Balkan men helping pregnant women.

There is a lot of talk on certain web-sites (see here for instance) about how Germans can be very rude or inconsiderate in public, for instance not giving their bus-seats to pregnant women. I thought perhaps the most interesting response to this suggestion (by a non-German I should add) was that it wasn't rudeness or selfishness but an amazing sense of privacy that leads to this perception. I couldn't agree more: I think most Germans would be horrified to know that somebody needed their seat and they didn't give it to them, but the fact is most are so tunnel-visioned in public trying to avoid encounters that they just don't notice.

Anyway, I tend (or tended) to think that, on the whole, the Balkans are a bit ruder when it comes right down to it, at least to my over-sensitive, wimpy, effeminate Canadian senses. But I was truly amazed last week when we (myself and G who's pregnant again) had to take our daughter with a fever to the doctors on Krk. Now the medical system here is still something of a shambles - not enough money, not enough doctors, long queues, etc. It's still quite frustrating, or at very least boring to go to the doctor and sit on hot days waiting for something to happen. But each time we went in, we were immediately man-handled to the front of the queue. At one visit, a tough Balkan man took control of us and the whole room: "a pregnant women with a sick baby is here, you all get the hell out of the way" (or similar). It was very touching.

I guess that's one of the things I like about the Balkan character. It's a bit like a mint-humbug: tough on the outside with a soft center, or perhaps it's more like an igloo: icy outside, warm and comfortable in. Or both (see left)?

I don't mean to sour this good feeling, but perhaps for another entry I should comment on how the typical Balkan man deals with the babies once they are out, healthy and at home...