Tetovo reminded me how I want to travel
Tetovo is a city in the northwestern part of North Macedonia, and it’s about 45 minutes of driving to get there from the capital city, Skopje. As much as I enjoyed the wide variety of things that Skopje offered, I got the impression that things were quite centralized around the capital, and I began feeling that I was probably missing out on other types of life scenes of the country.
Tetovo is a rather small city, with an estimated population standing at 53,000 (as of 2002). But it has a long history dating back to as early as the 6th century B.C. when the town was under the Mycenaean civilization. Later, it has been under major empires and ideologies of the globe: Roman, Ottoman, Communism, and Yugoslavia. Today Tetovo is a multi-ethnic city where Albanians form a majority.
When arriving at the city center, it didn’t take long to realize that the city is not frequented by tourists. I simply didn’t notice other travelers, and I could sense the curiosity in the eyes of the passersby even in my peripheral vision. And some of the popular destinations – a Turkish bath, a Tekke (a dervish monastery), and the old stone bridge – seemed to have been left uncared for, suspected from the garbage around them.
But after hours of walking around the city, I realized that I was actually enjoying my time there, in some regards much more so than in Skopje. What made me excited there seemed similar to what I had enjoyed back in North Ossetia (in Russia) and some other countries in the Caucasus region. It was not about the exotic vibe in the streets evoked by the sights of Ottoman architecture or the occasional Adhans (call to prayer) from mosques. I think it was about the sense of “I don’t know how things exactly work around here” and some awkwardness and self-consciousness when exchanging stares with the locals.
Travelers’ itineraries seem to get shaped around destinations, but I’ve been keener on observing my emotions as I was trying to get to the destinations. My father once told me that he would have got bored already after seeing some beautiful places around the world, and asked me what the point was in traveling for several years. Fortunately, I haven’t grown tired of traveling, because I was not chasing after destinations. Rather, it has been a process of observing how different contexts – often unfamiliar and challenging- made me feel about the surroundings and myself. And I’ve been thoroughly enjoying the collection of memories of different emotions. I’ve been feeling I was becoming richer in life through these memories.
But it does not mean that the experience came at no cost. You need the courage to embrace uncertainties, mental energy to unreasonably assume that problems will be sorted out at some point, and the belief that human connections can still be as strong even in times of language and cultural barriers.
In reality, I often forget to maintain my ideal traveler’s energy, but the self-proclaimed slogan, Listening to the world, has helped me put myself back on track.
@Tetovo, North Macedonia, September 12, 2021
