Blogging in the time of cholera

I was sick. Or to be completely true, I am still sick while writing this. I am laying under the sheets, drinking tea, while my head is spinning from antibiotics and other drugs they put in me...

When it comes to dealing with health and sickness, Bulgaria and Sweden are very different. My current diagnosis is a cold with lots of coughs, moderate fever and breath pains when I have coughed too much. A Swedish doctor would tell me to relax, drink tea, eat healthy stuff and call him again tomorrow if the coughs are still there. Bulgarian doctors, and it seems all Bulgarians are trigger happy, and immediately offer antibiotics, something that would be only the very last solutuions for a Swedish doctor.

And it is not only about the doctors. As a Swede I am sceptical towards medicines in general, and antiobiotics specifically. I want, and expect, my own body to conquer the disease without foreign help. It might take some days, but who has died from a flue? To help it I use ascetisism. No coffe, no alcohol. Tea and vegetables.

Bulgarians in Sweden on the other hand, despair over the doctors' reunctancy to prescribe medicine, and blames him for their diesases. I know, it sounds like a gross generalization, but it is real. Some days ago it was another Swede, with another Bulgarian girlfriend, and another Bulgarian mother in law, who fought the same battle, trying to avoid antibiotics as long as possible.

I held out for days, but eventually the fever got too big, and my Swedish method of living through it didn't seem to work. After all, I did not do it the proper Swedish way, since I didn't restrict myself from neither wine, women or coffee. So eventually I started the antibiotics cure. When in Rome, do as Romans do.

The difference inideas about health and sickness run deep. Consider this - when Bulgarians drink they raise their glasses and say "Nazdrave!", "for health". Whenever they ask each other something for birthdays or new years, being healthy is always mentioned first. "Health is the most important thing" is a common thing to say, even among young Bulgarians.

Swedes say "skål" meaning the "bowl/glass that we drink from". This skål is either accompanied with a song (that praises the bliss of drinking) or a lenghty speech aboout some individuals personal achievements, much like they do it in Georgia. If someone in Sweden wished me "a healthy 2010" I would look at him or her long, wondering what he or she meant with that. Does he expect me to get sick?

Somehow we take health for granted in Sweden. During many years, the lower living standard in Bulgaria potentially made diseases lethal in a way that they were not in Sweden. People did die. But they wished each other to be spared from this destiny, the most brutal of all. Getting treatment quickly might have been about survival in a way that it was not in Sweden.

Another thing is that it is a hell of a lot more annoyning to be sick in Bulgaria than in Sweden. Consider sitting on the bus with 40 degrees of fever in Lund, and compare that with sitting on a bus in rush hour Sofia. And if your apartment is cold, you better get better quickly, or you might get worse just as quick.

But when it comes to the doctor's prescriptions of antibiotics there is also another pattern of society which is relevant. Sweden is, in spite of repeated efforts of neoliberalisation and Europeanisation, a fundamentally socialdemocratic society, a society that sets the individual free from his relatives and close relations, but subordinates him or her under its political will.

Actually, I dont think that Swedish society is moving towards Europe any more. Is there anyone in Sweden who wants to abolish the monopoly on alcohol? I can see such individuals, but no political movement, and I think that is good actually. But my point is that the difference between Sweden and Europe is still there, and Swedes are as proud as ever about it.

Maybe it was when we understood that also Germany and France have a social democratic tradition that we settled with the way we are. Maybe these things simply can not change. It is interesting how no technical revolutions, no new governments, can really change some fundamental things in the Swedish society.

Antibiotics is actually a very good example. It is good for the individual, who gets healthy quickly, and does not have to suffer more than necessary. But it is a huge problem for society that too many people take antibiotics, as bacterias show up who are resistant etc. For a Swede it is natural that he or she as an individual pays the price for society's welfare. It would be difficult to convince a Bulgarian to sacrifice his or her happiness for society.

Or another example - the swine flue vaccine. In Swedish TV, people actually said that people should vaccinate, not for their own sake, but for society. I could somehow buy the argument that I should have vaccinated not to contaminate elderly and sick, but some people took it one step further and asked us to vaccinate to save Sweden's economy. That is not a healthy thought...

Looking at Sweden and Bulgaria, it is easy to see what these differences in society at large. Whereas most people live much better in Sweden than in Bulgaria, there is absolutely no guarantee that an individual lives better in Sweden. For those who are strong and lucky enough to create the life they want, Bulgaria is a wonderful country.

Sweden, on the other hand is clinically clean from corruption, which I think also has to do with this. Power is not vested in individuals, but in the jobs that they do. You do what the police says, simply because he is the police. You don't expect any special treatment and you don't get it - therefor you have no reason to bribe him. You respect the uniform, not the man in it.

If fact, most of the time the Swedish police doesn't even need to tell you what to do. As a people we are masters in internalizing rules and regulation, and turning them into taboos. We simply don't break rules, not because we are afraid of the police, but because we simply don't break them It must be fantastic to be a politician in Sweden.

In Bulgaria, power is brokered by specific people in specific situation. You might do as the police says, or you might not, depending on who he is. Since every situation is different, you can always improve your chanses by putting money in the right pockets. Lots of openings for individual creativity, but it is difficult to build a society like this. Imagine the ightmare of being a Bulgarian politician.

Since the politicians in Bulgaria surely do not expect people to follow their instructions, I can well understand how some of them take a bigger intrest in enrichening themselves in stead of trying to rule the country.

What goes for the police, also goes for doctors. Swedish doctors are extremely far from their patients. You have to be more or less dead before actually meeting one, and their dealing with patients is the way a civil servant deals with cases. Efficiently, distantly, always with the bigger picture in the back of their head.

We citizens, on the other hand, have internalized their instructions for a healthy lifestyle, and take on the responsibility of healing ourselves without bothering our superiors.

Bulgarian doctors, and I think doctors in many countries, have a much more personal relationship with their patients. Another relationship, where money or gifts in the right place might well improve the individuals chanses of getting what he or she want. The meeting between patient and doctor is a specific case, with a specific solution - very often antibiotics, since this is quick, cheap, and preferrable from a purely individualistic perspective.

Whatever... as long as I get healthy soon. I hate being sick, and being sick in a different country is even worse. If antibiotics is what it takes, than so be it!

More on malls

In Slavenca Draclic's excellent book "Cafe Europa", the author describes an Albanian man who sits by the road, trying to sell one banana. His idea of economical progress is to get this banana sold, so that he can buy two bananas tomorrow, sell them the next day to buy three, and eventually becoming rich. This is not what street vendors look like i today's Bulgaria, but when you see some of them it is not difficult to imagine the scene that Draculic describes.

For Draculic, the banana selling man is a sad illustration of the void Albania fell into after the fall of commuism. That is not the way people get rich. (it is definitely not the way that today's rich Bulgarians made it). But that this banana selling man would be a perfect illustration to a book about classical liberal economic theory, like Adam Smith's The Wealth of the Nations.

These theories have a lot of flaws, but the crude economical life in the Balkans show that there is some truth in Smith's and his peers' philosphy. I have seen few places in Europe where Neo-liberalism has been carried out so consistently as in Bulgaria. What is more important, capitalism here began from a kind of tabula rasa that is the starting point for Smith's theories but has never existed in a country like Sweden.

Weak demand, poor customers and lack of capital have forced the Bulgarian market economy to develop into a small scale capitalism. Some might call this backwardness, others might say that is natural at this level of development, but it nontheless have some very positive sides for the customer. Bulgaria is sometimes like a capitalism with a human face - you buy the goods from the person in front of you, not merely have them handed over by a disinterested employee in a multinational corporation. That is not always nice, human face can laugh, cheat and be angry. A multinational corporation is always couldn't care less, even though they employ the best minds of our genereation to convince you that they do.

I have written about the Bulgarian malls before (here and here), but I have proably not understood them properly. In an earlier post I wrote that what is sold in the malls is not more expensive than what you can buy in the streets. This is true to some degree, but as a matter of fact stores in the malls are more expensive than most stores in the normal shopping street, while they are cheaper than the more eclusive stores on Vitosha Bvd. for example.

Mark my words... "THE stores in the malls are cheaper than MOST malls in the street". What is really significant about the malls is not the price, because next to the amazingly expensive Bennetton, there is always a Zara with a 50% discount, and a Kenvelo where clothes, at least for male clients are cheaper than anywhere else. In the street, on the other hand, there is still a myriad of small shops, with different kind of goods like hand made jewellery or more or less hand made clothes, different prices etc. This is exactly how capitalism looks in the school books, but the reality in capitalist countries differ.

This kind of stores hardly exist in Sweden. In stead you find the same stores in every town: H&M, Dressman and MQ for clothes, Cervera for kitchen utensils, Claes Ohlsson for tools etc. Interestingly, deragulation has done nothing to increase the number of small stores, rather opened up markets for international brands. The same brands, and the same prices everywhere. When small stores exist they position themselves as more expensive boutiques.

The economic reasons for this are obvious - it is difficult to sell clothes cheaper than H&M, tomake them by hand in Sweden is not realistic, and the rents in central commercial areas are expensive. The housing bubble has probably made them a lot more expensive.

What the entrance of malls in the Bulgarian economy really represent is this kind of Brand Capitalism, as I know it from home. In every Bulgarian town there will be a mall, with the same brands and the same prices. There are nice things in the malls, of course, but I think many find it more interesting to visit the smaller stores, where chances are you might be dissapointed or positively surprised.

The prices of commercial space in Sofia and other East European capitals have sky rocketed in the last years, and there is probably quite a lot of pressure on smaller entrepeneurs. In addition to existing malls, many new malls are projected It will for sure turn some of the current entrepeneurs into disinterested employees in multinational corporation.

Still, I can't see malls completely erasing the small scale capitalism, still visible in every Bulgarian street. Not all small scale vendors are nice, of course, and we could wish that the malls outcompete the crooks among them. But unless Bulgarian shopping habits, values change drastically I think people will support their local traders. You simply feel so much more important as a customer, when the the shop owner depends on your money to survive the day. Kenvelo does not.

Maladets! is back in town

The updates have been few lately, but this is not to be interpreted as anything else than a sign of health. A foreign country should a) be experiences b) written about. Whenever you have the choice between the two, staying away from the internet to get some real life experience i always a good thing.

After a nice new years eve in Sofia, we went up to a hut in the mountains, close to Troyan. Wonderful. One cvan easily say that we saw the best Bulgaria has to offer at this time of year. Snow, sunshine and mountains.

The snow will not be long lastig though. Unlike the rest of Europe, Bulgaria has had extremely high temperatures over new year. On new years eve it was closeto 20 degrees warm! Eventually snow and temperatures fell, but before we are leaving to Sweden the temperatures areexpeccted to reach above 10 degrees again.

Until then...