequality. At the beginning of the book she says: “Life is like a book. Only at the end of it you will know its full content.”

Foto: Revista Periferias 

The language is simple and practical. Carolina only had a few years of schooling so the writing is quite straightforward, but it is a remarkably effective portrayal of life in the favela. The life she describes is full of ever-present hunger and crippling poverty. She collects paper during the night to sell and feed her three children. Her relations with her neighbours are poor. She describes how it feels to hear the baker call for everyone to buy sweet bread in the morning “because it is time for breakfast”, when most people in the favelas cannot afford breakfast. She describes the smell of the favelas – a mix of excrement and rotten clay. People try to find shoes in the garbage, that then only last for a few days as they are already rotting. She conveys what it feels like when your child vomits worms and you have no food or clothes, freezing during cold days. She is an observer of the people around her –she is not always nice,sometimes writing with a sense of superiority. She has been described as having a fiercely independent and aggressive spirit that would bring her problems, basically because she was not a grateful and ‘good’ poor for the ruling class. But she is a survivor –  a person with flaws fighting for survival in inhuman conditions, just like everyone else around her. Sometimes she portrays suicidal ideation and often curses her faith and her life. The novel describes the fights, the relationships, the conflicts, the hunger, the poverty, and the children that die in the favela. It is quite an amazing book to read as it is very grounded and real. Carolina’s notoriety lasted a very short time – even though she was able to leave the favela, the limelight faded quickly and she was forced to return to the favela, where she would die. 

“A child died here in the favela. He was two months old. If he had lived, he would have starved.”(7 October 1958) 

A full story of Carolina’s life by Robert M. Levine (1992) can be read here: https://kellogg.nd.edu/sites/default/files/old_files/documents/178_0.pdf 

It  gives a full picture of how she was treated after her diary was published –  like a “curious animal”, the document says. It is almost as devastating a read as the diary itself. 

I turn to my Brazilian friends for recommendations for my next book but no one wants to take responsibility for putting forward a book or two, over others, to represent Brazil. Brazil is huge with an incredibly rich literary tradition. Should I choose the author who is considered the greatest Brazilian writer, Machado de Assis, who I have never read before, or other big names like Jorge Amado (who I have), Clarice Lispector (who I have) or Guimarães Rosa (who I have not)? Or exciting contemporary writers such as Adriana Lisboa?

What should I do? Put names in a hat? 

Ok then. I do just that.

My second Brazilian book is Dom Casmurro by Machado de Assis, which is described as one of if not the greatest book in all Brazilian literature, and one of the greatest books ever written in the Portuguese language. Machado de Assis himself was a mestizo, an exceptional literary talent whose skill pushed through the barriers of his time and the most important writer of Brazilian realism. The novel could be described as a fictional memoir of an old, paranoid man consumed by jealousy when he starts to trust an idea built in his head: that his wife cheated on him and their only child is not his. It would be a major spoiler to say whether she did or not, but in the end it is a minor thing. The story is more about the main character, Bentinho Santiago, and his short spurts of thoughts; stream-of-consciousness reflections on his childhood, relationship with his mother, best friend, wife. The writing flows with ease and (black) humour, and it must have been quite ahead of its time at its 1899 publication. While the writing is delicious, the story itself is less compelling for me. I do understand the narrative’s inherent value, and the writing keeps me engaged in most sections, but I grow a bit tired of the story itself, particularly withBentinho’s eccentricities. 

Torto Arado (translated to Crooked Plow in English) by Itamar Vieira Junior has won all the possible literature awards since its publication in 2018. Itamar himself was born in Salvador de Bahia, and has a PhD in African and Ethnic Studies. His doctoral thesis was about quilombos, communities originating from escaped slaves of African origin. The book is indeed magnificent, sublime, and definitely worth the hype. It is captivating and magical with a reader-trapping story that does not let go. I relish every moment. The central storyline follows two close sisters, descendants of slaves in North Eastern Brazil, still living in near-slavery conditions with very little. It is their story, but also the story of family, ancestors, generations of slaves, and the spirits, beliefs and tensions between the underprivileged and the privileged; the change and the stagnant, the silenced and the  quietly conformed, and the spaces between spiritual continuity and oblivion.  Without doubt, the story criticises and unpicks the unfathomable cruelty of slavery and the capability of humans to treat fellow humans with such disdain. It is a remarkable book that trusts the reader to see things beyond the words on the page to anticipate what will happen – building trust on the reader’s critical ability to understand the small and big nuances evoked. It achieves a fascinating balance between the magical and political realm. It is heartbreaking and satisfying, magical and real, and about rights and wrong in a mesmerising, raw, graphic and poetic way. 5/5.

My final Brazilian book is by another contemporary writer Adriana Lisboa, said to be one of the leading contemporary authors in Latin America. I decide to read her book Crow Blue –  a combination, I discover, of both a coming-of-age tale and a sociocultural-focused narrative of understanding one’s place in the world through one’s roots. It is an interesting book, but there always lies danger when a grownup writes in a teenager’s voice, which is precisely what happens with this book. The protagonist is a 13-year girl who loses her mother and is whisked away to live in the US with her stepfather – who happened to be a guerrilla during the dictatorship in Brazil. It does not make complete sense that she would go to live with him in the US but hey, stranger things have happened. It effectively describes the experience of an immigrant and the sense of being trapped between two worlds; this is the sphere in which the book reads the most smoothly. The story is fed from Adriana’s own experience living as an immigrant in Colorado (albeit in much more privileged circumstances than the characters in the book, which often creates a slight sense of artificiality). For me, the sentiment of the book functions better than the narrative – there are excellent moments to the story, however there are also  sections that do not carry across so well. A bit like life itself.

Brazilian film – A festival

The Brazilian movie industry is vivid and powerful, with a plethora of quality movies. I have seen a lot of Brazilian cinema so it is easy for me to pick what I think is the crème of the abundant cinematic-crop, but I also want to see something new and include a variety of cinematographic pearls. Just to get it right, I turn to my Brazilian friend LB who is a documentary film maker and seek his approval of my proposed list. 

It was supposed to be ten – but the final selection for our Brazilian film festival consists of eleven movies; some which I have seen and some that I have not. Out of the eleven movies, A (10) is only allowed to see one which is a devastating film enough for him ( below; the 7^th film of our Brazilian Film Festival). 

It is an incredibly exciting list of movies, and we start with my very favourite.

City of God is one of the most infamous Brazilian movies. According to the list of the Top100 Brazilian movies of the Brazilian Film Critics Association (Abraccine, 2016), City of God is 8^th, and the only movie filmed in the new millennium within the top 14. It is co-directed by Fernando Meirelles and Katia Lund. I have a friend, MB, who works for Cinema Nosso, the NGO linked to the movie (founded by the directors and some of the actors in the movie). Apart from being famous for the movie, Cinema Nosso does amazing social work with young people in the favelas,offering lifestyle opportunities through workshops and film making. Their work can be observed and followed at https://cinemanosso.org.br/ 

After rewatching with my partner, JK, I determine the movie to be just as powerful as I remember. My  daughter L (17) and her boyfriend NA (soon to be 18 – oh gosh, L thinks as she proofreads her mother’s Brazil entry – she still needs to find him a gift), also watch the film, and find it truly evocative and thrilling. It is still a modern masterpiece with several interlinking layers. It is difficult to talk about all the interconnections and symbolism embedded in the narrative, alongside the impeccable storytelling, without spoiling it but everything makes sense and every detail is important. Essentially, the storyline follows boys and young men growing up around the world of crime and corruption in the Rio de Janeiro favela called Cidade de Deus (City of God). Only one of the actors (playing ‘Carrot’) is professional and the rest of the cast are people from the favelas. It is multilayered, impressive, compelling, crude and incredibly effective. L says the movie  is  impressive, heartbreaking and just brilliant: one of the movies which you cannot really articulate why they are so effective, they just are. In particular, L and NA fawn over the use of the creative use and manipulation of time throughout the narrative, such as instances of zooming up on a person, promptly followed by the narrator telling the audience ‘But it’s not time to tell [the character]’s story yet’.

Next on the list is Central Station (which is 11^th on Abraccine’s list), another of my Brazilian favourites. Central station is a road movie, with a stellar performance by Fernanda Montenegro. Compelling and emotional yet never overly sentimental, the film is a melancholic yet beautiful story about a young boy and an older woman forced to take care of him. It is a tale about human connection and family, and above all, the human heart. Directed by Walter Salles, it is a melancholic yet optimistic road movie of the warmth of the human heart.

JK and I proceed to watch Elite Squad (2007 – 30^th on the Abraccine list) – a critical and commercial success in Brazil, and one of the most watched movies in Brazilian history. This is a movie I have not seen before, so I am very intrigued. On the forefront, the movie tells about institutional (and individual) corruption and power. As we have seen the systematic corruption and inefficiency of the United Nations Peace Keepers in previous Virtual Nomad entries, this one follows police corruption – but also discusses more, less apparently, in order to make things not so black and white. The Rio de Janeiro favelas are so dangerous that for police forces to enter their areas, they forge agreements with the favela gangs. The elite squad BOPE, whose recruitment practices are beyond brutal and extremely humiliating, with the objective of making their ‘elite’ soldiers killing machines, is the only police force that the favela criminals are afraid of. If a favela gang member kills a BOPE member, he knows his days are numbered, because BOPE holds nothing back. 

Some criticism received is how the film apparently glorifies police brutality, but my understanding is different; I feel it does quite the opposite. While it illuminates widespread institutional police corruption (which is, without a doubt, very real), the film shows how even the ‘honest’ ones are slowly stripped of their humanity while hunting for ‘thugs’ in what they considered to be urban warfare. It is an impactful movie that, beyond its brutality and quite shocking illustrations of extreme violence (on both sides), tells of a story of lawless territory where underpaid police and gang-joining, poverty-stricken young men in favelas engage in an urban tale of survival– all born from a much larger context of desperation, poverty, corruption and violence. 

The Second Mother (2015, 71st on the Abraccine list) is a movie by Anna Muylaert, the title translated to “What time she’ll be back?” in the original language. It is a movie about Val, a live-in maid of an affluent family who has left her own daughter behind in the state of Pernambuco so that she can provide her a better life. The distance has grown very big between the two, and Val is closer to the only son of the family she serves. When her daughter suddenly contacts Val,  asking to stay with her while she takes her university entrance test, tensions in  class differences begin to become more apparent. The setting is similar to the movie I watched for the Bolivia entry (Zona Sur), and reminds of the highly awarded Mexican movie from Alfonso Cuarón, Roma. The children become closest to those who love and care for them while the adults treat the servants almost like  property or as beloved pets that should always know their place. The movie is based on the director’s own experience with a nanny who left her child while caring for Anna’s child. While a bit uneven, it remains an intriguing movie with a satisfactory and uplifting, but overly ideal solution. The main actress, Regina Cáse, does an incredible job in her role as Val, a self-sacrificing and maternal middle-aged woman, who accepts her place in society as given and unchangeable. 

Carandiru (2003, 95^th on the Abraccine list) is a movie by Héctor Babenco about the massacre of the Carandiru Penitentiary in 1992. The Carandiru prison is famous for the death of 111 prisoners by police forces after a rebellion escalated and became unmanageable. The film is based on the book by Antônio Drauzio Varella, the author being a doctor who volunteered in Carandiru to test prisoners for AIDS. The movie, shot on location with real prisoners serving as supporting actors, intends to bring a human side to the inhuman conditions the prisoners were living in. The massacre itself is a minor part of the movie, and more emphasis is given to individual stories, community and the microcosmos the prisoners created. It is a long movie which works both in favour of (you get to know the characters well) and against (there are almost too many storylines) the narrative. The movie is to be commended for its description of the lives of the prisoners – some career criminals and some victims of circumstances – and some casualties of the biggest prison massacre in Brazil that sent shock waves around the world. Nevertheless, kudos to the movie itself for not making the details of the massacre the  centerpiece of the movie, rather presenting the prisoners as people first. 

High up (4^th) on Abraccine (2016) is a documentary, Cabra Marcado para Morrer, from 1984 (named in English as Twenty Years Later – the direct translation would have been Goat marked to die). The documentary intended to describe the life and death of João Pedro Teixeira, a peasant leader in the state of Paraíbo, who was killed by local landowners in 1962. The making of the documentary is a fascinating story. Starting filming in 1964, the director Eduardo Coutinho cast João’s widow and local farmers to play themselves, but filming was stalled by representatives of the Brazilian military dictatorship. Eduardo returned twenty years later to film the rest and build the documentary, and it becomes a documentary about a documentary, and much more. Eduardo films those involved (who are still left) and builds a story about people who reflect on the impact of all that happened twenty years prior, up to their present (1984). It is an important documentary in Brazil, as a thought-provoking portrait of class conflict, the struggles of peasants in Brazil as well as a deeply effective narrative of the life of those involved. 

Isla das Flores – Isle of Flowers (1989, 13th on the Abraccine list) by Jorge Furtado is an award-winning and very highly acclaimed short film. It tracks the life cycle of a tomato from a supermarket to the landfill of Porto Alegre where rotten food is first given to pigs and then to the poor women and children who live in the area. This is the only movie from the list that A (10) is allowed to watch. It is rated for all ages so I watch it with A (10) and L (17). 12 minutes long, it is a shocking, partly funny yet quite moving watch. It is a clever documentary of the human condition and the monetary value of human life. When we research whether the conditions in the area have changed over thirty years later (2024), unfortunately we find several articles describing that the situation remains gravely similar. 

Probably the hardest watch on the whole list is Pixote (1981, 12^th on the Abraccine list), by Héctor Babenco, director of Carandiru. This movie is devastating, heartbreaking and very raw. At the beginning of the film, the director introduces the story with some statistics – 28 million children in Brazil live under the absolute poverty line – three million of them having no home nor family. The current statistics on street children in Brazil are unreliable, varying from 300,000 to seven million depending on sources and definitions of a homeless minor. There have been several policies and initiatives implemented to try to tackle the problem that derives from the core issues of poverty, violence, addiction and inequality. The movie is about all that and more – there is very little light in describing the cycle of abuse street minors face at the mercy of juvenile prison guards, gangs and pimps. It shows child prostitution, sexual abuse, violence, alienation, hunger, struggle, poverty, misery, betrayal. From the very first moments in a juvenile prison all the way to life on the streets, the film shows this self-same cycle of violence and despair.  It is a very hard watch. The acting is surprisingly good and many of the child actors (some as young as 10) came from harsh life situations themselves – the real life story of the main child actor, Fernando Ramos da Silva, is nearly as heartbreaking as the movie itself. He was shot dead by police at the age of 19. 

A very different movie on the list is Bacurau (2019). It is not placed on Abraccine  as it was made after the 2016 list. I find it through a recommendation by a Brazilian friend who says: “prepare yourself for a wild ride”. And wild it is. It stars the great Sônia Braga, who should of course be more famous for her excellent acting work rather than her romances with people such as Robert Redford and Caetano Veloso. It is difficult to place what genre the movie represents because it mixes western, sci fi, horror, thriller, etc – and is very violent. It is a wild ride, not particularly enjoyable, but certainly an interesting watch. Supposedly, the movie carries an anti-colonialist message that is at times buried under the graphic and prolonged violence, and  it won the Jury Prize of the 2019 Cannes Film Festival. It is not a film that I would re-watch; at times I struggled with the excessive, detailed violence that becomes the centrepiece of the movie. 

As mentioned before, the documentary by Petra Costa (a very interesting contemporary filmmaker – her movie Elena, about her dead sister, is also a superb documentary), The Edge of Democracy, is a surprisingly intimate portrait of Presidents Lula, Dilma Rousseff and Bolsonaro, and what led to the impeachment of Dilma. The director has hadunprecedented access to the political elite, and uses the documentary as a vehicle to understand the state  Brazil has found itself in. A Netflix production, the film is an excellent tool to understand what has happened in Brazil in recent years.

Bus 174. (67^th on the Abraccine list). The final movie for the Brazilian entry is a documentary that hits close to home – and for that reason I watch it with my partner JK. As Virtual Nomad is not about individual travels or experiences, I will not go into too much detail – only to say that this document is left last for a reason. This is the director of Elite Squad’s first film, following an attack on a Rio de Janeiro bus of route 174 (in 2000), and the subsequent hostage situation lasting hours. The documentary contains real footage of the situation and interviews with people that were on both sides of the events (people on the bus, police and media outside), but also dwells deeper into the story of the assailant, a street child with tragic past and his connection to the famous massacre of homeless children sleeping in front of a church in Candelária. 

Belo has a voice of velvet

The music from Brazil would deserve an entry of its own. Brazil is the paradise of bossa nova, samba, capoeira, axe, choro, etc.. It is the home of musical giants such as Caetano Veloso, João Gilberto, Vinicius de Morais, Gilberto Gil, Xeca Baleiro, Marisa Monte, Daniela Mercury, etc. It is the wonderland of rhythm and melody. I play my great favourites to the kids, Belo Velloso and Seu Jorge. Seu Jorge is a musician and actor (he played Knock-out Ned in City of God) and Belo Velloso is the niece of Caetano Veloso. Their music is harmonic and warm, and the kids love it. Toda sexta feira is my favourite Belo Velloso song, beautiful and light, happy and warm. 

The images of the forgotten 

We finish the long, long Brazilian stop with the images of S. Salgado. Sebastião Salgado studied and worked in economics before picking up the camera. His photography often portrays and represents the life of the underprivileged, homeless and the forgotten. He has been called the superstar of modern photojournalism. .  Thousands of his photos can be found at: https://www.artnet.com/artists/sebasti%C3%A3o-salgado/ 

Next stop: Brunei Darussalam

Thank you L for all your work with proofreading

Back to Mama Africa, and this time we stop in Botswana in Southern Africa. It is a great and immensely interesting stop. Not only do we get to make and eat wonderful food with wonderful people, there is also so much to learn about Botswana. The stop includes finding out about the love story that changed the course of history which is lesser known than Edward and Wallis, however similarly changed the course of history, even if in a smaller scale. We learn about the Okavango River and delta. I read skilfully written books about alienation, racism and the AIDS epidemic by Bessie Head and Unity Dow. We also learn that Botswana has the 4^th highest prevalence of HIV in the world (down from first place in 2000), a booming economy, is home to Kalahari Desert (70% of Botswana) and has the fourth largest gross national income capital in Africa.

Seswaa, pap and good drinks

The Botswanan night gathers eleven seasoned Virtual Nomads and two delightful newbies who travel across the city for their Virtual Nomad inauguration. Our friends CÖ and MJ bring Botswanan flat bread. They have been preparing for the night by first watching a video about how Botswanan women prepare the bread and then learning some words in Setswana. (Botswana has three official languages: English, Setswana and Kalanga.) This is an impressive way to enter the Virtual Nomad community and we welcome them wholeheartedly. It is a wonderful night, as always, and we eat great food, drink some wine (we tried to get beer from Botswana but failed) and listen to upbeat, energetic Botswanan music. 

AK has prepared the main dish which is Seswaa, the national dish of Botswana. It is served with Pap which is a bit like funge (see Angolan entry and my absolutely disastrous funge). Pap feels a bit like something in between porridge and very soft rice. Seswaa, I heard, is delicious and meaty J. Seswaa is made of beef (our case) or goat meat. The dish is called Seswaa in the north of Botswana and actually Ioswao in the south. It is a dish that is served in celebratory events (weddings, funerals, etc.) and basically is comprised of meat, water and salt. The dish is not supposed to be prepared with anything else and adding for example vegetables would be considered an infringement. We prepare pap to accompany the meat, and AK and I manage to make it miles better than my intention with the Angolan funge.

JK has prepared Botswanan chicken pies. He prepares the pastry himself, and the filling is made up of chicken, onion, chicken and spices. This is the most popular dish of the night and even A (10) manages to eat two, and would have eaten more if we let him. The pies are eaten warm, and are quite filling with all the pastry and rich ingredients.

I bring Morogo: a colourful vegetarian dish. Also known as moroho, it is a dish made with at least three different green leafy vegetables. Morogo is also the name of an African spinach, but unfortunately we do not have access to it now, so I use normal spinach instead. Morogo is a common vegetable consumed in rural communities in Botswana, and also in other Southern African countries. The dish itself consists of morogo/spinach and tomatoes steamed together with onion and oil.

I also bring Botswanan lephutsi with cinnamon that then morphs into “pumpkin stuff” as the form of our lephutsi does not really maintain the form it is supposed to have. Unlike ours, typically lephustsi would be squared pumpkin pieces quickly boiled together with cinnamon, then slightly fried with sugar. I over-boil them, so the pumpkins do not maintain their form, rather becoming a pumpkin ‘mush’. Nevertheless, the lephutsi is delicious and goes very well with the rest of the Botswana dinner.

As the icing on the Botswanan-menu cake, FK (14) prepares Botswanan donuts that are warm, squishy and soft. A (10) and L (17) demand more donuts than there is batter for, and so the donuts are a total success.

Seretse and Ruth – the love story of the century

Botswana translates to ‘home of the Tswana people’ (in Setswana). It was home to different Bantu hunter-gatherer tribes that carried out commerce throughout the region. The current Botswana population is estimated to be made up of 79% Tswana and 11% Kalanga people, both groups belonging to the Bantu linguistic family. The Livingstone guy (David Livingstone, the first European to cross the continent from West to East) arrived in the 1810s and convinced Chief Sechele I to convert his people into Christian faith. Known as Bechuanaland, Botswana became a protectorate of the United Kingdom – meaning namely independent and governed by a Chief, however having external affairs controlled by the United Kingdom. The Brits were very interested in the shiny rocks and other natural richnesses found there, but the Chiefs resisted, and Botswana never officially became a colony of the UK.

One of the most fascinating parts of the recent history of Botswana is the story of Chief Seretse Khama and his wife Ruth. Seretse was studying in England while his uncle was holding the vessel in Botswana for his nephew to come and claim the throne. He fell in love with a white English rose Ruth and they were married in 1948. The marriage was not favoured by anyone– not the Apartheid-policed South Africa (from where many administrative issues of Botswana were managed, and the relationship with South Africa was, of course, controlled by Britain), nor the mighty English who wanted to keep South Africa happy, and collect diamonds in Botswana, nor Ruth’s British family, nor Seretse’s uncle nor (initially) the people of Botswana who were not happy with a white queen. The lovers, happily married, returned to Botswana but Seretse was then forced to exile in England. He was first ‘sentenced’ to exile for five years but later for life by Winston Churchill, who had promised him freedom. Seretse renounced the crown, returned to Botswana with Ruth and founded the Botswana Democratic Party. When Botswana became independent in 1966, Seretse became the country’s first democratically elected president. His economic and social policy lifted Botswana from one of the poorest countries in the world to the country with the strongest economic growth in the world during 1970-80. He accomplished many social advancement milestones including founding Botswana’s first university. While still President, in 1980, Seretse died, and later his and Ruth’s son became Botswana’s fourth president. The current President Mokgweetsi Eric Keabetswe Masisi (since 2018) represents the same political party as all the previous presidents (BDP).

The life of an immigrant and the unwanted – and the impact of the AIDS epidemic

Even if considered one of Botswana’s most prolific authors, Bessie Head was born in South Africa. Born to a white mother and black father, her mother was locked in an asylum around Bessie’s birth and was considered schizophrenic as she had been in a relationship with a black man (which was forbidden in South Africa according to the delightfully named Immorality Act). Bessie’s mother’s family rejected a ‘coloured’ child as interracial relationships were illegal, and her mother, also named Bessie, had to give up her child, only being able to leave her child her own name. Bessie, the child, was then given to white foster parents who thought she was white, but then returned the child when they realised she was not. A poor ‘coloured’ family took her in and raised her as their own. It was not until her foster father died, and she was sent to a catholic boarding school, that she heard about her origins, and her white mother. Bessie was not allowed to return to the woman she had thought was her mother and instead experienced unbelievably harsh racism and prejudice from both white and black people. While struggling with her mental health throughout her whole life, she was still able to build a career in journalism, and become considered to be one of the pioneers in black female journalism. Growing tensions (and leaving a brief marriage) forced her and her son leave South Africa for Botswana. Life in Botswana was never easy: deep in poverty, Bessie and her son were not granted nationality until fifteen years after they had arrived and Bessie had become internationally recognised for her writing. She died at the age of 48.

Bessie’s most notable works are When Rain Clouds Gather and Maru. I find an edition that includes both of these books. Both have been said to reflect Bessie’s life – When the Rain Clouds Gather is about the life of a refugee from South Africa, and Maru is about prejudice and racism.

It is delicious, superb, clever and brilliantly political writing. Reading When Rain Clouds Gather, I am sad that it did not achieve more recognition during her lifetime, and the story is still not more well-known. It is satirical, very bright and spot on in its political analysis and description of human nature. It dwells on the life of an immigrant, Makhaya, a stateless person and the political game around his status. Makhaya is a refugee from South Africa in Botswana who finds ‘refuge’ in a white European agricultural expert named Gilbert who wants to bring agricultural development, progress and prosperity to the village of Golema Mmidi but faces resistance from the more traditional forces. Makhaya has lost faith in human nature and while not completely reversed in these feelings, gradually finds new meaning in the life in the village. The story navigates political corruption, wealth disparity, forward thinking and fiercely independent, strong women. Bessie is a very skilful observer of the human condition.

I am less fond of the second book, Maru. It is again masterfully written and contains a moving description of racism, sexism and alienation, but there is something deeply disturbing about the central love story. The main character – so clearly autobiographical that it is not even camouflaged – seems to lose her voice when her manipulative love interest takes interest in her. I struggle to understand where the love comes from, and it disappointed me that this book follows that unfortunate literary (and cinematographic) tradition in which a manipulative, indifferent, coercive love interest (usually a male, not always) is somehow the epitome of great love. And he, of course, must be some kind of king/prince/billionaire – in this book he is a future chief/king. This narrative choice is unfortunate as it takes the sharpness out of her writing and diminishes the value of the storytelling.

Bessie Head has more books which I am tempted to read, especially her book about Seretse and Ruth (Serowe: Village of the Rain-Wind) but I need to move on, on the yellow brick road, and choose my third and final Botswana book. Quite clearly it has to be by Unity Dow.

Unity Dow is a Botswanan human rights lawyer and former judge of the Botswanan High Court, a member of parliament, and an author. She comes from a rural village with no electricity, paved roads or running water. Her parents believed in education and young Unity not only excelled in her studies but after studying in universities in Botswana, Eswatini and Scotland, Unity formed a successful career. She became internationally famous for her landmark legal case of changing the nationality law in Botswana (so that children could also have their mother’s nationality and not just father’s). She has worked in human rights projects within Botswana, but also internationally in several African countries. Her books focus on social issues including AIDS, domestic violence, child abuse and inequality.

I decide to read her first novel, Far and Beyon’, written in 2000, that focuses on the rampant AIDS epidemic in Southern Africa. It describes the different cultural and spiritual approaches to the epidemic. In 2000, globally, Botswana had the highest prevalence of HIV infected people (25% of the population aged 15-49), while in 2022, Botswana listed forth (16.8%). In 2022, the twenty countries with the highest prevalence of HIV infections were all in Africa, and even if the infection rates have decreased in most of the countries (not all), Botswana and neighbouring countries still need to constantly tackle the problem.

Far and Beyon’ is a highly effective and interesting book. The main theme is the impact that the HIV epidemic and family violence have in rural Botswana. It also deals with generational differences, as in the story, an illiterate mother Mara turns to mystics and magic to fight the enemy she thinks has killed her husband and her two sons. The remaining children – daughter Mosa and son Stan – understand that the problem is much bigger than just an evil spirit. The culturally narrow place for women, and the pressures of cultural practices and customs are explored not only through Mara, but above all in the story of Mosa who tries to find a way to balance embracing culture and tradition, while rejecting the repressive and abusive forms within her culture. Present in the narrative is also a strong thematic concern surrounding the abuse of power between those who have it and those who do not; as an example, Unity illustrates how ‘christianised’ western education, considered superior, is preached by teachers who then sexually abuse their female students, leading to an increase in the spread of AIDS.  

I would also like to read Unity’s book Saturday is for Funerals which is another book about AIDS but I cannot get a hold of it. The book describes the response of Botswana to the AIDS epidemic that was predicted to kill 85% of those that were 15 year olds in 2000. This book describes the actions taken by Botswana to prevent this.

FILM: More Seretse and Ruth, and then that Coke bottle

A (10) and I watch the documentary Into the Okavango that follows a 4-month expedition from Angola to Botswana along the river Okavango, to study the ecology and the effects of climate change. Labelled as a National Geographic documentary, it follows a group of modern day explorers led by an American conservation biologist (Steve Boyes), a native Okavango bushman (Tumeletso Setlabosha) and an Angolan scientist (Adjany Costa) as they travel 1,500 miles through the river and the Okavango Delta. The objective was to explore ways to conserve the Okavango delta, a World Heritage site that is home to the largest remaining population of African elephants, amongst other wildlife. The area is mainly undiscovered and the team go through different obstacles, from having to drag their boats for days across hard terrain and facing local (controlled) fires. But they manage to fulfil their mission, collect data from around 50,000 locations, contributing to biodiversity conservation. A great watch with kids.

A comedy from the 1980s, the Gods must be crazy, is a coproduction between South Africa and Botswana, and it is famous for the falling object (a Coca Cola bottle) that the tribe living in a remote bushland first worships and then wants to get rid of. It is an amusing but partly uncomfortable movie. The white people are portrayed as prisoners and slaves of modern times which is at times very funny, but there is an underlining patronizing tone to the movie (something familiar to Zona Sur that was part of the Bolivia stop). It is still a story of white saviours with cute ‘little buggers’ bushpeople that are portrayed as childlike in their way of life in the bush. A (10) who watched the movie with me laughed out loud with the physical comedy parts (people falling in rivers and knocking over things when nervous) but even he was slightly confused with how the non-white characters were portrayed. “Has not aged well” was his conclusion.

A United Kingdom (2016) by Amma Asante tells the story of Seretse and Ruth, played by David Oyelowo and Rosamund Pike. The movie stays quite faithful to the real story and is beautifully shot. There is some fine acting involved but the chemistry between the two leads does not convince enough for the movie to give justice to a couple who changed the course of history. In order for the movie to be really moving and effective, it would have required more charismatic leads, as the strong bond and all-encompassing love against all odds does not transmit from the film. This is such a shame, as it is such an important, unknown and remarkable story. Shot in both Botswana and England, the landscape is gorgeous and the lighting and scenography are outstanding. It stays quite loyal to the original story and received generally favourable reviews. While all this is probably justified, I just cannot get over the lacklustre chemistry between the leads.

Louisa’s music

There is a lot of interesting music made in Botswana – upbeat rhythmical music and interesting hip hop. We take a special liking of Louisa April. She is not a professional singer but a communications specialist who specialises in Integrative Strategy Development. She has a silky, dreamy voice that is perfect for a winter night. Another interesting artist is a neo-soul singer Mpho Sebina, who creates music with an island-beat sound.

Next stop Brazil

At this point of the Virtual Nomad journey, A (10) already knows all the countries in the world and the capitals of most, if not all, of them. Therefore it is not a surprise that he can accurately place Bosnia and Herzegovina on the map. For the older children, FK (14), L (17) and L’s boyfriend NA (17), the name of the country rings a bell and they know that it has something to do with a conflict. For those of us who lived in Europe in the early 90s, the Bosnian War was a conflict that felt very close. 

But first, as always, food.

Delicious burek and Bosanski Lonac 

The Bosnia and Herzegovina food stop is a lunch that gathers 12 Virtual Nomads. There are a few Balkan restaurants in Sydney but we want to enjoy the takeaway burek from the Burek Guy in Dee Why and we have a couple of great recipes. So cooking it is!

JK collects a beef and a cheese and spinach burek from the Burek Guy in Dee Why. In our previous stop in Albania, some of us tried burek from the Balkan Cafe, which was very good, but for most of the Virtual Nomads this is their first burek. It’s very crispy, very yummy and quite heavy, being made of thin flaky pastry with different fillings. Burek is commonly served in Albania, Turkey, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Serbia and North Macedonia. It is well received ‒ oily but delicious and very filling.

For the meat eaters, we have bosanski lonac (stew) – a popular dish of Bosnian traditional cuisine, also referred to as the Bosnian national dish. Traditionally it was made in a ceramic pot in a pit in the ground, but AK prepares it with a slow cooker. The dish includes different types of meat and many different vegetables. The ‘lonac’ part of the name refers to the type of ceramic pot used to cook it in. Apparently men in the mines would gather ingredients on their way to work and then put all of them in a clay pot (meat, vegetables, herbs) to cook while they worked. Once the demanding and dangerous work was finished, they had a delicious, slow-cooked dinner waiting for them. 

We accompany the stew and burek with stuffed vegetables and a Bosnian salad. The vegetables – capsicum (pepper or paprika), zucchini and onion – are filled with rice, Bosnian sauce and a meat substitute (that turns out to be very yummy). It is a very easy dish for me to prepare. It takes some time for the vegetables to soften in the oven before the filling is added. After that it is a quick process back to the oven and then to the plates of Virtual Nomads. The lunch is sealed with a delicious raspberry liqueur.

Conflict and more conflict

The early history of Bosnia and Herzegovina shows that the tensions between different communities have existed for centuries. Bosnia and Herzegovina were once part of the Roman Empire (Dalmatia) but the roots of modern Bosnian are from the 6^th and 7^th  century when the Slavic tribes arrived and tensions arose between different communities. The two main tribes were the Croats and the Serbs, and they spent a lot of time fighting. The Ottomans came in 1383 and slowly the area converted into Islam. Ottomans were in the region for a few centuries and once their power diminished, the Croats and the Serbs were fighting for power again. Austria annexed Bosnia to its empire and the eruption of the First World War was sparked in June 2014 when an angry Serbian extremist shot the heir to the Austrian empire, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, in Sarajevo.  

Yugoslavia was a country that existed between 1918 and 1992 and was constituted of the six (socialist) republics of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Macedonia and Montenegro. The coexistence was not always easy. For example, during the Second World War the different ethnicities recommenced killing each other. After the war, Yugoslavia was united under the rule of Josep Tito, who ruled the People’s Republic of Yugoslavia until his death in 1980. Then the artificial unity started to crumble again. 

Bosnia and Herzegovina were part of the former Yugoslavia and once it disintegrated, Bosnia and Herzegovina declared national sovereignty on 15 October 1991. A referendum was held on 29 February 1992 favouring independence and the country was formally recognised by the European Community and the United Nations. Bosnian Serbs had boycotted the vote as they felt a closer relationship with the Serbian part of ex-Yugoslavia. After the referendum, Serbian forces surrounded Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina. This was followed by a four-year-long siege (1992-1995) that resulted in over 10,000 deaths, many of them children. The siege of Sarajevo not only resulted in devastating loss of human life but also the destruction of most of the cultural and religious buildings in the city.  

The Bosnian War (1992-1996) claimed more than 100,000 lives and 20,000 – 50,000 women were raped as part of the strategy of ethnic cleansing and genocide. Millions of people left the region as refugees and horrific events took place, the most famous being the massacre of Srebrenica that saw over 8,000 Muslim men and boys murdered. The war ended on 1 November 1995 with the signing of the Dayton Agreement. 

Three books on war and terror

Many of the translated contemporary books from Bosnia and Herzegovina are about the war and, as one translator explains, unfortunately conflict and atrocities seem to be a phenomenon that raises interest in an otherwise relatively unknown region. The international literature from Bosnia and Herzegovina had been carried by a few authors, including Ivo Andric. His book The Bridge on the Drina has been described as an iconic book from Bosnia and Herzegovina, and delivered him a Nobel Prize for Literature in 1961. Despite being born in Bosnia and having Croatian heritage, Ivo self-identified as a Serb and therefore this book will need to wait until the Virtual Nomad stops in Serbia, which will be in the distant future (because Virtual Nomads like to take their time to enjoy every stop).

Therefore, I turn to literature from authors that identify themselves as being from the region. 

“Mimmy, I am afraid of WAR” 

My first book is Zlata’s Diary by Zlata Filipović. Known as the ‘Anne Frank of Bosnia’, it is a diary of an ordinary teenager of an educated, affluent family going through the siege in Sarajevo. What starts as a normal, and quite boring, description of friendship issues and pop stars gradually escalates to the horrors of war ‒ friends dying, ever present hunger and cold, a mother who is losing her mind. It is not a particularly fine piece of writing, but the context itself pushes through like a freight train and makes it a harrowing read. It also shows the solidarity people feel in horrendous conditions – neighbours sharing the contents of the parcels they get from abroad, teachers teaching students even if they need to reach the students by running to their homes under sniper fire, birthday celebrations and people going to great lengths to find bird food for Zlata’s pet. And there is some dark humour as well, including the name Zlata’s family and friends give to ‘their own’ sniper. But above all, it is a description of the atrocities of war through the eyes of a child. 

“Some people compare me with Anne Frank. That frightens me, Mimmy. I don’t want to suffer her fate.”

I then move to another book about Sarajevo, Goodbye Sarajevo, which is based on another true story of the Sarajevo siege. It is the story of two sisters. One travels to Croatia as a refugee and the other stays in Sarajevo to take care of younger siblings (of a family of 10 siblings). Written by sisters (as fictionalised versions of themselves), the story jumps from one sister to another. One (Hana) describes the sense of emptiness that permeates the refugee’s life ‒ uncertainty and the awkwardness of depending on others’ mercy for survival. The other (Atka) tells of the horrors of war and the siege ‒ death, hunger and destruction. The writing, again, is not highly skilled with much time spent on details and unnecessary descriptions, but there is a lot of heart in the story. Reading it is to understand what living in the inhumane conditions of war can feel like, but also what refugees go through when they leave their homes, penniless, rootless and hopeless. It is a human story that grows on the reader. It is based on the diaries that both sisters kept during their time apart. Hana describes her life as a refugee with two of her sisters, mainly in Zagreb, and their struggle to have enough money to buy food and for Hana to go to school. Atka works as a translator in Sarajevo, first for a local radio station and then for international journalists. Her days are filled with horror, loss, and destruction but also hope. Both sisters, and their family, meet people of generosity and good will. In the end, it is an incredible, touching human story of survival, love and unity. 

The third book takes me, again, to Sarajevo. The book of poetry, Sarajevo Blues, by Semezdin Mehmedinović has been described as the best book about the Sarajevo siege.  Before the war Mehmedinović was part of the cultural and alternative rock scene in Sarajevo. He was an editor of an anti-communist publication and when the war started, stayed in Sarajevo where he remained until the end of the siege. The book is a deep exposition of the existence in Sarajevo through poems and micro stories. It is skilfully translated by translator Ammiel Alcalay, who offers an extremely insightful introduction. The book itself is harrowing ‒ nearly ethereal in its poetry and nuanced writing. It is superbly written and also nauseating in its description of the war. Semezdin’s narrative is delivered with knife-sharp text. He is cogent and detailed in his political analysis and his poetic symphony of the end of the world in Sarajevo. It is forensic and brilliant, but very different from the previous book I read that brought forth hope and love in the middle of a living hell. This book offers very little light but is an impressive read.

Movies from Bosnia and Herzegovina 

There are outstanding movies made about the Bosnian War. No Man’s Land is a movie that I saw many years ago and it still holds its place on my top movies list. Then, for the Virtual Nomad, JK and I watched Quo Vadis, Aida and boy, does this movie leave you breathless. It is a devastating masterpiece. Almost still and without explicit violence, it is still brutal.  

Quo Vadis, Aida (2020), written and directed by Jasmila Žbanić has been called a movie “so harrowing that you forget to breathe”. It is a movie based on true events ‒ the Srebrenica massacre, through the eyes of one family. After three and a half years of war, the Bosnians from Srebrenica were placed under insufficient UN protection in a ‘safe zone’. The Dutch division of the UN Peacekeepers, the Dutchbat, negotiated with the Serbs that the Bosnians would be transferred into a “safe place”, resulting in a massacre of nearly 8,000 boys and men under the UN watch. The main character works as a translator for the UN and comes to the terrible understanding that something horrendous is going to happen while the world is watching. She desperately runs against the clock trying to protect her husband and two boys. There is very little actual violence in the movie but the suspense is real, and it crawls under the skin. It is a masterful movie and absolutely so harrowing that you do indeed forget to breathe. It’s difficult to watch and difficult to look away. The lead actress, Jasna Đuričić, delivers a performance for the ages ‒ one of the best ever in an absolutely agonizing, heart-wrenching and heartbreaking story. It is a story powerful beyond words, incredibly impactful and truly deserving of its 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes. After the movie, we just sat quietly for a long time.  

I try to find another highly regarded movie from Jasmila Žbanić, Men don’t cry (2017), about a group of middle-aged men from the three ethnic groups that used to fight each other. The men attend a therapy retreat in the mountains. But sadly I am unable to locate it and am forced to place it on the watch list. 

Instead, I watch Grbavica (2006), which was the first of Jasmila’s movies that brought her international attention. The movie won the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2006. The movie carries the name of one of the most devastated neighbourhoods in Sarajevo where systematic rape was used as a weapon of war.  During the war, an estimated 20,000 to 50,000 women and girls were raped. The vast majority of the rapes were done by Serbs but other men raped ‘enemy’ women as well. The movie looks into the systematic rape as a generational trauma. Esma’s teenage daughter does not know anything about her father except the claim that he was a war hero. There are no official documents of him and Sara confronts her mother about her origins. Slowly the painful trough is revealed as Esma reveals her daughter’s origins. Again, not an easy watch. It is testimony to fact that trauma never leaves us, but where there is hope there is also space for some healing. 

Another movie about the Bosnian war that I have seen before but the age-appropriate others have not, is No Man’s Land. It is really hard to find but I finally manage to buy it from a fellow cinephile in Melbourne for $9,99. I make JK and the age-appropriate teens (L, 17 and NA, nearly 18) watch it. It is as good as I remember it to be. Two soldiers, a Bosniac and a Chetnic (Serb) are stranded in No Man’s Land, between the lines. Hostile and suspicious of the other, they find some common ground, even if they still have reservations. It is another movie that highlights the uselessness of the United Nations in a conflict. It has a brilliant, albeit shocking, end. It won a deserved Oscar for the best Foreign Movie. 

The Whistleblower (2010) is not a Bosnian movie but takes place in Bosnia. It is based on the true story of an American police officer, Kathryn Bolkovac, who is investigating human rights abuses in Sarajevo after the war. What she found was a sex trafficking ring that was being covered up by the UN – well, not just covered up but maintained and supported by some UN officials and employees of the international security company she worked for. She found a network of corruption and slavery, and the UN again failing to protect those it is supposed to protect. 

Kathryn was subsequently fired after taking the case to her superiors. She then gave the story to the press and it led to international exposure, but also lamentable downplaying by the UN of the issues raised. No criminal charges were laid and the same security firm still works with the US government on peacekeeping missions around the world. 

It is a shocking story, based on real events with a small amount of artistic licence. The film itself received mixed reviews and was criticised for the violence it portrays. However, when compared to many other action movies, the violence is shocking because it is ‘real’. One should not turn away from the movie because of it. 

The story is devastating, and still true to this day in many parts of the world. When Kathryn asks who are the clients of the Bosnian mafia that exploit the trafficked girls from Eastern Europe, a Bosnian police officer says to her: “Half of our men are dead, who do you think are their clients?”.  “They are just war whores” says a top UN official to Madeleine Reese, referring to the ‘collateral damage’ women suffer in a war. “They are not prostitutes, they are slaves” says an elderly Bosnian woman who runs a shelter for the girls.  

And in the aftermath, the UN worked hard to downplay the events and brush them under the carpet. No real justice was ever achieved. 

Another movie about the Bosnian war ‒ particularly the Siege of Sarajevo ‒ is a UK-US movie, Welcome to Sarajevo (1997). It is based on the real-life character of Michael Nicholson, a ‘conflict-junkie’ journalist who covered 18 conflicts in his forty year career. In the movie Nicholson is smuggling an orphaned child out of Bosnia for a better future. It has an international cast and therefore, of course, the view point is more of witnessing the war than living it. It portrays skilfully the challenges and risks journalists go through while reporting from conflict zones, and the heartbreaking position of not being to help when help is needed. 

It is also good to include a movie from Herzegovina, so I watch Circus Colombia (2010) by Danis Tanović ‒ the director of No Man’s Land. The story takes place in the early 90s when the war is a few days away. The characters in the film hear things about a looming conflict. On the radio there is news of fighting in other parts of ex-Yugoslavia, but the people do not quite believe it yet. “We have always lived together” someone says, and brushes off the rumours until the cracks in the mirror of reality start to grow bigger. In the story a man who has lived abroad comes back to his home town with his new young girlfriend. The past haunts him while people around him are slowly being introduced to the new reality of post-Yugoslavia.

Even if quite melodramatic, the movie is interesting in that it shows how the country was still struggling with coming into the terms with its past while bracing for an imminent future in which neighbours and childhood friends turn against each other. The viewer knows more about what is coming than the people in the film do. 

The actress who plays the (old) wife in the movie also featured in an American series, Lost, and her actual life story is like a movie itself. Croatian but married to a Serb, Mira Furlan was part of the Croatian National Theatre and was blacklisted as she chose to continue to act in Belgrade, Serbia. Mira and her husband left right before the war and lived in the US where she died in 2021 of West Nile Fever that she got from an infected mosquito.  

Romeo and Juliet

One of the stories I remember well from the Bosnian War is the story of the Sarajevo Romeo and Juliet. Sweethearts since high school, Bosnian Muslim Admira Ismić and Christian Serb Boško Brkić, both in their mid-20s, decided to flee Sarajevo during the siege in order to build a life together. After several days of trying, all parties assured them they would be safe when they departed the city. But when they approached the bridge to cross the river Miljacka, a sniper from one of the sides (it has never been determined who) shot them both. Boško died immediately but Admira lived for another fifteen minutes after being shot, crawled next to her slain partner and embraced him while dying. Their bodies laid together eight days before they were collected at night and later buried together.   

(Photo Balkan Insight )

Next stop: Botswana

Bolivia – the altitude. Anyone who does not cope well with altitude sickness knows how tricky it can be to land in La Paz. Bolivia has two capitals: Sucre (constitutional capital) and La Paz (administrative capital). It’s officially called the Plurinational State of Bolivia. La Paz is the highest capital in the world (3,640 m) but its airport is even higher, situated in the city of El Alto (literally meaning ‘the Heights’) at 4,062m. Bolivia is a landlocked country with mainly mestizo population (nearly 70%), 37 official languages and many stories about Pacha Mama.

But first, as always. Food. 

Capinota and pies

There is a small Bolivian family business Capinota in the suburb of Lurnea, in Western Sydney. Capinota is so popular that clients are advised to order two weeks prior, which I have done and my order is waiting for me when JK and I drive to pick up the food for our Bolivian night. We are served by the owner, José, who is delightful and friendly. He tells us that Capinota used to be a restaurant but closed its doors in 2019 as the take away business really took off and, with the number of clients, there was no need to maintain the restaurant itself. We have a lovely conversation about Virtual Nomad, Bolivian food and Bolivian culture with José and a Bolivian client who came to collect his order. José tells us that, for food, Cochabamba is the place to go in Bolivia. He explains what the different foods are and how to eat them. We are very happy to support a small local business and also happy to hear how successful it has become. For the quality of food and the service, Capitanota gets a 10/10 rating from us. 

The planned Bolivian night takes an unexpected turn when two of our friends, newbies to the Virtual Nomad universe, sadly cancel at the last minute. This leaves a smaller group of us but we are still seven to enjoy the Bolivian delicatessen. 

The Capinota food selection includes traditional pies. Our selection included salteñas, quichadimis, empanadas, puka capas, cheese balls and traditional drinks: api and mocochinchi. 

Capinota describes salteñas as “one of the most popular national appetizers dishes in Bolivia specially on Sundays. Salteñas it is a sweet pastry, and it is filled with a sweet and spicy broth made with aji amarillo (yellow pepper) and the filling has chicken, beef, potatoes, veggies, a slice of hard boiled egg and olive, it makes you feel heating a bowl of soup inside a pie”. 

As for salteñas, we get both spicy and non spicy. All are very well received. Quichamidis are everyone’s favourite. They are filled with homemade cheese that José and his family prepare and it has a unique, rich flavour that melts in the mouth. It is, of course, unfair to say that quichamidis are the favourite because the rest of the pies are also immensely delicious. Empanadas are filled with cheese and very rich and filling. Puka capas are traditional pies from Cochabamba that Capinota describes as “spicy, cheese, onions, Quilquiña and locoto-filled round empanadas often served as party appetizers”. The least favourite award goes to the cheese balls – they are yummy enough but do not match the richness and exotic flavours of the rest of the food. 

Before the Inca Empire ruled the lands of the highlands of Bolivia and surrounds, the human sacrificing Tiwanaku lived on the altiplano of Bolivia. Pachacuti was the Inca leader who conquered Bolivia and forced Quechua to be the administrative language over Aymara (both spoken in Bolivia today). Then of course, the conquistadors arrived and the region felt the savaged rule of Francisco Pizarro – one the most savage among the extremely savage conquistadors. The conditions the First Nations people were subjected to were horrible and inhuman. History remembers great leaders of Indigenous rebellions such as Tumac Amaru who was captured and executed by the Spanish at the age of 27. When Spanish rule started to crack (as the Spaniard had other fronts open), Bolivian cities were among the first to fight against them. Bolivia derives its name from Simón Bolivar (1783-1830). Bolivia became independent in 1825. Poor leadership gradually led to conflict with its neighbours and to losing about half of its land. Ceding territory in the west to Chile in 1904 led to Bolivia being cut off from the sea – a loss that is still felt today. 

The 20^th century political history of Bolivia is interesting and would deserve an extensive entry of its own. In a nutshell, Bolivia experienced an unstable political climate going back and forth between military and civilian governments. One famous incident was the death of the revolutionary leader, Che Quevara, at the hands of the CIA and the Bolivian armed forces. The CIA backed the 1971 military coup of Hugo Banzer that led to a violent dictatorship until 1978. That was not the last of Mr Hugo as he returned in 1997 as the democratically elected President of Bolivia. Several changes of government in the latter part of the 20^th century fuelled instability. In 2006, Evo Morales was elected as the first Indigenous president and he held the presidency until 2019. During Morales’ first term, Bolivia famously broke free from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, eradicated illiteracy and introduced the notion of plurinationalism that includes the requirement of civil servants to speak at least one Indigenous language. Bolivia also has a Ministry of Cultures as opposed to one dominant culture. Morales has been described as both an inspirational leader with a strong social agenda as well as a controversial character with a questionable taste for underage women. The current president is Luis Arce who was one of the longest serving ministers of the Morales government. 

Four BOOKS from Bolivia

As for the books from Bolivia, I turn to a Bolivian friend NC who recommends three authors. I decide to read one book from each, and then I cheat and read another book from one of them. Again these books might not have a translation, so I proceed to read them in the original language. 

Edmundo Paz Soldán is one of the most well known current Bolivian authors. He is professor of Latin American literature at Cornell and is described as having unusual narrative intelligence. That description prompts me to read two books from him. The first one, Desencuentros (1994) is a compilation of Edmundo’s first two books (Las máscaras de la nada, 1990 and Desapariciones, 1994). It is a collection of short stories, or one could say, very short stories – better call them micro-stories. More than stories, they are thoughts or moments in time. Most of them are very astute and ingenious. Some, of course, less so, mainly due simply to the amount of material. It is a fascinating and easily consumed narrative journey, full of funny, hilarious, bizarre and sharp moments, and intriguing characters. A librarian who loves the books so much that they invent excuses not to lend them (“the mayor needs this one”); the man who has found the perfect woman with whom to have a perfect love and therefore he leaves her; the man who returns home to find a costume party where he knows no one, joins the party and never learns who the people are; the man who enjoys his wife’s silence so much he fails to notice that she left him four years ago; the man who needs to work several jobs to maintain his family so he has not been able to talk to them in seven years – it’s a long parade of different characters. In the end it is highly entertaining, cleverly constructed fast literature / narrative that does not leave a lasting impression but entertains with sharp imagery and time-saving storytelling for the TikTok-times. 

The next book from Edmundo is called Norte (North, 2006). This one has a traditional narrative. While the previous book I read from Edmundo is light, entertaining and easily consumable, this book is much darker and shockingly violent. The way Edmundo writes is crude and sublime, and even though I do not fully enjoy the book itself, I am grateful to NC for introducing this writer to me. That’s one of the beauties of the Virtual Nomad journey: discovering authors I would not otherwise have known. This book is not situated in Bolivia but in the ‘North’ and interlinks the stories of three different people – two of them based in real-life: a serial killer, a schizophrenic artist and a young waitress (in fact, only one of them has Bolivian roots). The fact that Edmundo is a literature academic shows in the book. There are elements of modern literature snobbishness and not-so-subtle slaps to the academy. The writing is better than the story itself. It is skilfully written but shockingly violent, indulging in shocking details and then quite mundane and empty in other parts. One of the stories – the serial killer – is clearly the centerpiece of the story while the reason for the inclusion of the other stories is not quite clear. Disturbingly it is based on a real person (I will not disclose who) and the detailed description of extreme violence is disturbing to the point that it becomes nauseating and brings the story down. 

The book forms part of a Latin American literary movement – McOndo – with a focus on the effect of globalisation and modern reality (as counterpart to “Macondo”, the magical realism represented by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the literary icon from Colombia). Overall, I enjoy Edmundo’s style of writing but the book itself I did not appreciate so much.  

I move from Edmundo to Adolfo Cárdenas. My friend NC has recommended I read his book Periférica Boulevard (Periferic Boulevard, 2005). Runner up for the National Literature Prize in 2005, this book is situated in the urban environment of fast-talking, drug-fuelled underground clubs and urban misfits. It is a book that reads like a movie. The dialogue is a mixture of Spanish and urban slang with Indigenous words and the story moves as a dialogue that is somewhat confusing regarding who is doing the talking at times. The story unfolds as a sort of detective story of the murder of an underground heavyweight (“the King”) and the hunt for his presumed killer (“the Wolf”). The book contains graffiti illustrations and the book is a bit like graffiti itself – bold and colourful, and quite frankly probably difficult if not impossible to translate into another language as the core of the book is the urban dialogue that is highly localised. Some of the idioms are foreign to me but overall it’s quite easy and engaging to follow the delicious explosion of urban jargon and the fast-paced symphony for the marginalised and the outcasts.  

My final book comes from the recently deceased Gaby Vallejo, who is considered one of the most influential Bolivian authors. Her most famous book is El Hijo de la Opa (translated as the Son of a Maid, 1977) but, despite many attempts, I cannot get hold of it. I decide to read another highly rated book of hers, Ruta Obligada from 2008. It becomes my favourite book of the Virtual Nomad stop in Bolivia. The central piece of the story, divided in three parts, is the relationship between two women – Marcela and Martha Julia – but other characters also are introduced: an abused orphan Tomasa who goes through unimaginable hell and the unlucky in love Fabrizio. It is a tale of desire and death in Cochabamba. La ruta (the route) refers to a specific route that, instead of a journey, becomes a destiny. It is also about other routes, the routes of life and desire, abuse and poverty, violence and hopelessness, misery and female suffering. The author herself says “confirmation of the humility of the body, an obligatory route / of the fragility of the flesh, an obligatory route / of the uselessness of the bones, an obligatory route / soon loneliness sets in”. 

Six films from Bolivia

Bolivia has a surprisingly active movie industry with several recommended films. In order to choose from the interesting selection on offer, we opt for the same methodology used for the stop in Belgium. We ask Bolivian friends for their favourite movies and then compare those recommendations with the critics’ choices of the movies to watch from Bolivia. It’s not that we value the critics’ choices more than those of friends – quite the contrary. Both usually have common entries. The top recommendations for Bolivia include movies such as Zona Sur (Southern District 2011); Nación Clandestina (Secret Nation, 1989); Jonás y la ballena rosa (Jonas and the pink whale, 1994); Cuestión de fe (Question of Faith, 1995); el Cementerio de los Elefantes (Cemetery of the elephants, 2008); Quién mató a la llamita blanca (Who killed the white llama, 2007); Los Andes no creen en dios (The Andes do not believe in god, 2007);  Dependencia sexual (Sexual dependency, 2003); Dark skull; Soren; Cocaleto; Winay; Viejo calavera; Visa American; and El minero del diablo. We can’t watch them all so decide to watch the first six.

Zona Sur (Southern District, 2011) by Juan Carlos Valdivia is one of the most commercially successful Bolivian movies. It is a mature, intriguing story of a wealthy white family and their Indigenous servant staff on the verge of societal change. The name refers to the affluent southern part of the capital La Paz, the district of the rich and powerful. The family is headed by a matriarch who is seemingly friendly and inclusive of the Indigenous servants but has them following her around, including to the toilet, and handing her a glass of water when she is brushing her teeth. This, despite the fact she has not paid them in six months. Nevertheless, the Indigenous staff are treated as part of the family, always with a loving, condescending superiority that demonstrates the divide between race and class – the root of the profound inequality. The uninterested, entitled offspring of the matriarch include a sex-crazy teenage boy, a politically awakening lesbian daughter and a small boy who finds a more affectionate environment with the servants than his busy mother. The camera moves around, making long, 360 degree shots, which is interesting but at times nauseating. In the end the societal change portrayed is effective but subtle – not a world changing revolution but a description of the growing economic power of the discriminated, and how that change still comes to some more than to others. 

Another movie by Juan Carlos Valdivia is his debut Jonás y la ballena rosada (Jonah and the pink whale, 1994). Filmed in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, it is not a particularly good movie. Melodramatic and ridiculous at times with a modest intent of social commentary (workers’ rights, hyperinflation and the growing power of drug carters), it is plagued by bad acting and a hollow story of lust. The plot follows a sexually repressed school teacher with a frigid wife who falls for his wife’s sexually liberated, rebellious and obnoxious sister. When the school teacher loses his job due to his father-in-law’s political connections, he becomes a photographer and, not surprisingly, starts taking nude photos of his sister-in-law. The camera follows and fetishises the sister-in-law who seemingly has little to do in the movie other than be a pretty sex object. The history of cinema is full of these stories: a common man becomes obsessed with an erratic younger woman. A couple of sex scenes take advantage of the objectification of her body and then someone dies. 

El Cementerio de los elefantes (2008) by Tonchy Antezana is a sad and heavy movie about a life-long alcoholic in the outskirts of La Paz (El Alto). The name – the Cemetery of the elephants – refers to the old African fable, a mythical place where elephants wander to die. The protagonist ends up in a ‘Cemetery of the elephants’ to die from alcohol. These are places where cheap alcohol is sold but there is not much more – no furniture, no security and many people fall asleep and never wake up. The movie is narrated by the internal voice of the main character while he remembers his misfortunes, broken dreams and other events of his life. The background of the movie is the underworld of El Alto and La Paz – insecurity, addiction, domestic abuse, prostitution, poverty and violence. Filmed in a mere fifteen days and with a budget of US$30, it helped raise awareness of the existence of ‘cemeteries of elephants’ and shed light to the rampant problem of alcoholism in Bolivia.

Nación Clandestina (The Secret Nation, 1989) by Jorge Sanjinés is a movie about identity and redemption, or more precisely about a journey to embrace an identity and to pay for one’s sins. After being absent for years, an Aymara Indigenous man returns to his community from which he was expelled after a serious betrayal. He has lived in the city where he has been a victim of discrimination and racism. He returns home to perform an ancient dance that will result in his death and hopefully pardon him for his wrongdoings. It has a similar structure to that of The Cemetery of the Elephants. The story is told in flashbacks while the main character prepares to die. The name refers to the ‘society within society’ – the Indigenous culture living underneath or parallel to a westernised culture, trying to survive in times of political turbulence and violence. The actors are mainly amateur Aymara actors and the dialogue is mostly in Aymara.  It is the most powerful movie I have seen so far from Bolivia, which does not mean it is easy to watch. It is a highly political, impactful movie that is slow paced. The director is known for his films denouncing the discrimination experienced by the Indigenous population of Bolivia. The movie does not excuse the behaviour of Sebastián (the main character). He is shown to be a man of questionable conduct, as evidenced by his interactions with his wife. In the end, the movie is much bigger than an individual story of growth and self-acceptance. It is about marginalisation, repression and the conservation of culture. 

Danzanti, the dance that Sebastián, the main character, performs is a real Aymara dance and the name refers to ‘Great Lord Dancer’. It is said to be performed to the death, either to boost fertility or to allow someone who has let their community down to pay for their sins. 

Cuestión de fe (Question of Faith, 1995) is a highly awarded debut film from Marco Loayza. It is a well-loved road movie in Bolivia about three fellows transporting a human sized Virgin Mary to a faraway village. Two of them know each other and the third one becomes their truck-stealing chauffeur. The three friends drive through different Bolivian villages having experiences ranging from cock fighting to a wedding, meeting different people along the way. It is easy to understand why this has been a popular movie in Bolivia. It is a movie that many other countries also have – a road movie based around friends travelling through the countryside, reflecting the cultural idiosyncrasy of a place and talking to the audience of that particular region. It features three not particularly smart men that things happen to, each with a distinct personal journey. It might not be the most appealing movie to me personally but I can see its cultural significance and its portrayal of ‘deep’ Bolivia is interesting. 

The final film of the Bolivian Movie Festival is Quién mató a la llamita blanca? (Who killed the white llama, 2006) by Rodrigo Bellott. It is a tragicomedy and a wild satire. It has been called both “a celebration and a parody of Bolivian customs, countryside and culture”. It is fast-paced, smart in its delivery, sharp in its parody and overall, hilarious. Visually creative and clever, the screen is alive with its unusual and highly creative storytelling. The characters are well defined caricatures and the movie carries itself extremely well. It has a darker undertone which is not underlined but visible throughout the movie. Above all, the movie is about poverty, discrimination, political corruption, racism and drug trafficking. It is my overall favourite of our Bolivian film festival. 

Music from Bolivia

Popular Bolivian music has strong roots in the Indigenous cultures of the region. The most popular artists include Zulma Yugar, Gonzalo Hermoso González, Panchi Maldonado, Luzmila Carpio, Betty Veizaga, folkloric Kala Marca, Claudia Arce (more standard Latin American music) and the bluesy Sibah. As for modern musicians, the rich list of Bolivian contemporary musicians include Bonny Lovy, Los Kjarkas, Elias Ayaviri and Adely. 

Next stop: Bosnia and Herzegovina 

Bhutan is known locally as Drukyul, the Land of the Thunder Dragon, Druk Yul. It is a landlocked country surrounded by India and China, and laying in the lap of the mighty Himalayas. Only a handful of pilots are authorised to land at the challenging Paro Airport. Above all, Bhutan is an interesting and not a very well known country that for a long time was considered remote and isolated.

But first, as always, food. 

photo Tibet Vista

Food: chili is as chili does

The Bhutan night reunites eleven Virtual Nomads on a warm summer / autumn night. The Bhutanese kitchen has been strongly influenced by Indian and Chinese culinary traditions. Where our Benin night was all about peanut, the Bhutanese kitchen seems to love chillies. When preparing the food, we limit the number of chillies as our palate might not be totally accustomed to extremely hot food.  

The national food of Bhutan is Ema datshi – a spicy stew of cheese and chillies for the brisk mountain air. It is fairly easy to prepare and quite chewy and yummy. ‘Ema’ literally means ‘chillies’ and ‘datshi’ means ‘cheese’. The cheese used for this dish in Bhutan is a soft fresh cheese that cannot really be found outside Bhutan so instead we use a combination of fresh mozzarella with mild Danish fresh cheese. The mozzarella in the end was not the best option (even if it gave a good taste) because of its stringiness, but nevertheless it was fairly successful dish. We cut the number of chillies used in the recipe and used medium green chili peppers instead of red. Combined with red rice – the only rice that grows in high altitudes – it makes a great dish. 

We also enjoy a variation of Ema Datshi which is Kewa Datshi, with ‘Kewa’ meaning potato. It is a very similar recipe with tomato and potato, and this time we used a combination of goats cheese and feta. 

The protein is provided by Jasha Maroo, a spicy chicken stew with onion, tomato, ginger, garlic and again – chillies. JK who prepared the dish used one chilli pepper instead of four and the stew was still quite spicy but judging from the reactions of the meat-eaters, really delicious. It is a perfect winter dish and not probably well suited for a warm summer night, but was well received by the Virtual Nomad crowd. It’s colourful with a delicious smell and perfect with red rice. 

As a side soup we have Jaju – a warm creamy spinach soup with a taste of soft cheese. We use spinach, cream and cheese with garlic and butter, which makes a heavy but delicious starter for our Bhutanese dinner. The jewel on top is the Bhutanese red berry and hazelnut salad that AK prepares. 

The Land of the Thunder Dragon

Bhutan has a long history and has never been colonised. The ‘Bearded Lama’, Ngawamg Namgyal unified the kingdom in the 1630s and established a dual system of government. An interesting fact is that when he died, his death was kept a secret for 54 years! A remote and isolated kingdom, it started to slowly open to the west in the 1960s, and in 2008 Bhutan adopted its first democratic constitution. The Heads of State is called Druk Gyalpos, meaning Dragon King. Since 1907, the kings have come from the Wangchuck Dynasty. The current king, since 2006, is Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck (the 5^th Dragon King) whose father (the 4^th Dragon King) married four sisters, all who were queens. The current king is allowed to have more wives than one but has said one is enough for him. 

There are a few surprising facts about Bhutan. Some disturbing and some, well, just surprising. One is that slavery was not abolished until 1958 by the Nationality Act – which was repealed in 1985 by the Citizenship Act. As a result, between 1988 and 1993, more than 100,000 (some sources say close to 150,000) ethnic Nepalese were labelled ‘illegal immigrants’ and forced to leave the country in what has been called ethnic cleansing of Lhotshampas – Bhutanese people of Nepalese descent.    

These people represented around 40% of the population of Bhutan at the time. The Bhutanese armed forces were accused of several human rights violations and the death rate in Lhotshampa refugee camps was documented to be 1.15 in every 10 people. There are more than 100,000 Lhotshampas immigrants living in different countries and they have not been granted the right to return to Bhutan. 

Vajrayana Buddhism is the state religion in Bhutan and Je Khenpo is the religious leader. The capital of Bhutan is Thimphu and the official language is Dzongkha.  There was no actual money or currency until the 1960s. Television was not introduced until 1999.

Books from Bhutan: female tales and the weight of tradition

Kunzang Choden is probably the most well known Bhutanese writer. She was the first Bhutanese woman to publish in English and her most famous book is The Circle of Karma (2005). As I cannot find this book, I decide to read her book Tales in Colour and Other Stories (2009), which is a collection of 13 short stories primarily focusing on the role of women in a traditional Bhutanese society. These are universal stories, with themes that include shattered dreams and unfulfilling lives, humiliation, inequality and a life not lived. 

It is essentially a feminist book denouncing the misogynist traditions and values of the Bhutanese society that cuts girls’ wings, values boys’ education above girls’ and forces women into a very small space where they cannot succeed on any front. It is about letting one’s dreams go while still dreaming big and the sacrifices women have to make. The stories are well crafted and there are parallels to some of the other books that I have read on the Virtual Nomad journey. 

Many of the stories focus on single mothers and the sacrifices they face, many abandoned by their husbands. Most stories are about women in villages under the watchful eye and constant gossiping of the community. Communities where true friendships and mutual support are rare. The first story is about the author herself and the background of her name. There is a strong sense of place and duty. These are engaging, captivating stories with vivid, real, believable characters. It is an intriguing, pleasing read. 

“Learn from the humans but never imitate them”

Impressed by the dynamism of Kunzang Choden, I decide to read another book of hers, Dawa: the story of a stray dog in Bhutan. It is a light hearted book about a stray dog Dawa who is the reincarnation of a multilingual translator, and therefore can understand many human languages. Dawa is an orphan dog who lives in the streets of Paro, but he dreams big and goes on to find a new life in Thimphu. It is a clever and enjoyable book with many parallels to human life, and at the same time it satirises human behaviour. Dawa goes through many hardships from leadership position pressures to getting an infectious skin disease from a fluffy female dog. Even if he learns to speak perfect Dzongkha, he will still not be enough and always considered just a street dog. He is smart, strategic, has great instincts and survival skills, speaks many languages, acquires education and knowledge, yet still he cannot escape his condition of not being born with privilege. His condition and the precarious role of leading the nightly howlings lead him to take a pilgrimage close to a monastery in the mountains. It is a remarkable little book and I truly enjoyed it, its wit and cleverness, subtle satire and description of village life in Bhutan. I am not surprised at all that the book forms part of the school curriculum in Bhutan. 

My final book from Bhutan is again from Kunzang Choden. Bhutanese Tales of the Yeti is a collection of 22 oral stories about the migoi – the Bhutanese version of the yeti or mountain man. Choden collected these stories from four different regions of Bhutan, talking to village elders and relying on oral tradition. The purpose was to conserve the oral cultural heritage and make sure it would not disappear. Many of the stories are about the encounters of yak herders with the migoi. The stories are short and they capture Bhutanese folklore well. As is the case with short stories, even if the themes are similar, some are more interesting than others and they start to feel a bit repetitive. It is still quite a nice read. It’s short and offers an introduction to Bhutanese oral tradition. 

Bhutanese film

Bhutan’s movie industry is not very dynamic but several movies have been made and produced in Bhutan. What is common to all the movies we watched from Bhutan is that the cinematography is outstanding. It is a whole new cinematographic world that we discover in the three (and hopefully soon, four) movies we watched – an aesthetically very beautiful and quite intriguing movie landscape. 

We start with the biggest international hit. 

Lunana: A Yak in a Classroom (2019) by Pawo Choyning Dorji won several international awards and was Bhutan’s first ever nominee for the best international feature film at the 94^th Academy Awards (the Oscars). I watched it with A (10) and it’s a delightful if slightly predictable movie. A reluctant teacher is sent to teach at the most remote school in the world (an eight day hike away) in Lunana and then goes through a personal journey. Based on a true story, it offers breathtaking scenery, an inspiring storyline and a subtle but loving environmental message. Overall it is a gorgeous movie, skilfully directed and even if you anticipate what will happen to the young teacher, there is a lot of heart and emotion. It is a love letter to the simple life. 

The Monk and the Gun (2023) – another movie from Pawo – was shortlisted for the Academy Awards in 2024. It has been sold to major distributors, is coming shortly to different platforms and may have a festival run in Australia. We will wait to see it and, once we have, will come back to update this section. 

Updated (June 2024): We had a change to see this movie at the Sydney Film Festival. It is wonderful – funny, clever, poignant. It is such a clever movie with brilliant observations on both progress and tradition, change and old lifestyles. It has a lot of heart, and a lot of wit.

Honeygiver among the dogs (2016) is a mystery film noir tale and debut from Dechen Roder, who started her career as a music video maker. It takes a mystical, nearly spiritual, feminist approach to a quite classic ‘disappearance storyline’ in which there is a policeman and a mysterious woman.

While the murder mystery is the central piece, the story grows bigger to mix Bhutanese mythology with the narrow place of a woman in a community/society in which she is labelled as ‘different’– “not married”, “always alone”, “not asking for anyone’s help”, “a flirtatious demoness”. The cinematography is beautiful. It’s mainly dark and grey except in the fantasy sequences connecting the story with the supernatural. It contains Bhutanese female deities and the description of greed. 

The pace is slower than in other movies from the film noir genre, containing long shots without dialogue. Some of the shots are gorgeous, almost meditative. The cinematography rises above the story itself that, while not the most original, is refreshingly spiritual while staying true to the eeriness and mystery of the genre. The lead actor, Jamyang Jamtsho Wanchuk (in the role of the policeman), does a very decent job as a policeman quietly lusting after the mysterious seductress played by Sonam Tashi.     

Ap Bokto (2014) is a cute animated movie. It’s the first computer animated film in the country and is based on a folktale. It is a story of a man who encounters several wild animals who either plan to kill or eat him, and he outsmarts them with his words. It is a sweet tale with a very folksy feeling. 

Music: the hills are alive 

Bhutan might be famous for the Paro Taktsand Monastery and its steep 700 hundred step climb, high in the mountains, but don’t be fooled, even the Bhutanese are not saved from easy listening pop music. Check out the video on youtube of the aesthetically blessed Etsu and Ngawang Thinley as they perform their pop tune with the Bhutanese landscape. It would probably do well in the Eurovision song competition.

For other music, there are different traditional forms that use instruments such as the lingm (a flute), the chiwang (a fiddle) and the dramnyen. Music is very important for Bhutan to reflect the country’s spiritual landscape. The Music of Bhutan Research Centre lists the most important Bhutanese singers.

We end the cosy Bhutanese night with the news that CH – who we call the Special Advisor of Virtual Nomad and who has been in over 140 countries – is travelling to Bhutan in two weeks time. We look forward to hearing her travel stories. 

Next stop: Bolivia 

Thank you JK for your proofreading

Squeezed between a similarly long and narrow Togo and a massive Nigeria, Benin is basically an unknown country for most of the Virtual Nomads. It is hidden in Western Africa and not frequently heard about. It’s famous for Angélique Kidjó, who left the country decades ago and Djimon Hounsou, an award-winning actor. It is also known for its mythical female warriors, the all-woman army created by King Agadja in the eighteenth century – the Agojie. 

Sticky chicken balls and peanut sauce

The Benin night is celebrated by nine seasoned Virtual Nomads and two newbies who are visiting all the way from Cairns. Hosted by AK and DK, the kitchen is filled with exotic spices, flavours and a lot of peanut butter. 

The main dish is chicken meatballs with red sauce . They are laborious but promise a great culinary experience for the meat eaters. Because of the work involved, we give them to the most experienced cook of the party – JK. He gets assistance from the visitors from Cairns who willingly get their hands in the ‘sticky balls’ which prompts good natured laughs and jokes throughout the preparation process. 

Unfortunately, one of the five dishes, the Bean fritters that carry the groovy name of Akkra Funfun, do not turn out to be easy to prepare. Made of white beans in a dough and then deep-fried, the dough turns out too soft for frying and the result is not quite as pretty as it could be. But they still offer a nice side dish for the other items on the menu. The taste itself is quite neutral, which in fact works well as the rest of the cuisine is full of peanut flavours and exotic spices.

Accompanying the main dish we also prepare a vegetarian jollof, which is basically rice with beans, eggplant, carrots, onions and a lot of spices. This one requires a lot of chopping from the rest of the Virtual Nomad team, which is mostly carried out by DK.  A colourful rice dish, it offers a good balance to the peanut-heavy cuisine. 

The very surprising star of the Benin night is the Peanut Soup that ends up being more a sauce than a soup, but is incredibly tasty nevertheless. Filled with peanuts (we are very lucky not to have any nut allergies among the Virtual Nomads) it takes a while and a lot of peanut butter to prepare, but the result is very rich in flavour. It’s exotic and full of the velvety taste of peanut.

Overall, the Benin night is a great success with sublime food, great conversation and the powerful voice of Angélique Kidjó throughout the night. 

Women warriors

The famous Kingdom of Dahomey was located in present day Benin, and existed from approximately 1600 until 1904.  The Fon people of the Dahomey were involved in the slave trade with Europeans, often selling their enemy captives. Their main enemy was the powerful Oyo Empire (1300 -1896) that the Fon/Dahomey defeated in 1823. The Fon were famous for their elite female warriors, the Agojie – an all-female army. The Agojie were created due to a ‘shortage’ of male warriors and recruited mostly from foreign captives and daughters/women considered unsuitable for domestic life. They were required to live a life of servitude without family, and underwent intensive training. According to some sources, their sexual drive was controlled by partial genital mutilation. They were brave and very physical warriors. When Dahomey came under French rule in 1894 and their services were no longer needed, many of them had difficulty settling into ‘normal life’.

In the period 1892-94 the French officially colonised Dahomey and the present boundaries were established in 1909.  In 1960, Dahomey gained its independence. Political unrest and several military coups followed and in 1972, Mathieu Kérékou overthrew the government and established Marxist military rule that lasted for 17 years. He also changed the name of the country to the People’s Republic of Benin in 1975. Bad boy Mathieu managed to ruin the economy, education and pretty much the society as a whole. In order to finance what remained, he accepted nuclear waste from France and Russia. Finally multiparty democracy was established 1989 and Benin was the first country on the African continent to transition from dictatorship to democracy relatively peacefully. Funnily enough, Mathieu Kérékou became the elected president in 1996 and 2001. The current president, Patrice Talon, was involved in assassination attempts on a former president, Thomas Boni Yayi. President Talon has not been good for democracy and human rights, and Benin’s international reputation has suffered greatly. 

Benin’s capital is Porto Novo but the government sits in Cotonou, which is the economic capital and the most populous city in Benin. The main ethnic groups are Fon, Adjara, Yoruba, Bariba and Fulani. 

The Beninese flag has three colours that match with the colours of the Pan-African movement: red, yellow and green. The flag was in use from independence until 1975, and then again from 1990 when multi-party democracy returned to Benin. Under colonial rule, Benin was not allowed to have its own flag and during the Kérékou regime the flag was green with one star. The colours symbolise the blood and courage of the ancestors (red), the savannahs and palm groves (yellow), and the hope of a new democracy (green). 

Book(s): the power of Angélique 

Whoever has seen Angélique Kidjó on stage knows that she’s a queen. Her voice is sublime and, as a performer, she has incredible, powerful energy that can fill a stadium. She is one of the biggest stars to come from Benin and published her autobiography in 2013. 

The foreword comes from such notable people as Desmond Tutu and Alicia Keyes. The story of Angélique is narrated in the first person, from her childhood in Cotonou and her first steps as a singer, all the way to her conquering the world stage. She lived in a supportive, liberal household of several brothers and sisters with people coming and going all the time. Her mother was a progressive feminist (and performer), which was very rare at the time. Angélique’s childhood and growing up in Cotonou did not only bring music to her life, but also brought her awakening to social change and empowerment. She escapes the regime in Benin and the second part of the book is about her musical journey in Paris and the world. It takes her from very humble and tough beginnings to becoming a star – a journey accompanied by her husband, Jean. The story includes encounters with many stars and other people, trips back to a changed Benin and becoming a mother. Later in the book she describes her activism, especially focused on girls’ access to education in Africa and fighting against female genital mutilation. 

“Often on my trips as an ambassador, mothers will come up to me and ask for help. They can’t afford to provide for their children. This is heartrending because you know the next day you’ll be gone, off to a different place with a different agenda, and, as crucial as it is, your advocacy work won’t have an immediate effect on their lives. I’ve always felt torn between the need to speak on a subject that would increase society’s awareness of the problem that the women and their daughters’ face, and wanting to help them directly. The more I traveled the more I felt this frustration. How could I be an advocate and, at the same time, make a difference in the lives of the girls I meet?” 

Angélique’s autobiography achieves a wonderful combination of being interesting, compelling and inspiring, all at the same time. The book carries a similar energy to her concerts and music. The most powerful section of the book is the last part – Angélique’s travels to Africa, meeting with raped women in refugee camps, and reprimanding the government in a concert in Zimbabwe. When she meets African women they tell her “When you’re back in your countries and you talk about us, don’t present us as victims but as strong women, as complete women, like you, fighting for our future. We don’t want to be perceived as victims forever.” 

Why Monkeys Live in Trees and Other Stories from Benin is a collection of folktales and, as is generally the case with folktales, they usually have a moral message or a lesson to learn, and display the values of humility, love and courage. The tales come from different ethnic groups around Benin and the collection is based on oral traditions. We get to know why monkeys indeed live in trees, why bees make honey, why snakes crawl on their belly and other stories of folk tales of the nature and spiritual world. It is an enjoyable yet light read. 

Benin in film

Africa Paradis (2006) by Sylvestre Amoussou is a satirical take on immigration in a world in which the roles are reversed. The United States of Africa is a strong economic union while Europe is impoverished. Two illegal European immigrants try to gain access to Africa by any means they can, which leads to personal tensions and separate life paths. It is enjoyable and the premise is great but the quality suffers from terrible acting that cannot bring depth to the story. This is unfortunate as the clear purpose of social commentary and being thought-provoking is buried under the amateur execution. The actors, especially the two white leads, just do not take the job seriously enough and therefore the message is lost. The director, Sylvestre Amoussou, is a Beninese actor who decided to make his own movies as a result of his frustration with the roles offered for black actors in France. His latest movie L’orage africain: un continent sous influence (African Storm, 2017) received the Étalon de Yennenga, a prestigious African film award. 

Two Woman King is not a Beninese film but based on the legend of the Kingdom of Dahomey and its elite female warriors, the Agojie. Directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood, the story has received the Hollywood treatment, which means skipping historical facts and investing in sentimentality. The acting is top notch throughout. Viola Davis is phenomenal as is Thuso Mbedu in the role of young Nawi – a character based on a real person, the last remaining Agojie warrior who died at the age of over 100. The cinematography is beautiful, which makes up partly for the fact that the plot is full of ridiculous holes and unnecessary 21^st century sentimentalism. The Dahomey are painted in a very favourable light whereas they were active participants in the slave trade and happily volunteered their enemies as commodities of commerce. 

Indochina, Traces of a Mother, 2011 (Indochine, sur les traces d’une mère) is a documentary film about a less known chapter in African history. During the First Indochina war (1946-54), over 60,000 African soldiers served in the war and, as a result of their presence, several children were born to African fathers and Vietnamese mothers. Many of the young soldiers were enlisted by the colonial power rather than themselves. One says: “Local officials forcefully enlisted young men.” 

At the end of the war, the colonial army ordered all black children to be taken to Africa, sometimes against their mothers will. In rare cases the mothers travelled to Africa with the father. 

The story is told through different people. One is 58-year old Christophe, abandoned by his father and put in an orphanage. He remembers his mother well and also the morning when, without warning, he was put on a ship never to see his mother again. One Vietnamese woman tells how she travelled to Africa with her husband and then was abandoned by him. One African soldier with three kids tells how he was allowed to take the kids, but not their mother, with him back to Africa. And then there are several scarred, traumatized children, now (or when the documentary was made) in their late 50s telling of their longing for the mothers they were not allowed to have. When in Vietnam in search of his mother, Christophe says: ”Nearly all the children that lived through this tragedy are left with something in them that others cannot read.”

The documentary is heartbreaking and highly effective. It is not only a story of motherless children but also young men sent to war to fight “someone else’s war”, as they say many times in the documentary.  The director, Idrissou Mora-Kpaï, is a Beninese film maker who now lives in the US. His documentaries are centred identity and belonging. 

We really wanted to see, as the last film from Benin, a documentary by Djimon Hounsou – (another Beninese superstar) – In Search of Voodoo: Roots to heaven (2020). It is about the origins of the spiritual practice of Vodun/Voodoo, which Djimon says has been misinterpreted and villainized by Hollywood. 

The documentary won the Best Documentary award at the Haiti International Film Festival. Vodun means ‘spirit’ in Fon, Gun and Ewe languages. As a spiritual/religious practice, it spread to the new world and took different forms in Haiti, Brazil, New Orleans and other places. In Benin, Vodun is often practiced side by side with Christianity. For example, Angélique Kidjó describes the coexistence of rituals from both in her childhood. As the documentary is not available, there is a superb interview with Djimon Hounsou about it that can be found here.  He says: “voodoo is the channel between humanity and the forces of nature.” 

Queen Angelique

There are a lot of amazing artists and music in Benin but no singer shines brighter than Angélique Kidjó. She is an award-winning singer of multiple musical styles, and sings in many languages. Her music is rich and full of energy. One of her first hits is Batonga

One of her biggest hits is the Mother Earth song Agolo. In her autobiography she says that Agolo means ‘please’ in her native Fon. Some other pearls are We We, the gorgeous Idje Idje, the energetic Adouma and a lullaby to her daughter Naima. 

Our visitor A from Cairns encourages me to mention that, some years ago Angélique Kidjó retweeted my tweet after I had attended her concert. A proud moment. 

This said, JK and I will go to see Angelique again in March 2024. 

(photo Vilcek Foundation))

Next stop: Bhutan 

In Spanish speaking Central America, Belize is an exception. Considered more Caribbean than Central American due to its historical similarities with some other former British colonies, Belize is a young country bounded by the Caribbean Sea in the east and Guatemala and Mexico as its neighbours. English is the official language (approximately 62% speak it) but people also speak Kriol (46%), Spanish (57%) and Mayan languages such as Q’eqchi’ Maya, Mopan Maya and Garifuna. It is a fascinating country but first we have to talk about, of course, food. 

Delicious sounds and flavours

As expected, the Sydney restaurant scene does not include a Belizean restaurant and we are happily home cooking again. The Belize Night in the eastern beach house reunites eleven Virtual Nomads for a fun night of Caribbean food and surprisingly catchy upbeat Belizean music.

The menu consists of

• Stewed chicken
• Belizean pico de gallo
• Belizean cheese dip
• Rice and beans
• Carnaches  

The food is delightful, colourful and very tasty. JK prepares the stewed chicken which is a very popular Belizean dish. It is said to represent the Belizean Kriol (and Garifuna) cuisine, and accompanied usually with rice and beans. It is one of the most typical Belizean dishes. While many of the recipes include ‘recado rojo’, which is not available in Australia, we found a great recipe that not only explains how to prepare the delicious dish, it also gives options for vegetarians and what to do with leftovers! ☺ 

The Pico de Gallo that AK brings is colourful and very tasty. It is also a popular dish in Mexico, is very fresh and easy to prepare. Basically it includes chopped tomatoes, onion, jalopeño, lime and the everpresent cilantro (coriander) that frequents Caribbean/Central American cuisine. We accompany it with a Belizean cheese dip that AK also brings and some corn chips. 

I prepare rice and beans which are fairly easy to make. I also prepare carnaches that are fried corn tortillas filled with chopped red cabbage, onion, lime, salt and cilantro. Again, the taste (brought out by the lime and cilantro) is fresh and inviting.

Where did the Maya go?

Belize is a young country, independent from the United Kingdom only since 1981. It maintains strong ties with its previous colonial power through being part of the Commonwealth. But let that not fool you, Belize has a long and rich Indigenous history, most notably being part of the Mayan empire. The Mayas had a highly developed and strongly hierarchical society that made significant scientific, artistic, medicinal and engineering advancement. They developed a cosmology that included a calendar considered to be more accurate that the Gregorian calendar used today. The Empire collapsed sometime around the year 900 for unknown and debated reasons, the jungle swallowed the majestic ruins (for example Altun Ha, Xunantunich, and Caracol). Little is known of what happened then, until the Spanish arrived on the shores of Belize. As is widely known, the Spanish were cruel and destructive. Their carnage included the destruction of the Maya libraries. Then the British showed up, interested in the timber resources, especially mahogany. The Spaniards and Brits quarrelled over the land with Britain ultimately victorious after several conflicts. It then attached Belize to the Commonwealth. The land was named British Honduras in 1834 and the area was prosperous through timber extraction and other timber industries. Belize City became the capital in 1914 and the country suffered badly in hurricanes and economic depression. After gaining self-governance in 1964, Belize became independent in 1981. In 2024, Belize hinted it may consider leaving the Commonwealth. 

Belize and neighbouring Guatemala are not on the best of terms. Guatemala established full diplomatic relationships with Belize ten years after independence, in 1991. There is an ongoing dispute over the sovereignty of the country. Guatemala claims part, or all, of Belize belongs to Guatemala based on colonial documents, while Belize maintains it has never been part of Guatemala. Guatemala held a referendum in 2018 in which 95% of the population were in favour of sending the dispute to the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Belize held its own referendum in 2019 with 55% backing the decision to have ICJ involved. The process continues (February 2024).  

Books: Beka Lamb and bizarre reptiles

Beka Lamb by Zee Edgell is considered almost an institution in Belizean literature. Published in 1982, it is one of the first novels from Belize to attract international interest and is a must read in Belizean schools. Set in the 1950s, the story of 14-year old Beka is portrayed within the political turmoil and transformation of the Belizean society from colonialism towards self-governance. The dynamic political background is matched by the challenges not only in Beka’s life – mostly deriving from poverty and lack of self-motivation – but also in the life of her best friend, Toycie, whose death (revealed at the beginning of the book) reflects societal and patriarchal structures. 

It is easy to understand why the book forms part of the high school curriculum in Belize. It is meticulous in its description of flora and fauna, traditions and the cultural environment of colonial Belize. It has a strong sense of national pride while also introducing and discussing societal and moral themes from racism and racial diversity to gender roles, patriarchy and the omnipresence of the Catholic church. Although in some parts it is a classic coming-of-age story and commonly symbolic in chronicling the transformation of a society along with the transformation of a school girl into a woman, I like it much better than a similar and more famous Caribbean coming-of-age story, Jamaica Kincaid’s Annie John (see the entry for Antigua). 

Zee Edgell herself lived a fascinating life, spending time in different countries including Somalia, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. Her career spanned journalism, higher education, government posts and international cooperation. Beka Lamb, her first book (and the first book published in independent Belize) is said to have autobiographical tones. She passed away in 2020.  

Zoila Ellis-Browne is a lawyer, a cultural activist and a social campaigner to conserve and protect the Garifuna heritage. A Garifuna woman herself, she has written several books inspired by the rich cultural heritage of her communicyy. Her book On Heroes, Lizards and Passion (1988) is a collection of short stories. Seven stories set mostly in Belize, it is light reading, providing snapshots of Belizean culture and people. The stories do not take themselves too seriously, especially a bizarre story about a lizard and lizard friends. It is a Belizean literature snack, light and entertaining enough.  For me it does not reach the depths of Beka Lamb, but that is not its intention. 

Film: Daddy issues and traditions

There are only a few locally produced (and directed) movies. Belize has had an international film festival since 2003 and several movies have been filmed in Belize, but only a handful have been made entirely in Belize. The first major feature film to be made entirely in Belize is Kurse a di Xtabai (Curse of the Xtabai, 2002). It is filmed partly in Kriol and features a mainly amateur cast. The plot is apparently based on a traditional tale of Xtabai or Xxabay. The tale is about two women. One is the generous, caring and kind but sexually active and promiscuous Xtabay, and the other is a puritan but cold and selfish. The surrounding society favoured the latter one leading the first to become a spirit predator after death. 

It is interesting and feels as if you were watching a student film. The word I would use is ‘clumsy’. It has much to learn about filmmaking, but the intention is honest and good. Direction is all over the place, the takes are too long, the music score is terrible, the acting is beyond amateur and the story does not hold together, but there is still honest intent to make it interesting. The result is an absolutely endearing mess. 

My Father Belize by Leon Lozano (2019) is a short movie about daddy-issues – those that come before us and those that come after us. A Belizean man returns to Belize with the ashes of his father only to discover that he has a son in Belize from a previous fling. It is a film about abandonment and life choices in a beautiful setting of crystalline waters, long beaches and tense jungle. 

The first ever feature-film filmed and produced entirely in Belize. Acting is understandably quite amateur but the landscape is beautiful and compelling. 

Another short movie is Belize’s first animated film, Tecuani and the Duende: the Voice of the Jaguar (2020) by Lee McLoughlin. It is a cute story with a strong message of sustainability, conservation and environmental responsibility. It is based on the legend of Tata Duende, protector of the forest. Local girl Tecuani meets the Duende and learns about her people’s past through stories that “have not been told for a thousand years”. She also learns about her and others’ responsibility towards the environment and how to become a voice for a change.  

A documentary about Mayan healers Healthy people, beautiful life (2020) is filmed in the Mayan languages of Q’eqchi’ and Mopan (with English subtitles) and follows traditional healing practitioners. The Mayan healers face prejudice and the environmental destruction of their medical plants. The documentary has been endorsed by the Mayan Healers’ Association and aims to counter misleading information about traditional healing. In the documentary, the healers talk about the challenges that they encounter. They also reveal interesting facts such as the integration of many Christian influences into their healing practices that have come about as a result of the long-lasting influence of the Catholic church. One healer in the documentary says: “As a healer, if you help people the Catholic church does not care. They only pray, sing and read the bible.” However, newer churches and Christian movements have been critical of them. 

Music: happy rhythms

The music from Belize is generally quite upbeat. The dominating genre of Kriol music is ‘brukdown’ also referred as ‘broken down calypso’. It has strong African ties as it is considered music that tells the story of Belizean Creole people and the hardships African slaves had to go through. The most famous brukdown singer and a national icon was Wilfred Peters. Brukdown has a significant sub-genre called Buru. 

Other music genres include Garifuna music which has very strong African influence and is dominated by drums. Examples of this type of music by Andy Palacio include, Lova Boy  and Paul Nabor. 

Next stop: Benin 

Two fun facts about Belgium.

Belgium holds an interesting Guinness World Record. It is the country that has had, three times, the longest period without a government. In 2020, a government was formed after 494 days but there is even a longer period. After the 2010 elections it took 541 days (or if the period before the 2010 elections is counted, it took a whopping 589 days – a world record). That is quite a few days. 

In 2001, eight people died in – what was then – the worst train accident of Belgium’s history (until another one in 2010). One of the reasons was the linguistic barrier between a French-speaking signalman and a Flemish-speaking one.

These facts tell of a country that loosely holds together three different cultural and linguistic areas – the Dutch speaking Flemish of the north, the French speaking Fallons of the south and the German speaking minority in the east. Most of the population opposes the idea of officially dividing the country but at the same time, there are no political parties that represent the whole country, and there is a seemingly never ending power play between the different languages. Therefore, Virtual Nomad will take into account the different parts of the divided country. 

But first. Food. 

All that chocolate

One of the best parts of the Virtual Nomad journey is that it is growing with new Nomads joining the community. Sharing is caring, and Virtual Nomad is at its best when a collective experience. 

We proceed to the Belgian lunch and this time it is 15 of us. 

A famous Belgian beer garden in Sydney, the Heritage, closed permanently in 2023. This is unfortunate as it was a Sydney icon and famous for its beer selection. The beer garden was an institution in the Rocks (next to Sydney Harbour bridge) with vintage posters and an early 20^th century vibe. But sadly, it is no longer. 

This leaves the Virtual Nomads to do some more home cooking – this time a Belgian lunch is hosted by AK and DK (this marks their forth Virtual Nomad stop so one could say they are strongly performers) while I get luminous Belgian desserts from the Belgian Café at the Rocks. 

Food wise, Belgium is famous for chocolate, beer, waffles and French fries. All these are, of course, on the menu. The Belgian ‘national main courses’ include mussels and stew. As most of the party are not into mussels, the main dish for the lunch is Flemish beef stew (cooked in beer) from a traditional recipe. It is served hot with mashed potatoes. The recipe requires a ‘heavy Dutch oven’ but AK managed to create a wonderfully rich stew with a normal oven, and for all the meat-eaters present, the flavour was exquisite, rich and wonderful.

JK brings homemade cheese croquettes (both gluten-free and full of gluten) and Belgian fries. We get to witness a humorous Chips War as two competing offerings of fries are made. One self-cut and deep fried and the other microwaved from their frozen format.  In the end, it is a matter of taste. Most people do not taste a difference but those that do seem to prefer the more ‘artisanal’ chips, meaning the self-cut and more laborious ones. 

KD, JD and KD (their third Virtual Nomad stop) bring the endive and apple salad that has, as its name indicates, endive and apple. It is refreshing and crisp, and a perfect balance for the heavier side of the menu. 

We (me, L, A and NA) brought a leak pie and Belgian desserts. They are amazing to look at, almost little pieces of art and they have wonderful names: raspberry chocolate fondant, chocolate orange fondant, Mont Blanc (the white egg), mango vanilla, passionata (gf), matcha cherry cheesecake, opera, triple chocolate dome and then some more traditional ones such as raspberry red velvet (gf), chocolate éclair and praline gourmandise. We match them with homemade Belgian waffles with syrup, ice cream and chocolate sauce. 

And now a closer look at the divided country. 

Smurfs and saxophone

Belgian inventions include French fries, the Smurfs and the saxophone. Tin Tin is a famous Belgian cartoon figure who is adventurous and goes on many travels with his dog. Tin Tin has been accused of negative and stereotypical portrayals of Africans and Indigenous peoples. 

As for Belgian history, the Belgae were a Celtic-Germanic agglomeration of tribes that lived in the area and resisted the Roman invasion for some time until Julius Caesar finally invaded. There are still Roman landmarks in Belgium and the Romans stayed in the area until the Western Roma fell and Germanic peoples took over. Slowly the area became Christian. The most famous figure of the Carolingian Dynasty (714 -1122) was King Charlemagne (a French king but born in the Belgian city of Liege, apparently). 

While under French rule, the northern part of Belgium, Flanders, was thriving in the Middle Ages with its industry and trade. There is a famous battle called the Battle of Spurs (1302) in which the French tried to crush and dominate Flanders but were defeated. Flanders tried to hold on to its self-declared independence but the French influence returned through royal marriages. Then the Habsburg (remember them? – check the entry for Austria) era began. 

Somewhere there in the middle of the dramatic contortions of European history, Flanders became Protestant while the French part stayed Catholic, deepening the divide between the two. The Brabant Revolution (1789 -90) led to a short break from Habsburg rule. Quite soon after the French took over again, and then the Netherlands became involved. Belgium declared independence in 1830 from the Netherlands. Belgium suffered greatly in both world wars but the economy started to grow from the 1950s. Belgium is a founding member of the European Union with the EU capital Brussels in its territory. A Constitutional change in 1993 gave official recognition to the three administrative regions of Belgium: Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels. 

Belgium has a royal family which – as royals tend to – leads a life filled with privilege and scandals. The country got its first king around the time of independence (1830) as the Congress voted to make the country a constitutional monarchy. The first choice for a king did not work out so the Belgians opted for the second choice, Leopold I. His son Leopold II was responsible of the Congolese genocide (estimated 10 million deaths) and colonialism including unfathomable cruelties. There have been seven kings since the first Leopold and the current king is called Philippe. His father (who was king before Philippe) had a daughter out of wedlock as a result of an 18-year affair. She was finally recognised through a DNA test that Philippe’s father refused to take for a long time (disowned poor Delphine for a long time). If Belgium keeps being a monarchy, or a country, in the future Philippe’s eldest daughter Elisabeth will become the first queen of Belgium..

As for the division of the country, it is rooted deeply in a long history that can be traced to the times of the Holy Roman Empire (HRE). One part of what we now know as Belgium was part of the HRE and, over time, became part of the Germanic language family. The southern region was part of France with French as its language. Another aspect is the religious divide between the Protestant north (Flanders) and Catholic south (Wallonia). Partition of the country is discussed from time to time, but no one really asks what the German speaking minority thinks. 

And as for the periods without a government? There is a great article that provides a good perspective. It can be accessed here.

Books for Belgium

Annelies Verbeke is a contemporary Flemish author whose work includes fiction, novels, poems and plays. She lives in Ghent and often writes about multicultural settings and people from different origins. Her debut Slaap! (2003) won a bunch of awards and was an instant hit, being translated into several languages.  

I decide to read her 2015 book Thirty Days which is (mostly) a delightful book about a Senegalese immigrant, Alphonse, and his thirty days of navigating his Belgian wife and encounters with different kinds of people, all in the Belgian countryside – in Westhoek (in Flanders), which is sadly notorious for its youth suicide rates). Alphonse is an immigrant handyman who has a quality that invites people to tell him their life stories and involve him in their lives. Bizarre and interlinked scenarios follow one after another and are mixed with Alphonse’s private life, memories and relationships. It is a book of clever moments, but also of artificial moments that seem to be there to provide shock value. It is a book about compassion and kindness, but also of stories that feel forced. Annelies loves her characters and has a hard time letting go, dragging and filling the story a bit too much with too many narratives and people. And as with many long stories, ending them becomes difficult. In this case, the author opts for an unnecessary and unfulfilling ending – not as bad as “it was only a dream”, but not far off and nearly as absurd. This takes the sharpness away from the story. But the author can be commended for her very detailed way of writing, which probably is supposed to mimic real life. Also admirable is her extensive research of the area, history, colonialism, music and plastering – among other things. 

My next Belgian book is intended to be from Wallonia but instead I decide to read War and Turpentine (2013) by Stefan Hertmans, as it has been hailed as the best Belgian book of recent times. So another Flemish author it is. Stefan is a writer and academic and considered an intellectual in Belgium. The book is based on the memories of Stefan’s grandfather – of his childhood and the war, sketched in notebooks that the grandfather left for Stefan. It was shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize and won the AKO Literature Prize (2014), the Golden Book Owl Audience Award and the ECI Literatuurprijs.

It is a very different book from Annelie’s Thirty Days. While Annelie’s book was raw, contemporary and descriptive of various human bodily functions, Stefan’s book has a more conservative style. It is meticulous, poetic, sometimes old fashioned, but always thoroughly researched. It is partly a memoir and partly a reconstruction of the past by the studious Stefan, who mixes the information from the notebooks with some fiction, some historical and cultural facts, and much love for his grandfather. Written in three quite different parts, it is an interesting yet uneven read, as the storyline jumps back and forth in time, making the text disjointed. The first and third parts are Stefan writing, whereas the second part is given to the voice of the grandfather, Urbain Martien, told in first person when he is sent to the front at the age of 23. 

The second part has been hailed as the most important and meaningful one as it depicts the absolute horrors of war in first person in an honest, brutal and authentic way. I personally find the first part, the nearly Dickensian depiction of the life of the poor at the turn of the century in Ghent, more fascinating. The efforts of Urbain’s stoic and self-sacrificing mother, and her struggles to support her own and others’ children, an ailing painter husband and the growing up of young Urbain. When Urbain returns from war as a wounded hero (part 3), the Spanish Flu – the world pandemic that claimed 110 million lives worldwide – destroys his hope and the solace that Urbain found in his post-war life. The result is a loveless marriage. Stefan’s mother – Urbain’s only child – bears the name of the dead fiancé whose shadow never leaves the house. 

It is an amazingly well-written book. Stefan’s command of language and his poetic way of writing shines through, even when translated. If it were not so well crafted, the unevenness of the story would not hold together. It is a forensic examination of the past and Stefan’s quest to understand the old man, who found his peace in painting.

The Belgian writing scene is mainly dominated by Flemish writers and, as you will see below, the movie industry is more focused in Wallonia. For a Wallon author, I decide on Amélie Nothomb. She is a child of Belgian diplomats and her privileged life brought her to several countries from Japan to New York, and several places in between. She did not live in Belgium until the age of 17.

I choose to read Métaphysique des tubes (2000). Not available in English, I choose to read it in the original language. It narrates the childhood of the author in Japan, from a baby to three years old, with black humour. When the child is born, she already has two older siblings, so when the doctors tell her parents that they are worried that the child is a passive “vegetative tube”, the parents are overjoyed to have a vegetable as a child and start calling her “the Plant”. She does not move until she turns 2. It’s light, short, hilarious, brilliant at times and certainly unusual. It’s nothing too serious or too metaphysical – a bit like a light literature snack. 

The Belgian movie festival 

How to decide which movie to watch from all the options? Well, you find around ten from ‘the best Belgian movies’ lists and talk to your Belgian friends – and then you cross-check their recommendations with the lists and come up with a selection. These include Jeanne Dielman, 23 Commerce Quay, 1080 Brussels (1975); L’enfant (2005); The Memory of a Killer (2003); Anyway the Wind blows (2003); The Broken Circle Breakdown (2012); The Kid with a Bike (2011); Toto the Hero (1991); Rosetta (1999); Two Days, One Night (2014) and Man Bites Dog (1992). In the end, we decide to watch six movies from this list. 

Belgian cinema would probably not be the same without the Dardenne Brothers – Jean-Pierre and Luc – who direct, produce and write scripts together. They have won the Cannes Film Festival Palme d’Or twice (Rosetta in 1999, l’Enfant in 2005) and the Grand Prix once (the Kid with the bike in 2011). Their movies have been nominated for several other international awards. The movies portray realistic working-class realities from unemployment to immigration. The ‘best of Belgian movies’ lists are dominated by their cinema, especially the aforementioned Cannes winners but also la Promesse (1996), le Fils (2002), Lorna’s silence (2008) and the highly awarded Two Days, One Night (2014).

Two days one night (2014) by the Dardenne brothers is an amazing movie. The centre of the movie is the powerhouse performance from an unbelievably stellar Marion Cotillard, which makes the movie not only feel real but carries it despite the very slow beginning. It is a movie that builds up slowly to its very fulfilling ending. At the start of the movie, JK, L (16) and I were a bit uncertain about where it was going and not fully understanding the hype, but it is a movie that grows into you and concludes in a very satisfactory way. It is not a ‘feel-good’ movie; it is a very real movie about real life – a simple, believable story and brilliant in its portrayal of the diversity of human behaviour when faced with a moral dilemma. 

Another movie on the list by the brothers is L’enfant (2005, Child). A Cannes winner, it is about a young unemployed couple with a baby. The father decides to sell the baby on the black market and unsettling tragedies follow. It is another highly impactful movie from the directors. It is highly regarded and is interesting, for sure. The difficulty comes from feeling empathy for someone who would do such a thing. 

We continue the Darnenne Film Festival with a Kid with a bike (2011) – another of the highly acclaimed movies and another Cannes winner. It deals with abandonment and good intentions. We have the same problem as with L’enfant – it is difficult to connect emotionally even if you feel for the abandoned child, rejected by his only living parent. Something about the movie feels distant – more like an observation rather than emotional engagement. 

The Flemish movie on the list, The Broken Circle Breakdown (2012) by Felix van Groeningen, is a sad story about the death of a child and the effects on her bohemian musician parents who grieve in very different ways. Beautifully shot with music that carries the story, it is a melancholic tale that moves from love to loss, from happiness to despair. It jumps back and forth in time – an idyllic, music-filled past, shot in warm colours and a devastating present in a cold, blueish tone. It is effective, touching and intense in its storytelling, albeit being way too long for what it wants to express. 

The one on every ‘best of Belgium’ list is Man Bites Dog (1992) by three friends who wrote the script, produced, directed and acted in. It’s a movie that put Belgian cinema on the world map. Marketed as a black comedy, it is about a documentary crew following a serial killer. It is a polarising effort, touching on the boundaries of filmmaking. Greatly admired by the king of gratuitous violence, Quentin Tarantino, it is a movie for some audiences and not for others. Eclectic and novel at the time, now I find the movie appalling and disturbing without any real target or meaning. It is a movie that is a product of its time. It was considered ground-breaking and inspired a series of movies in the same genre. As we watch it now, after decades of school shootings and other public actions of violence, it simmers down into something repugnant, abhorrent and ugly, and we are glad that it was banned in several countries.    

We decide to add a kids’ movie on the list, Kirikou and the Sorceress (2000). It’s an animated movie based on West African tales. It’s a story about courageous Kiriku, who saves the day. The aesthetics are basic but the story itself is sweet. 

The Belgian movie marathon would not be complete without the “best movie in history” – Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai de Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles. Recently chosen by Sight and Sound as the best movie ever made and directed by Chantal Akerman, it is a fascinating but incredibly long portrait of a housewife living a monotonous routine-filled lifeless life. It has been hailed for its slow cinema approach, understatement, real time filming and a detailed depiction of one woman’s life. But it is also slow and long, and as much as one can understand the value of the slow pace and long shots, it also feels very long. 

Music

Our favourite Belgian artist by far is Stromae, a singer and rapper whose song Alors on Dance was a hit in Europe. Our favourite song from him is his global hit, Papaoutai (that L studied in a high school French class). It was the highest viewed French-language youtube video until August 2023, and the 2^nd French-language youtube video to pass 1 billion views (2023). The song is about absent fathers. Stromae’s own father was killed in the Rwanda genocide, but had not been a big part of his life before that.

Tout le monde sait comment on fait des bébés; mais personne ne sait comment on fait des papas

Stromae stopped performing in 2015 due to anxiety as a side-effect of anti-malaria medication. He returned to the stage in 2022. He sings Santé and an impactful L’Enfer, inspired by his battle with depression and anxiety. 

As for other Belgian music stars, Salvatore Adamo is the best selling Belgian artist of all time. One of the most well known musicians outside Belgium is Jacques Brel (whose most famous song is No me quitte pas). Other superstars are the angel-voiced Lara Fabian, 80s/90s band Vaya con Dios and to a lesser extent, Maurane. 

The fastest growing star is Niviro (real name Tim Peeters) who dominates the dance music scene with videogame-type music or the freedom rave . Other Belgian contemporary music stars are DJ Jerro and Berre. 

Next stop: Belize 

thank you JK for editing