MONTENEGRO

 

READ

Montenegro was hard. Finding a book to read was a challenge, as was finding a recipe I could veganize and an organization for my donation. Fortunately, there are lots of other people who are doing a reading-the-world project, so I checked to see what some of them had come up with. Lillian and Henriette, who write the Stories of the World blog, had discovered a book called Hansen’s Children, written by Ognjen Spahić and translated by Will Firth, so I ordered a copy.

The title, Hansen’s Children, refers to people who suffer from leprosy, also known as Hansen’s disease. The book’s unnamed narrator lives in the last leprosarium in Europe, located in Tichileşti, Romania, isolated along with several other people afflicted with the disease. When he arrives at the leprosarium, the narrator “realised that I was not being sent for treatment but being prepared for a different journey to somewhere outside the rules of this world, which could more appropriately be termed ‘illness in isolation’ than a medical treatment.”

The narrator’s roommate is an American from Georgia by the name of Robert W. Duncan. The narrator says of Robert, “He bore the cross of leprosy with dignity, refusing to be a disease in human form, like so many others, and insisting on being a human infected with Hansen’s bacillus.” They get along well, and Robert spends a fair amount of time plotting ways for them to escape from the leprosarium. He believes that the International Red Cross driver, Martin Smooth, who brings them periodic care packages, will help them get away. Of course, the real problem is figuring out where they will go and what they will do once they get there. Leprosy is not a disease that can be hidden from people, at least, not for very long.

When a small group of people is forced to live together in close proximity to one another, with little or no interaction with people outside the group, there is always a question as to how they will react. Will they take care of each other? Prey on each other? Both? In the leprosarium at Tichileşti, the residents work cooperatively at the chores that fall to them, and the narrator and Robert look after some of the older people living in their midst. Many residents seem to keep to themselves as much as possible. But there are also times when things turn nasty, as happens when the narrator, who is the de facto leader of the group, is challenged by another resident at a time when the narrator is ill. They are essentially self-policing inside the leprosarium, which requires acceptance by everyone concerned, and that acceptance is not always forthcoming.

While the residents have practically no interaction with the outside world, they can see a factory nearby where the workers are starting to get caught up in a rebellion that’s occurring throughout the country – dissatisfaction with the rule of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu. The eventual arrest, conviction, and execution of Ceauşescu and his wife in December of 1989 bring about changes in Romania and somehow trickle down to disrupt life at the leprosarium as well.

I learned a lot from Hansen’s Children about the impact a diagnosis of leprosy has on the person who receives it. Between the effects of the disease on the human body and the ostracization by society, leprosy has been responsible for taking away from those who have it so much of what is important in life. Things appear to be changing as doctors and scientists learn more about the disease. Treatments are available now, and leprosy has been discovered to be not as highly contagious as had been thought previously, which means that a diagnosis of leprosy doesn’t necessarily lead to banishment from society. Even so, as of 2019, there were still nine inhabitants of the leprosarium in Tichileşti.

COOK

Meat and cheese seem to be staples of the Montenegrin diet, so I was happy when I found a cream of mushroom soup recipe on the 196 Flavors website that didn’t involve either of those ingredients. I veganized the recipe by substituting a combination of soy milk and cornstarch for the heavy cream, and I finished it off with a dollop of Trader Joe’s vegan sour cream alternative. I’ll definitely want to make another batch of this when the weather gets a little cooler.

GIVE

I had a terrible time finding an organization or project in Montenegro that I could contribute to. GlobalGiving didn’t have anything in Montenegro, so I turned to the Internet. When a Google search of Montenegrin charities didn’t turn up anything useful, I started looking for GoFundMe projects. That’s where I found Pristaniste Foundation, which is helping Ukrainian refugees who are coming to Montenegro to escape Russia’s assault on their country, as well as “people from Belarus and Russia who are fleeing persecution because of their anti-war beliefs.” The Pristaniste Foundation is using the money raised through GoFundMe to provide temporary housing, food, medicine, SIM cards, and other financial assistance. More information on this project is available at this link.

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