A few years ago I was standing in a long queue at the bank in Jelsa (not for the first, nor sadly, the last time…).
There was a local man behind me, the last in the queue. After a while the door opened, and another local came in and joined the first man at the back of the queue. He acknowledged the first man and then started my favourite ever Dalmatian conversation, one I have heard many times since.
“Di si?” (literally Where are you?, a dialect form of Gdje si?)
“Evo me.” (Here I am)
After that, total silence for the ten minutes it took us to get served at the front of the queue.
Wonderful. A conversation in the queue at the bank which asks someone where he is, and he replies that he is here, right next to the person asking the question. Why would one need to continue a conversation after such weighty topics have been covered?
It is a conversation I have heard so many times in recent years, and quite by chance the camera was rolling this glorious January late morning, as The Professor (PLEASE note those short sleeves in the bura – like a certain Christmas star, the fashion is spreading…) came back from his newspaper purchasing in the local shop. Check it out in the 14-second video below.
