We were in Croatia, a few hours outside of Zagreb in a small town, when I realized my parents lacked all originality when they chose my name. Now to get to this small town where the Croatian part of my family lived, you had to drive up and over a mountain pass made of only dirt and gravel roads. Since the weather was good and the locals swore it would be an easy drive, we left in the morning to meet our extended family for lunch.
My dad, mom, aunt, brother, cousin and I all piled into our large black rental van suitingly called Darko to start the long drive. The first hour or so was calm, my aunt and I argued over the inventor of birth control completely ignoring my brother’s medical degree knowledge as my mother navigated and my dad drove. After an hour, some light rain started to fall, the kind of rain you wouldn’t bother to even open an umbrella for – nothing to worry about. In less than a minute that soft innocent shower turned into buckets and buckets of harsh, loud rain, buckets included. The rain was so hard we began to get worried there would be dents in our cheap rental van. That soft, kind dirt road quickly became a river, washing away whatever traction was left. Our van began to be pushed backwards as if we were as light as the gravel in our tires, the water starting to break over the hood of the van.
By this point complete and utter chaos had formed within Darko, my mom screaming at my dad to pull to the side of the road, only to have my dad yell back that the side of the road had already washed away completely leaving only thin trees and cliff and that he would rather not fall to his death today. My aunt of course already had her Iphone out to film the entire thing, interviewing my poor twelve year old cousin, who had begun swearing every word he could think of. I watched as my brother did nothing but bite the side of his cheek and watch what was once a road flow so beautifully down the hill. There was about ten minutes of this until we made it to the top of the mountain, making about as much speed as if we had been on a treadmill at full tilt.
When Darko finally started to descend the other side of the mountain we were all silenced in awe as we saw a quiet, peaceful valley speckled with small houses and huge fields covered in golden light from the clear skies overhead. Never had any of us seen such a juxtaposition. Never had my entire family been silent at once, either, “so” my aunt said breaking that sweet silence “champagne for lunch?”.
By the time we reached our family’s home we were very late and were greeted by happy if slightly annoyed faces. No one appeared to believe our extraordinary flash flood tale. The skies held no proof of the storm that was somehow just on one side of the mountain. We mimed the water depth and pointed at the video of pure chaos on my aunt’s phone but even the video failed to really capture the event.
Everyone was already sitting at long tables in the garden and we quickly took our seats. There was enough food to feed an army and we did our best to make as big a dent as possible, filling our faces with stuffed peppers and cabbage rolls, washed down with white wine mixed with club soda, a strange but satisfying mixture I have yet to see anywhere outside of Eastern Europe. In between mouthfuls of food I began to meet my Croatian family. I was introduced to Mile, Andre, Anna, Antonia, Tony, and his wife Anna, Marko, Anna, Luka and his sister Anna, John and his wife Anna. I kissed so many cheeks I started to get dizzy. Was I confused? Did I just meet several cousins all with the same name as me? Even my Dad, the Croatian part of my parents, looked confused. He kept asking the Annas to repeat their names. I tried to point out the humour of the situation in my broken Croatian, but no one seemed to get the joke. Maybe it was lost in translation or more likely, it was normal to have six Anna’s at one table in Croatia. It was as if a record was stuck, all I heard over and over was “Pozdav moje ime je Anna” “Pozdav moje ime je Anna”. The more I traveled the country I realized this wasn’t just an occurrence in my family, it was as if half of the population of Croatia was named Anna. There was Anna’s Bakery, Anna’s Hostel, Anna’s Laundry, and Anna Streets.
I am named after my great grandmother, Anna. The reason my parents didn’t know half of Croatia was named Anna was because she left this little poor town in Croatia in the 1920’s at the age of 18 to come all the way to Canada by train and boat to meet her husband for the first time. She spoke no English, was about to marry a Croatian man she didn’t know and make a new life with him in Canada instead of staying in one of the poorest areas of Europe at the time. So yes, I can accuse my parents of having no originality, but I am more than okay with being named after my incredible great grandmother Anna.