Being without doing

So, mostly at the request of my mother( "Why don't you update your blog as much as the other Intercordians?") I'm going to write a little about what I've been doing in the past five weeks(yes, it really has already been 5 weeks!)

As some people know already, due to unforseen circumstances we've not begun our summer activities with the children yet. On the one hand, there was a lot of flooding this year that pushed the school year back, so we can't do anything until the kids are out of school. The Centar is also running an after school programme in the afternoons, called "Today's Children, Tomorrow's Parents" for children who are considered high-risk. This can mean a lot of things, and I'm not sure what the criteria is for this particular programme, but it can include children from violent homes, who have alcoholic parents, who live in poverty, or are in some other way disadvantaged. Anyway, because of this programme, and I think some possible issues that happened in previous years, we're not allowed to do anything on our own until July. We're all(the Canadian volunteers) finding this pretty difficult, for a variety of reasons.

On my part, I'm really having a hard time adjusting to the pace of life here, and the monotony of it. Not having anything "to do" is kind of messing with the way I identify myself, as a person who can be lazy sometimes, but also enjoys working towards something everyday. Not having anything to work towards makes me feel a little useless and has me questioning what exactly I'm doing here. Ironicaly, this whole "being, not doing" thing is exactly in line with what Intercordia envisions this whole process to be.

Although it's a little disappointing to not be able to do what I thought I'd be doing yet, I have been learning a lot and enjoying my eyperience in a lot of other ways. My host family is really the best part of this summer for me, and going into this I wasn't expecting this to be the case. I felt like a part of the family almost immediately, and that helped a lot with the initial homesickness. I love them so much!

I spend most of my evenings walking (in my Mom sandals, Kate and Kara!) with the other intercordians, or sitting at a cafe drinking čaj, or having water balloon fights with my little brother.

So, although I am anxious to get started with activities, I am definitely soaking in the culture, the language and THE FOOD(my clothes are all too tight already) in lots of different ways. And loving every minute of it! I'm off to Croatia this weekend for a little bit of a vacation, so I'll update about that when I get back next week.