The kind lady who works with Drago (the Banisher) told me recently that she used to own a book store here in Makarska and that she has thousands of books in storage, some of them in English. A Book Angel!
So for the last two days I have been ensconced in an elegant book called White Oleander by Janet Fitch. Read it if you can find it, it is captivating. It deals with a destructive relationship between a mother and a daughter – the mother finds herself incarcerated for murder and the daughter finds herself trailing from one foster home to another, living a different sort of life sentence. Central to the story is the oleander which her mother gathers and boils down to kill the man who has spurned her – ‘boiled down, distilled it, like her hatred’- It is so poisonous that ‘you just have to roast a marshmallow on a twig and you were dead’. It’s not a soppy tale with a happy ending, and it has the most gorgeous turns of phrase. Elegant if you will.
Anyway, to give you a lovely visual, this stark rocky Adriatic coast is softened with thousands of oleander bushes. Pinks, crimsons and whites, everywhere. In the book the narrator says that oleanders ‘could live through anything, they could stand heat, drought, neglect, and still put out thousands of waxy blooms’. And this must be true because there is a limit to the things that will grow uncoaxed on the coast here. The flowers are perfect, and as a teenager I used to tuck one behind my ear when I was going out in the summer.
Oooh, but in this week’s Makarska Kronika, I see that there is a lobby against the oleander. Let me just sit with my dictionary for a few minutes and read about the pros and the cons of this - I’ll get back to you soon.
Ok, it’s all to do with Sve Petar, you know, the promontory with the light house on it down by the rowing club.
About a month ago there was a lot of ‘machinery’ going on over there, which then suddenly stopped. Reading the paper at the time, it seemed that the local authorities had decided to install a chemical toilet on Sve Petar ‘for the tourists’ but that some ‘eco’ people had put their hands and their arguments up and halted the work. The toilet plans have been flushed as it were, and now there is just the leveled track. Now there is concern that the dust will be a problem ‘for the tourists’ which has brought on a new flush of arguments - what to plant to try and fix the mess. The local forestry office guy says that they have oleander seedlings that could be planted in the mean time (you knew we would get there eventually) but the ‘ecos’ have put their hands up and said no, ‘poisonous, not indigenous.’ They have correctly pointed out that the area is a bit of an ‘eco/history’ disaster, and they want to see the disaster reigned in.
Walking around the area this morning, there are a couple of things that need to be said, viz, that the area smells of … faeces, and perhaps we need toileting lessons ‘for the tourists’ (you can see why the issue of a toilet was raised) and perhaps, if they manage to carry their picnic things to the beach, they could carry the containers home again – after all, they are lighter at the end of the day (the empty containers I mean). There are piles of rubbish everywhere. (This area is only 5 minutes from the main street, not at the end of the world).
The problem is that the tourist is the holy grail and anything will be tolerated to ensure that the tourists are happy, including bad behavior. The selling point of this area is the cisto & bistro (clean and clear) water and beaches. Not sorting this issue may threaten that reputation.
In the article, the ‘eco’ folk have raised the issue of the new bar that has been given a permit to operate from a flattened space (same bulldozer) near the lighthouse, which they see as a disaster – firstly this is an area of historical significance, and secondly, a bar only heightens the need for a toilet.
They mentioned again their dislike (ecologically and historically) of the concrete (beton) areas on the rocks which allow further spaces for sun chairs and umbrellas to be rented out. (You need a permit to run your business from these areas, and permits put money in the local authority coffers).
So at the moment the dusty path remains as it is until there is a resolution.
One local guy is waging his own private planting campaign, trying to regenerate the native plants on the area. He is so cute – 93 years old and quietly spoken, he is up there most days watering and planting. He stops to chat when we are at rowing in the mornings - he just may have it sorted before the bureaucratic arguments are sated!
(PS -if you are reading this, could you do me a favour and add yourself as a follower or let me know - I would love to know who else I am 'talking' to!)
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