DAY 116 - IMOTSKI TO SESTANOVAC: 21.7 MILES (43,400 STEPS)

4 August, 2011 –Professor Matko Marusic & friends

21.7 miles (Total:  1109.2 miles) 43,400 steps (Total: 2,151,691 steps)

With perfect timing I arrived into Imotski during the busiest weekend of the year—during the Imotski Wine Festival. There wasn’t a spare room in the town. Time to call Dr Bagaric who came up trumps again, finding me an annex to a private house which I was to share with a German couple who were in town to enjoy the festival. I was so tired from the day of walking that I had a shower and went straight to bed, only to be slightly stirred by my fellow German guests as they arrived back from the festival and tripped over, the cat, the mat, the chair, the table, the TV ….

I made an early start, as I was aiming for Sestonovac about 20 miles away. I saw a bit of a short-cut on the map over the hills to Zagvodz – as usual with my short cuts, there are lots of cuts but they’re not short. The climb over the hills was on a quieter road and quite spectacular in parts, especially the long ‘B’ road to Sestanovac, but the hills were more like mountains and they took it out of me.   So I struggled into Sestanovac confident of a choice of accommodation, but there was none. I asked in the bars and in the shops for rooms to rent, but again there were no offers—they told me the nearest were 30km away on the coast at Baska Voda.

I was so tired that I could have slept on a clothesline and just lay down on a verge of grass by a car park. A waitress from a coffee bar came out and told me that the pizzeria had rooms that they often let out and if I went and ordered a meal, then they might take pity on me.  It seemed like a plan, so I walked off to the Pizzeria Amor and asked if they had any rooms—there was a blunt ‘no’ and I realised this was probably because I looked like some aged hippy and stunk to high heaven—who could blame them. I sat down and ordered a bottle of mineral water, which they weren’t too enthusiastic about serving to me and really wanted me to move on—but they took my money—good of them.

For some reason I had the ‘Ghostbusters’ theme ‘Who you go’na call….’ whistling in my head and so I thought there is only one man who could possibly help here—Ivan Bagaric. I sent a text to Ivan: “Dear Ivan, you know when you said there was no chance of accommodation in Sestanovac and suggested I take another route, well I just wanted to let you know I am in Sestenovac and that you were right. Your humble friend, Michael’.  Within seconds, almost as if he had anticipated the call, Ivan sent a text back saying a friend of his lived in the neighbouring village of Katuni and he would come and pick me up if I sent my exact location.

Twenty minutes later Matko Marusic arrived—if one hundred people were asked to pick a brilliant professor out of an identity parade, Matko wouldn’t have stood chance, but was I so glad to see him. It was clear that he was widely known, as the restaurant staff rushed out to greet him, and he brushed them away with an imperious gesture, which I confess I just loved and wanted to go back to them and say, ‘I’m with him’, but that would be childish and ungracious.  So I did the only ‘Christian’ thing, I muttered it, thought it and grinned, as I swaggered out of the restaurant to the waiting car.

“Have you eaten?” Matko asked in perfect English. “No” I replied. “Good, my mother makes the finest egg and chips in the whole of Croatia and she is making them for you now.” We drove a short distance into Katuni and turned into a street called ‘Marusic’ – a hamlet with about twenty homes in it – and arrived at a beautiful understated cottage. Here I was introduced to Matko’s mother, Tonka and ushered into the kitchen where truly the most wonderful egg and chips I have ever tasted were served.

After supper we sat out in the garden with a glass of wine and exchanged introductions. Matko was Professor Matko Marusic, Dean of the Medical School of the University of Split. Like his great friend Ivan Bagaric, Professor Marusic was a passionate man; there were no half opinions, whether it was egg and chips being the best in the world (probably true), his wife, Ana being the most beautiful and brilliant woman in all Croatia (certainly true), or his team Hadyuk Split playing the finest football in Europe (bit of a fib, but a nice one).

We were not going to stay in Katuni, but instead were going to go down to his beech house at Baska Voda.  However, first he wanted to show me his family village.  It was early evening as we walked around the village, and people were sitting outside their homes.  He would greet everyone with what sounded like stern words in Croatian, but which invoked smiles and laughter in a way which would suggest that he was teasing them.  We were invited to join virtually every home for a drink or food as children rode around on bikes or played games. It was an idyllic picture of a functioning community.

Matko was keen that we should accept one invitation from the Nejasmic family as they spoke some English.  He explained how the son (now I guess in his early forties) was the first man from the village to volunteer for the Croatian army in the war, how he was a hero and his prize for volunteering was to win the heart of the most beautiful girl in the village, whose name I never got, but whom Matko simply called ‘the movie star’—she was indeed very beautiful, though clearly not as beautiful as Ana. They served an enormous meal and when I explained that we had already eaten our hostess told me “that was for food, this is for friendship.” It was quite an experience and reminded me of Hilary Clinton’s book ‘It takes a village’ (to raise a child).  As the rioters rampaged through the streets of London, you couldn’t imagine a more distant example of what they have and what we have lost.

After visiting the neighbours Matko drove me up to Kresevo Hill overlooking Katuni where there was a giant cross and where pilgrims for the Festival of the Great Virgin Mary were gathering for pilgrimage to Sinj the next day.  As we stood at the foot of the cross, Matko looked out towards Split and said in profound tone: “I said there were three things I wanted to see before I would die. The first was the independence of Croatia—this I have witnessed thanks to the great man Dr Franj Tudjman. The second was the construction of the A1 motorway all the way to Zagreb and there it is—it is beautiful.” He paused “And the third?” I asked. His eyes went heavy and with ‘dead pan’ delivery he said, “For Hadyuk Split to win the European Champions League”—he shook his head, reached for a cigarette from his pouch, lit it, took a long draw and exhaling said “I think I am going to be around for a very long time.”

We arrived at Baska Voda late, but not too late for Marusic family debate. One feels that this is a family tradition and it would be as improper to retire to bed without a political debate, as it would be not to brush your teeth. Matko’s son Berislav, a university professor in philosophy in the United States, and his wife, Jennifer, also a professor and specialist in the thought of Karl Popper, were the formidable ‘liberal’ defence and Matko’s daughter and classical scholar, Marija in midfield. Matko was relishing the contest as he had a fellow ‘conservative’ to join the fray and expose the weakness of the liberal arguments. Instead, conversation revolved around peace the Olympic truce and the philosophy and theology of war and peace, on which was widespread agreement. Matko retired from the field to puff on another cigarette – in disgust that his chance of scoring a rare and essential victory over the liberals was descending into a cosy cross-party consensus.

The experience of being with the Marusic family reminded me of what I was missing on this walk, my own family debates, teasing and laughter. So when they suggested I take the day off the next day to go to Sinj for the Great Festival of the Virgin Mary, I didn’t take much persuading.

We set off early to go Trilj, where a lecturer at the medical school, Slavica Kozina and her husband, Tonci, had invited the family to join them for the traditional feast day celebration and lunch of roast lamb. It was a wonderful setting; a home filled with kittens and an adoring young child and the smell of the marinated meat being slow cooked for lunch once we returned from the service at Sinj. It was an extremely hot day and Sinj was filled with over 100,000 pilgrims—parking was difficult so we missed the famous procession of Alka knights, which didn’t trouble me, but Matko teased Slavica about for the rest of the day. I didn’t dare suggest that Matko’s decision to drive us the long way round to Trilj along the A1, so as to show his guest the glorious highway, may have contributed also to the slight delay.

Slavica had written extensively on the medical effects of war and in particular types of mourning especially amongst women. I asked Slavica a question that had puzzled me: where were the women in the Balkan wars—why didn’t they intervene to stop the madness and the killing? Slavica said that she felt that women were as caught up in the march to war as the men. The image of Croatian culture is that it is male dominated, but this is a facade—it is the women who are in charge and women can see the attraction of war every bit as much as men. Later, Matko told a wonderful story that underlined this: when he was being particularly contentious at a faculty meeting and the chairman asked if there was anything she could do to reign-in Matko , she replied, “Croatian women treat their men like their dogs—they keep them on a short leash and let them bark.”

Slavica and Tonci were wonderful hosts and I wished the day could have lasted longer, but even for us there was a time to go. At 6AM the next morning Matko drove me back to Pizzaria Amor to re-commence my walk – with detailed instructions on the route to take down to Omis and accommodation. I was sad to leave Matko; he had been such a wonderful host and I could have listened to him talk forever. I found the colour, passion, directness of his thought and speech generously drenched in self-deprecation, such a refreshing change from the often insipid, politically correct, pious conversation with which we are more familiar in the UK.  From an early age, we Brits are trained to suppress our true thoughts in the name of the higher virtue of politeness and in the belief that by only thinking it, but not actually saying it, we are somehow morally superior. Even the thought of the Dean of a Medical School puffing away on a cigarette would be enough to cause convulsions of organic muesli onto the comment pages of The Guardian all across Islington and Notting Hill.  Professor Matko Marusic serves as a reminder of full the joy of life and the beauty of freedom of speech; that is what we say we are fighting for, and yet place in chains.