Morine Shepherdess

Here is another one of those magical moments that followed a chain of seemingly impossible contacts and connections which have become commonplace in my travels and adventures in the Balkans.

I’d been on the trail of the aforementioned sir iz mijeha and learned there is a concentration of producers around Nevesinje, BiH. I’d been given the name of a man in the region who was knowledgeable but he spoke no English. It turned out that his daughter did and Ksenija became my contact and my interpreter. After a volley of Facebook messages back and forth, we made a plan (And it should be said that as much as FB has become the land of political rants, cat videos, memes and recipes, it has been my unspoken but essential partner in this endeavor…connecting me to countless amazing people, their stories, their lives.)

I’d pick Ksenija (and her mother as it turned out) up on the side of the road in Nevesinje, we’d drive to a village about 20 minutes further down the road, were we would meet another person. We’d go with him in his car to a house in the Morine (an unbelievably beautiful region that looks strikingly similar to the Scottish Moors.)

On the drive over countless miles of switchbacks and what might as well have been goat paths clinging to the sides of deep gorge cuts up into that vast empty land, the skies opened. Driving rain, gusts buffeting the car, and the road..a dirt and gravel track wide barely wide enough for one small Volkswagen, let alone the large trucks that seemed to appear every mile or so.

There was much conversation between the three of them in local language, snippets indicating they were talking about the weather. And me. And cheese. Then in English, ” Cheese, you really come all the way here for cheese? But the rain. How will you manage?” “Yep, cheese. And the weather will clear.”

Finally, just as the rain subsided, leaving a blanket of brooding green and gray clouds hanging low over us, we crested a hill and pulled off the side of the road, as if at random. “We are here.” Ksenija announced. “What? Where?” I thought? I didn’t see anything. We walked up and over a further rise and there nestled into the far hillside was a tiny stone cottage and an old camper trailer.

Over the next couple of hours I sat with the middle aged couple a that live there for about the half the year, looking after the sheep and making cheese. As usual we ate bread and cheese, cured meats, a savory cornbread made with the cheese, wine, rakjia, coffee. I watched the woman process the milk, set the curds to drain off the whey. I watched her go about her chores in her tiny cottage, lit buy the light of a single bulb attached to a car battery.

Through Ksenija, I asked my questions. Similar to the ones I’d asked dozens of times by this point. The answers too, were similar, but in a way that was revealing. Enough so the story of each family would show through the facts.

While we were chatting the two shepherdesses returned. Both woman of indeterminate age but obviously older than the couple. We sat there around the table. I kept trying to steer the conversation to the women but could’t pry much out of them. They differed to the couple and the couple didn’t seem to understand my desire to know more about these two.

Again, as it was time to leave, the light fading, I asked if I could photograph each of them.

Hers is a simple life, shaped by natures rhythms, and not with out it’s troubles, but with a smile like that…It can’t be that bad.

I’m not sure what she was looking and I guess it doesn’t matter, but something about her…has stuck with me.