beograd

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Quacky Qualms Quiet Quirky

Okay. So from the beginning I have felt awkward using the word "research" for what I am doing here. I think I have begun to transform it from "research" to "understanding", the process of which is heavily based in informal communication with those around me in Belgrade. I want to get a better understanding of how people my age here are dealing with the past they grew up in (the 90s) and how they visualize what is currently happening around them--internationally, nationally, and locally--with "facing the past". Also, do they feel personal responsibility towards dealing with the past?

So this is what I am interested in. My interview questions are shit and once I sit down with people I feel like I freeze and I have to act a certain way etc, I get too caught up in wondering if the recorder is still on or if I will be able to get to all my questions. Becuase of this, the "informal conversation, hanging out, getting to know eachother" shortly disintegrates into my agenda. I hate agendas. I hate feeling like I need to get something out of people. I just want to make new friends and understand the place around me as much as I possibly can as an outsider.

Everyone here has been great. Better than great. Friday night I went out with the girls from the program who I am living with right now, and 5 Serbs, one of whom we met from the interviewing in Belgrade in October. I stayed out with them all night long (which reflects how good it was because I don't tend to do that willingly these days). We had the most fantastic conversations, both serious and not serious, about ourselves, about Serbia, about Kosovo, etc. At the end of the night we agreed that we felt like we had been friends for a long time. It was just so comfortable and warm, honest, and exciting. And I learned so much from them, and will learn more from them in the future.

These are the nights I will take back with me and share with other people. This is the kind of story I want to write about, which reflects the most honest exchange of ideas, values, and perspectives of what is really going on. Without an agenda. Without a recorder. With plenty of beer and laughter and honesty.

So where do I go from here? I am stuck within the limitations of academia, SIT policy, and the obligation of a 40 page qualitative research paper due December 10. I am looking forward to the interviews this next week because I feel like I am much clearer on the things I want to know. But it has taken me a while to really figure it out. Does this taint the already-done interviews I have had? I think what has really been getting me through has been the idea that this is "training wheels for researching", that I am learning the ropes in a very controlled and specific way. I can dig that in some ways. I have to tell myself that it is good for me. I have to believe that this experience will bring me somewhere. Or else I'll run away. I know it.

I am in Belgrade for 12 more days, assuming I go to Budapest the last weekend of the ISP to explore a wonderful city I have heard mountains of stories about. Less than 2 weeks! I can't believe it! I am starting to make friends and really feel good in the city. The people who work at the hostel are my little family. I am learning more and more of the language, and losing more and more of it at the same time.

There is no conclusion to these thoughts.

Saved

Serbs saved my life last night--my social life and my sanity all at once. Talking until 5 in the morning, about serious things, about not serious things at all. Walking and having them ask me, "ask us something about Serbia" and then discussing certain layers of their unbelievable history. People, my age, dragging themselves through the assumptions of the outside world viewing Serbs as mongrels, animals, and heartless, when all they really want to do is make a decent living, travel a bit, and talk to as many people as possible.

Stevan, Djan, Nina, Dario, and Sasa. And tonight I am going to a college party on the campus of a guy Becca and I both interviewed, Boban.

These are the moments you take with you. This was not eloquent. I need to do work.

The Turkey Speaks Serbian

I think that, when I return to US soil, my roots will grow strong there. I think my country needs me more than ever, and I think I've been running away from that for a long time. (mom, don't get too excited I could work in Hawaii or Alaska or somewhere equally as far away!!)Here is a map for people who are still not totally sure of where Serbia is :)

Inspiration from a friend

"Who has not sat before his own
heart's curtain?

It lifts: and the scenery is falling apart.

Have patience with everything
that remains unsolved in your heart.

Try to love the questions themselves,
like locked rooms and like books
written in a foreign language.

Do not now look for the answers.
They cannot now be given to you
because you could not live them.

It is a question of experiencing everything.

At present you need to live the question.

Perhaps you will gradually,
without even noticing it,
find yourself experiencing the answer,
some distant day."

~Rainer Maria Rilke

Vegan Sarma and Women in Black

Becca and I made vegan Sarma last night (stuffed cabbage). We truly are "balkanized" now.

We turned that regionally loved, coveted, drooled over dish and turned it into our own. Instead of using rice, we used coo coos. Instead of using pork or beef or whatever it is that they stuff those cabbage leaves with, we used mega' fakin' tofu patties. It was the best!

Besides the amazing meal (which cost us 10 dollars total and will most likely feed us until mid next week), I am finding it hard to accept the fact that every single day here has felt different. Not just in Belgrade, but on this semester-long journey of mine. While on Skype with my dad last night, while I was using the hostel's computer camera so that he could see my face for the first time in almost 3 months (the longest we've gone!) he told me that I had 40 days left before coming home. 40 more days, 6 countries, 1 paper, 2 bags, and topsy turvy confidence levels.

Sometimes I feel like when I talk to people around me I am not listened to. Sometimes I feel like I am being oversensitive by taking this the wrong way. But sometimes, everyone needs some attention. It's the lack of community. I was starting to feel it a bit in Zagreb, but since moving here, it's all from scratch.

It's nice living in a hostel, a place that can distract you from internal demons just to have some wine with a new found friend from somewhere going somewhere else, constantly changing faces and stories and smiles. That feels nice, but completely out of my control and short.

I can't even feel out my own writing anymore. It's as if there is this block on me here, my fingers are stiff and my head is somewhere in the clouds and I just can't seem to grab myself back. I just can't find myself here.
----
Women in Black, Belgrade

The office that the Women in Black work out of is small, very colorful, and full of some of the craziest women you would ever meet in your life. The door panels have different blocks of colors on them, rainbow streamers hang from the light fixtures in the center of the room, book shelves are piled high with publications, stickers, pamphlets, and posters.

They all knew I was coming. Last night it snowed so today the streets were silver lined with almost-melted snow. I trudged through the puddles of sludge and found my way to Jug Bogdanova 18, where the office is. Stasha, the founder of Women in Black Belgrade, ran up to me spitting out Serbian faster than I could catch it. She grabbed my cheeks, kissed me, hugged me, and welcomed me.

I contacted Nadja, a 20-something year old Belgradian who I met last time I was here with the group. I asked her if the office needed any volunteers to help out with certain organizing, paperwork, etc. She said she would meet me at the party but never showed up, which was a great way for me to plunge right into the conversations with these perfect strangers.

The room demographic was as follows: handfuls of middle-aged women with wine and rakija in their hands, a few men circulating the crowd, 2 other American volunteers, two gay men and the head honcho women of the organization. It was a gathering to say goodbye to an intern from Seattle who has been working with them for 2 years with this quaker-esque organization from the states. The new intern, who is replacing the last one, Katie, is from Indiana and is very overwhelmed from the situation here.

I feel really good to be volunteering and doing something related, but pretty unrelated, to my project. I think it will give me something to take my mind off of my project, the looming paper, etc. Also, the people in that room were so full of life and I feel like they will inspire me so much, something which has definitely been out of my life for some time now. I’ve been searching every spot in my mind, body, and soul for some self-motivated inspiration for the nearly 3 months I have been here, so some direct outside help would be…incredible.

When I was leaving, Stasa grabbed my face again and repeated Hvala ti over and over again. She introduced me to the entire group, she fed me, and she gave me her number and an assignment for Monday. In solidarity for sure…

At least there are vegetables in the winter

It used to be that the only vegetable you could find anywhere in Serbia during the wintertime was cabbage. Now there are bananas all year round, potatoes, and canned veggies too. The tycoon of Serbia, who owns about 2/3 off all imports and exports, has begun letting more imports come into the country. A new friend, Alonit (from Colorado, working as an English teacher in Belgrade, knows Marissa, the girl I am with now from SIT, from home) explains this to us while we all sip warm cups of Caj (tea) in her bedroom.

It feels so nice to have people around you that you know. Other than Alonit, who I met the first time I was in Belgrade, I also met a bunch of Serbian students my age who I think I will see this weekend. I foresee this next month to be full of hard work, but also full of fun and good conversation. Between the hostel, which is very small and inviting for tea and conversation, the interviews, etc, I think I will be very satisfied with the amount of people I meet and connect with.

And we're going to a huge thanksgiving bash at Alonit's next Thursday. We are in charge of bringing drinks, potatoes, and a dessert (possibly rice pudding, which would make me so happy to make and share with everyone!).

In an hour I am suppose to meet with my adviser, Djordje Pavicevic, a Professor at the Political Science Faculty in Belgrade. Hopefully he will give me more direction and resources to work with for my ISP. I already have interviews set up with some people who work at the Youth Initiative for Human Rights on Nov. 28. On Saturday, I am going to a lunch with all the members of Women in Black, Belgrade. Women in Black are a worldwide movement (I believe they started in Israel) who do a lot of street activism/education against war, memorialization of wartime history, etc.

Right now I am in the Hotel Moskva (Hotel Moscow), about a 5 minute walk from my hostel. There is free WIFI in the cafe, which serves espresso with a glass of water and a small piece of chocolate! Rumor has it, many SIT students have spent countless hours in this cafe writing their ISPs.

I think I will be challenged living here in many ways, but the biggest challenge will probably be living in such a big city. Other than that, I am really looking forward to what lies ahead.

PS: “It’s a beautiful dump,” Ms. D’Esopo said.
This is about my town!

A new journey - ISP beginnings

Traveling funks me up. It provides me endless amounts of time to think about all unnecessary thoughts, plenty of space to let my mind unravel into a bottomless pit of imaginative insanity, a perfect framework for a person with their hands tied in a straight jacket in a bouncy, white, locked room (at least that person would have bouncy walls).

I arrived back in Belgrade this afternoon. I lugged my two backpacks (one I carry as my pseudo-Croatian baby, the other on my back) up 5 flights of stairs to the Black Catz Hostel, a 2 minute walk from the center square, Trg Republike.

Becca, Marissa and I have four beds to ourselves in a private room in this hostel. I wouldn't say that I am an "experienced" hosteler, but I have been in my fair share of hostels, including plenty of collective living situations.

Basically, there is only one other room besides ours where 6 others can live. There is one bathroom with a sink, tube+shower duo thinger, and a washer-dryer. The common area consists of a table with two long benches, a TV with cable, DVD player, a communal computer, an office, a loft (for the person who works there to sleep in I'd imagine), and cupboard of a kitchen. It's what I would imagine for 6.5 euros a night.

But the important part is this: When we entered, the first thing they did was show us our room and provide us with free shots of Rakija (amazingly strong domestic brandy made here--my favorite is the honey one, called Rakija Medicom). I got tipsy far too quickly (that's what no food will do to you) but shared a conversation with a Frenchman, two Aussie chicks, a New Zealander who lives in England, and our mammoth sized Hostel dude, Mladin.

I haven't been sleeping well and am very tired. Tomorrow I plan on organizing my life for the next 3.5 weeks. We all hope to finish our projects with time to go to Budapest on our way home. These sentences don't make sense together.

We play cards with wine now. Ciao!

Poetry and capoeira

I once stared into the eyes of a Bosnian man and he asked me
What do you See?
My eyes did all the speaking
Because I sensed the history books
Folding open spitting down what might have happened
But I could see in his eyes
(And I told him this with mine)
That there is no way I could understand.
So I said nothing.

Nov. 10, 2007


I hope to write more soon. I have been finding more peace with prose right now, and I haven't been reading enough inspiring poetry that makes me want to write like I used to. I miss that in my life. I also miss my bike. And clothes dryers.

On Friday I went to a capoeira class in Zagreb. It was funny because at home it's hard enough to follow directions when half of it is in Portuguese. On Friday, everything was in either Croatian or Portuguese, the moves were different and they all wore shoes. My arms absolutely kill. They don't sing, but play a lot of instruments. I felt like an alien with my bare feet and hairy armpits. But I am so glad I went.

My friend Helena, she's from Serbia but is doing volunteer work in Zagreb (met her at Food Not Bombs), brought me with her. She knows of a few groups in Belgrade, so I might possibly do that. Tonight I went on a long walk with Grace, a friend on the program, around Zagreb, after lunch, and the leaves were falling and the sun was setting and it felt so good to breathe in deep.

I need to breathe in deeply more often here. The weekends, when I have the most time to breathe, have been quite hard for me to get through. They seem somewhat stagnant, like in-between excitement. And usually when time comes for the weekend I am so tired that all I want to do is sleep in and read and work all day long. But I have been going out dancing a lot, which has been great. There is a club right near by called Boogaloo which plays a ton of 80's dance music.

Hrvatiski Jezik

Nemam vise hrvatski jezik u Zagrebu. Idem u Beograd u srijeda za 3.5 tjedani. Nadam se ce biti dobro. Mislim da. Cu zivjeti sa Becca i Marissa u Hostel Three Black Catz blizu centra grada. Imam sastanaki sa ljudi tko radi sa organizaciji u Beograd, Nis, i Novi Sad.

I don't have more Croatian Language classes in Zagreb. I go to Belgrade on Wednesday for 3.5 weeks. I hope that it will be good. I think so. I will live with Becca and Marissa at Hostel Three Black Catz close to the center of the city. I have meetings with people who work with organizations in Belgrade, Nis, and Novi Sad.

I had my Croatian Final today. I am so happy it is over and now I can just talk without being worried about being completely grammatically correct. I just want to understand/be understood! But it is pretty fantastic that I have a good grasp on the language here. It is humbling and creative, and it gets me closer to the people and culture around me.

Pink Floyd's The Wall saved Sarajevo

(Without these girls, I would not be okay here)


I feel tired. I feel really tired. Today we went over our schedule for the next month. In the beginning of this program, all the way back in September (seems like yesterday and a year ago all at once) I felt overwhelmed by the little amount of time I would have for my research. Now looking at the time, which starts a week from tomorrow, I feel almost panicked. How the hell am I going to be satisfied with this? Our ISP starts Wednesday November 14. Our first draft is due December 4 (just under 3 weeks), and our Final is due on December 11. Wow.

But this is what I am looking at (roughly) but my final proposal is due on Monday.

Title: Our Children, Our Future: Emerging Youth Activism in post-Milosevic Serbia
Main Question and Focus: How has the younger generation influenced current activist movements and why do youth decide to devote their time to activism? How has the activist movement emerged out of Post-Milosevic times? What are people fighting for in Belgrade?
Other questions:
- How does the youth population (ages 18-28) remember the wars preceding the fall of Yugoslavia, how and why has their perceptions changed, and how does it reflect their environments growing up?
- How has geographic location affected the way Serbian youth today visualize, remember, and deal with the past?

So basically, I plan on talking to a bunch of younger people working in NGOs in and around Belgrade. Here is a list of some of the NGOs I'm definitely talking with:
- Youth Initiative for Human Rights (in Belgrade and Nis/Novi Sad)
- Women in Black, Belgrade
- B92 (One of the only sources of alternative media during Milosevic's time)
- Culture for Peace Center
- Group 484

I also am going to talk to non-activists. Very important aspect to it all.

This is how I percieve what will happen: I am going to make a lot of cool connections, make new friends, have amazing conversations, and explore Belgrade. I really loved Belgrade when I was there, so I am totally ready to stick my feet all the way into it's juiciness. I love getting to know new places.

Esentially, in the few interviews I've given so far, I have found a few themes: 1.) During the wars in the 90s, rural Serbia (the majority of Serbia) had contact only with Nationalistic media outlets. These were all controlled by Milosevic. These locations are traditionally conservative as well, and traditionally tradition (I am funny). I am super intrigued as to why young people migrated to Belgrade (or Nish or Novi Sad, the other two major cities) and how their perceptions of that time have changed/haven't changed. If they are involved in activism, why did they choose that path? 2.) That activism isn't what it once was because now, well, now it isn't dangerous. And 3.) Young people moving to Belgrade have very different perceptions of what happened during the 90s and what Serbs did and did not do.

It's something I can relate to. I am a young activist from the States. I don't trust the media, I don't trust history a lot of the time either. I just don't knwo where the information is coming from. I don't understand how some people percieve certain situations so differently than I do, and I point my finger at their environment. In a place so full of corruption, death, and transition after transition, I can't even imagine how my generation in Serbia has grown up.

So wht do you think? Is it getting somewhere? I hope so, I only have a week to polish it. I am contacting people now.

Also, if you have any literature you think might contribute to my research, please email it to me!

Love,
Erica

Bosnia in Pics

In Order of Appearence: Sarajevo, Mostar (with the bridge), and Dubruvnik









Apparently this is why Edin fell in love with me. Because I drank special Bosnian water from the fountain.




This tunnel was the only source of mobility for people to get out of Sarajevo during the siege.








Map of the seige. The orange part around the city is where soliders were. The airport was controlled by the UN.







Turkish coffee



















Eternal flame









City of Sarajevo











Mostar (dangerous ruins) Under attack for a year























the bridge in Mostar







DUBROVNIK!

Bosnia

The past couple days have been heavy. Heavy like thick mud sticking your feet to a memory, a place, a feeling, a bursting bomb battering your neighbors lives, your son’s life, your life, or the life of your home, a place once so culturally rich and accepting, a place so unconcerned with ethnic or religious difference, that it was easy to live with one another, unified brotherhood just like Papa Tito always wanted. But Sarajevo went through hell and back during the war from 1992-1995. Eastern Bosnia, a place heavily mixed with Bosniaks and Bosnian Serbs, were ethnically cleansed. The stories of these people, the stories of response from Western powers, the stories that are buried in the mass graves spotted throughout the country, are enough to make me want to crack.

Sarajevo, the capital city of Bosnia, lies within the Federation of Bosnia I Hercegovina (BiH). After the Dayton Peace Agreements at the end of 1995, BiH was advised to split the country into two entities: the Federation of BiH, and Republika Srpska. Republika Srpska is in the eastern part of the country, on the border of Serbia. The city of Srebrenica (srebrenitsa) lies within this entity, a town completely dissolved by Bosnian Serb forces in July 1995, where thousands of women and young children were torn away from their brothers, sons, husbands, and fathers so they could be driven off and executed. Some of them escaped. Most of them died. The ¾ muslim town was completely cleansed of its majority, and now Bosnian Serbs rejoice over their territory. Thousands of people are still missing. The town was protected by first Canadian and later Dutch UN soldiers, who were symbols and tools of safety and peace. They handed thousands of people into the hands of Bosnian Serbs.

I have two recommendations for movies that you must watch: Cry from the Grave and the Survival Guide (about the Siege of Sarajevo). Cry from the Grave is an amazing documentary about the genocide (and yes, it has been recognized as a genocide) in Srebrenica.

Sarajevo is an entirely different story. The city, nestled quietly within the valley of big mountains, was surrounded by Bosnian Serb forces in 1992. From the end of 1992-1995, after almost 3.5 years, Sarajevo was under the guns of heavily armed men in the mountains. All electricity, water, food, everything, was cut off. For 3.5 years. If you want to read an extremely interesting recount of Western Response (primarily US response), read Samantha Power’s book A Problem From Hell: America in the Age of Genocide. The chapter titled "Bosnia: 'No More than Witnesses at a Funeral" was an amazing illustration of this.

Out of the 4 days I had in Sarajevo, I went out 3 of the nights, ate amazing Cevapi (little meat "turds" we call them, which taste amazing, in a pita with onions), Burek (which is thin layers of bread with either cheese, meat, potatoe, or spinach inside), baklava, Turkish coffee, and "turkish delight", which is a sweet here which I can't explain, but it has coconut and sometimes has walnuts inside and makes me so excited.

It was Becca's birthday on Thursday, her 21st. One of the men at the Pansion we were staying at, Edin, brought us out for it. That day was long: we talked with a woman who did work against Trafficking of Women in BiH (Bosnia i Hercegovina), we talked to the GLBT organization in the city, and we went to a drumming workshop, where 3 founders of the Sarajevo drum band (like a marching band) spent two hours with us and made us into our very own marching band. They usually do work with the elderly and the handicapped (mental and physical). They are three brothers who used to be in a band during the "shit period" (aka the war from 1992-95).

I have to share this: I think a Bosnian fell in love with me. Although totally not something that is on my radar, it felt really good to be noticed. It happened to be Edin, the Pension worker who had been helping us out all week. He is a really sweet guy. He is 24 and is working hard to make something of his life. His dream is to swim in Hawaii. I am not sure whether it is because I am from the US or what, but he seemed to be very interested very quickly. We exchanged contact and he might visit in Belgrade. But as far as I am concerned he was sweet and nothing more.

So Edin brought us out to Boeime, a club in the city. It was perfect for Becca's birthday. Lindsay, Marissa and I bought her champagne, and Edin brought us all vodka and we hung out and talked in the Pension beforehand. When we got to Boeime, we proceeded to meet a gagle of US Army NATO soliders in Sarajevo. The odds of this? But they were awesome! A few of them had just come from Iraq, and the little I got to talk to them about it, they seemed thrilled to be out of there.

And now I am in Mostar--which in the language means "old bridge". It is beautiful but quite touristy. But it is warm and the people are warm too. The group dynamics are breaking down but I've gotten used to enjoying my time with 3 others on the trip: Marissa, Becca, and Lindsay.

So tomorrow we head to Dubrovnik to walk around and catch a plane back to Zagreb. From there I have 9 days to get my life together and head to Belgrade, to start my ISP. I think Marissa, Becca, and I are going to live in a hostel together. We have friends there already and major plans to get down and dirty with academia, but have a great time as well.

Until next time (which will certainly contain pictures)
Erica