Half past five in the morning, and at Belgrade bus station it's already crowded. A few people are waiting to buy tickets, a few are sleeping on chairs, the rest are sitting and waiting for their transport. I approach the counter and buy a return ticket to Kosovska Mitrovica which costs about 2.750 dinars without a discount for students, and with a discount it is slightly more than 2.500.
As I leave for the platform, the only thing I'm thinking about is that the driver doesn't play Barbara Bobak CLUB MIX right away because it's six in the morning. I get on the bus and realize - I was hoping for nothing. You can hear from the radio: "You are lying to her tonight like I used to...".
Torture. Maybe it's better when some other driver turns on the radio to Lola and complains: "One river and a hundred pains, what should I do?" Realistically, it's not. And, the choice of music depends on the driver. It also happened to me to leave without a phone headset. Well, that's already a problem because then I have no remedy except to fall asleep if I can.
I sit somewhere in the middle by the window. I lean back on the seat and realize it's broken. I'm changing places. The seats are faded, the bus dusty so I always have black lines on my white sneakers after the ride.
They don't turn off the air conditioner, maybe for a few minutes, then the same story again. There is no button above the seat, but as I froze once, I started wearing something "over". Although it will blow directly on my head so I will most likely get a migraine at least I won't be too cold.
With usually about fifteen passengers, the bus leaves for Kosovska Mitrovica on a sometimes six- and sometimes seven-and-a-half-hour journey. This is influenced by many factors.
There is a break, but not always.
One of them is whether and how many breaks the driver will take. It happened that for seven and a half hours the driver did not want to take a break. The passengers were unhappy, but the driver says: "We have to arrive by half past one because of the people who go to the enclaves from Mitrovica." We didn't get there until half past one. Why? About that later in the text.
When we finally reach Raška, the bus is often full of passengers. These are mostly Serbs from Kosovo who came to raise their salaries and pensions, buy medicines and other necessities.
That's when a bigger commotion starts in the bus. A proud mother shows someone next to her pictures from her child's eighteenth birthday and tells how it was the best time of her life. Others discuss families moving out or what their neighbors are up to at the time.
In the meantime, the driver gives us a white paper on which we write our name, surname and date of birth. We are approaching Jarinje, and the crowd is such that it is best to go by bus so that you don't have to wait for two hours at the crossing.
Trucks carrying goods wait for several days, and the lane leading to the crossing is busy. Therefore, the driver must move to the opposite lane in order to approach the crossing. There are no traffic signals, and drivers are at a standstill.
My heart sank as we crossed the line of trucks. I think so Kudos to the drivers.. When we pass a bend and get close to the crossing, it is easier to breathe again.
At the crossing, a Kosovar policeman enters the bus and collects ID cards. When they additionally check the luggage, we can continue. Everyone, regardless of license plates and means of transport, is obliged to open their trunk.
Re-search
After we crossed the administrative crossing at the Bistrica checkpoint, we were stopped by the Kosovo police. That is, that point is controlled by a special unit, and the road in that part is enriched with lying police officers. I didn't count exactly how many there were, because then I was only thinking about when I would arrive in Mitrovica.
The search doesn't always happen, but it happened to me twice in two months.
The heavy sighs of the passengers start to be heard in the bus. One lady even said out loud, until the policemen entered: "What did we hide from you that you are doing this to us?"
We had to take all the things out of the suitcase. For me, they made "ears" on the book as they searched. That's why I got really annoyed.
Usually the search goes without any problems, but sometimes it takes up to an hour. It is unpleasant and tiring, even if there was no toilet break, again torture.
The first time I thought they are just doing their job, and when I realized that they were doing that work under the supervision of a police officer from the special unit who, with crossed arms and a smile, was commenting on something in a language you don't understand, I no longer had any justification.
I started rolling my eyes and sighing along with the other passengers because we are about half an hour away from home and we just want to get there as soon as possible.
