Bosnia 2

Life in Bosnia is completely different than I had envisioned it, but I love it even more than I ever would have imagined I would. My family is so, so wonderful, and I know that this experience wouldn't be nearly as lovely as it's been if I didn't have them hosting me. I feel so welcomed and looked after, and like I'm a member of the family.Most of my evenings are spent cuddling on the couch with Franjo,Erna and Mama, watching really bad English made-for-tv movies with Bosnian subtitles. Another main activity that takes place in my household is playing Uno. Games get pretty intense, and it's been a good way for me to learn some colours and numbers in Bosnian.

The language barrier might be the hardest thing to deal with, aside from group dynamics, which I will get to in a later post. Everytime I walk the street, especially the first week I was here, people(mostly men) would call out things, or kids would giggle and say things that were clearly directed at me. I found this hard to cope with, because I don't like to get male attention when I'm walking down the street in Canada, either, but with the language barrier it makes defending myself essentially impossible. I guess it's led to me feeling a little more vulnerable here then I do in Canada. And to be fair, I'm not even sure that what the men are saying is overly rude or sexist, or aything like that, but I don't like the feeling I get when their attention is put on me. It's getting better as more people se us around town and around the Centar, but at first we were the new faces everywhere we went, so the attention was intense and I often felt isolated.

I'm very slowly learning the language. Some od the other intercordians are learning it much faster than I am, out of necessity. My sister is completely fluent in English, and my brother and mother understand a substantial amount, so I don't really feel that need to learn it. We do have language classes for 2 hours a day, though, and that's been helping a lot. Also, just going out for tea or coffee(which I learned last week is a highly political word, the Croatian side calls it kavu, while the Muslim side calls it Kafu...) is a good way for all of us to practice our Bosnian.

Living in a divided town has been an interesting experience. It's so deeply engrained in people's minds that a lot of the time I don't even think about it, but the way the divide bleeds into every area of people's lives is definitely striking.The fact that there are different words for coffee and bread depending on which side you're on, for example, is something that's hard for me to understand. I'm hoping that as this summer progresses, some of the reasons behind the divide become clearer for me, but also that I'm able to see ways in which people are working towards reconciliation.

First Post from Bosnia

I have been in Bosnia for three days, and am learning so much all the while feeling extremely overwhelmed. I think I had a very romanticized idea of what this experience would be like, and when it wasn't that I panicked a little bit. The first night was pretty intense, because I don't think that I had really thought about what being in a different country surrounded by a language I have no way of understading would feel like. It was disorienting, and frustrating, and even crippling.

After travelling for like, 17 hours I think(its hard to tell with the time diference), and not sleeping, when I arrived to Gornji-Vakuf I felt like a zombie, to say the least. It didn,t even feel like I was attached to my body anymore, and I really just wanted to sleep. I emailed my parents from an internet cafe, ate, and then headed to my room. Then,

I cried. A lot. Alone in my room. And then my sister, Erna, came and checked on me, saw that I was crying, and brought my Mama and my brother, Frano, into my room and they tried to reassure me, without me being able to understand anything they were saying, that I would be fine. Mama said "I'm your Mama, and you,re my baby, for 3 months!" It was really sweet, and made me feel better. Then she asked to see pictures of my family, so I showed her the pictures I brought, unsure that she was understanding anything that I was saying. Still, I felt that she cared a lot about me and wanted me to be okay, which meant more than words anyway. Then thefamily showed me their photo albums, and it was so lovely. I knew that everything would be okay, somehow, then. And I haven't cried since.

Today I went to my brothers school, where the kids put on a sort of concert thing for Mother's day. Frano, my little brother, brought my Mama a flower, and gave me a flower decoration he made. I sat with my sister Erna's friends, who are very sweet and always try to include me in everythingt they do. I've felt nothing but looked after and accepted by my family and their friends, which is really nice. Because this is such a small town, everyone knows that we're the Canadians, and we often get stared at or laughed at everywhere we go. Our mentor, Vanessa, reassured us that it will get better in about a month or so as people get used to seeing us, and it won't be such a big deal. I hope she's right!

Oh, and the food! In all honesty, i'm not lovin' it. It's all very familiar stuff, just cooked in a different way then I'm used to. My Mama is worried about me because 'The cat eats more than I do', so most of our conversations revolve around food and why I don't eat enough. Today she made me speghetti for lunch, except instead of being covered in tomato sauce it was covered in salt,cheese and (I think) melted lard. I didn't eat much of it, so my Mama tried to get me to eat other things all afternoon. For supper, she made me fried dough which I dipped in her homemade jam(I think it's made from Rosehip, but I'm not sure. My Bosnian-English dictionary failed me!) I really liked it, and had 5 big pieces, so Mama was pretty happy. I have a feeling I will weigh at leat 15 pounds more than I do now when I get back to Canada.

The Center where I'll be working is closed because there's been an outbreak of rubella in the town, so I haven't seen it yet. They did a lot of renovations this year and jusst got brand new comuters, so it'll be nice when it's open again and I can use those computers instead of paying to use the ones in a (very smoky!) internet cafe.

I think that's all the updates I have...It's certainly been an experience so far. I'm only expecting things to get better from now on, so I will try to keep everone posted on what's going on as the summer progresses. Thank you all for the wonderful messages and words of encouragement and love, they mean so much!