TILAB(osnia)

I don't think I can call this post a TILAS since it has nothing to do with Sarajevo, and I've already used the 'how easy it is to leave' thing once. So this is a generic statement on Bosnia that really makes me happy.

We went hiking to Lukomir today. Lukomir used to be this completely secluded village up in the mountains that was only accessible by a several hour hike. The residents were completely cut off from civilization and modern amenities and whatnot. Over the course of the past twenty years or so, the younger generations decided 'eff this!' and moved to the cities, so now the only residents are all in their 80's and only live there during the summer (since, ya know, they don't exactly have central heat). And now, it's become somewhat of a tourist destination so an access road has been created for the lazier breed of tourist so that they can drive up, take a couple pictures, and turn around and head back to Sarajevo.

Well, we hiked. For the first part anyway. I would've liked to hike back, but our group isn't composed of experienced hikers, and I'd put money on a couple people collapsing if they had to hike for 6 hours in one day. But the hike in was really astoundingly beautiful...the Bosnian countryside truly is stunning. Especially where we were. We were hiking along the Eastern rim of the largest canyon in Bosnia. Technically, according to our guide, the canyon separates Bosnia and Herzegovina. I still haven't completely figured out the difference between Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the Federation and Republika Srpska. I'm not sure I'll ever get it.

Now, it's not a secret that I've been counting the days until I come home. A lot of it has to do with the fact that I feel that my internship is a complete waste of time (4 weeks to write a 6 page paper? Are we serious?) but a lot of it also has to do with the living situation. I'm a very quiet and private person by nature. Being an only child in a single-parent household for a solid portion of my life is likely the reason. I'm very comfortable with silence. I far prefer it to a lot of noise. I like calm and quiet and privacy. I'm making myself sound like a hermit, I know. I do enjoy being around people and being calm and quiet...it's just that I'm not used to a loud lifestyle with constant interaction. It's a fact. So, living in a hostel with 15 other people for two months isn't exactly my idea of a good time. Especially when the 15 other people aren't necessarily those you would've chosen to live with for 2 months. As we found out sophomore year, even when you live with three of your best friends in the same room for four months, things go awry. Quickly. And even on the days when I stay home to try to get some alone time and solitude, the cleaning lady is barging into my room and going to town.

I've tried to find places outside the hostel to get away from it all. I really have. But there aren't any parks. The library is still under construction from when the Serbians bombed it all to hell. There is literally no place in this city to find even five seconds of blissful, uninterrupted, solitary existence.

This is why Lukomir was so wonderful. On the hike up, yes, I had my headphones in blocking out everyone. I may have been a tad anti-social. Oh well. And when we got to the top, we had time to ourselves to wander. I made a beeline for a rock outcropping away from the rest of the group. So far away that I couldn't hear their voices anymore. It was just me and this incredible canyon. Nothing else. The occasional sheep bleat. A flock of birds flew by and I could hear the wind they made even though their wings weren't flapping. That's how silent it was. There was no noise. And the air was pristine, so my lungs finally got a chance to detox from the cooped-up, cigarette smoke infused air of Sarajevo proper. I had ten incredible minutes of nothing but silence (well, ok, Radiohead might have been playing in my headphones...)

It was incredible. I felt truly happy to be where I was at that exact moment, which has been something of a rarity over the course of the past two months. And yeah, it made me even more excited to get back to Colorado (since I can find all of that there too, along with about a dozen other things that I'm aching for) but for ten minutes, I was happy to be in Bosnia.

Srebrenica

Fair warning: This is going to be kind of a downer post. This is not me being negative, it's just a fact that if you aren't a downer about visiting a place where a genocide occurred, then you should probably get some counseling. Yesterday, we went to Srebrenica. And yes, I will say that I was looking forward to it, probably more than I should've been. It's just that as a human rights student who is studying war crimes and genocide and torture, it seemed like the kind of place that I needed to visit in order to validate my interests. I've never been to a location like that; I needed to see if I could actually deal with something that intense.

Well...I dealt with it. I'm still processing, and I'll probably always be processing. I suppose I should be thankful that I can't wrap my head around how something like that is possible. And there's really no way to put into words how I felt being there. I had the foresight to take a video while I was there to record how I was feeling, and my plan was to upload it here, but of course, the Bosnian internet didn't enjoy that much. All I can say is that it is a highly humbling and powerful feeling to stand in the place where thousands of people said their last goodbyes to their families, and minutes later were murdered en masse. It was really hard to smile while we were there.

To be honest, when I hear the rumors that the Bosnians are going to declare war on Serbia in the very near future, I find it hard to get upset. I just hope they can hold it together for another three weeks.

TILAS6: Ramadan

I know...it's weird for someone like me to say that. But it's made life in Sarajevo so much more bearable. There are far fewer people on the streets during the day, fewer people in the bars at night (which is how I managed to survive a round of beer last night) and as a result, the techno is not booming until the wee hours of the morning, so I can actually sleep at night without my headphones in. Not to mention the fact that it's actually been cool at night for the past week or so, so I can actually use my comforter and not sweat to death (if I was religious, I suppose I'd make a connection to God here, but no dice). Being able to sleep at night and not feeling like I'm going to get trampled in a crowd of people on my way home from 'work' is really doing great things to my mood.

Also, I love the Barhana salad at Barhana. Chicken, tuna, fresh veggies, mozzarella and gorgonzola drizzled with olive oil and balsamic. Nom nom nom.

TILAS5: People who don't suck

Today, I am counting myself lucky that there are people on this trip who actively work to make my life better and succeed. It's no secret that I've been having a hard time here, but luckily I've made friends who will take it upon themselves to flood my facebook feed with pictures of kittens and puppies after I experience a really rough start to the morning through no fault of my own. Friends like this one:

For people like her, I am eternally grateful.

On a related note, I really can't stand people who form opinions of you without taking the time to get to know you, and then say hurtful things in a public forum. Uncalled for, rude, and not becoming of a member of civil society.

That's all.

TILAS4: How easy it is to leave...

I know, that doesn't really count, since it doesn't flatter Sarajevo, but oh well.

I just got back from a weekend in Dubrovnik, Croatia, and I am officially in love. Our hostel was actually in a little town called Zaton Mali about 10km north of Dubrovnik proper, but even that was wonderful because it was super quiet, you could see the stars at night, and the beaches weren't crowded. But the old town of Dubrovnik was really spectacular. It's this old coastal medieval fortress, essentially, complete with turrets and a moat. Obviously the town has grown out from the original city walls since the 15th century, but the walls and old city are so incredibly well preserved. For $5, we walked around the top of the wall and got incredible views of the sunset over the Adriatic on top of the orange roofs. I was in absolute awe.

The bus ride from Sarajevo is a mere $50 (round trip) and only takes 6 hours. In theory. In our case, it was more like 12 from start to finish. Somewhere past the first border crossing (whoever decided how the former Yugoslavia was going to be chopped up seriously failed), the bus that Kim and I were on came to a standstill. For as far as we could see, traffic was stopped, to the point where people had turned their cars off, were walking their dogs and popping open beers sitting on their trunks. It seemed as if we were going to be there for a while. Every half hour or so, the bus would move ahead 100 feet as people ahead of us got annoyed with waiting and turned around. But traffic certainly wasn't moving. Our bus driver eventually got word that there was a fatal car accident about 2km ahead, and since there are no shoulders on the roads in the Balkans, and their 'highways' are only two lanes wide, our bus wasn't going anywhere until everything had been cleared. Kim and I stayed on the bus for the first hour or so, but then decided it was a waste and got off to check out the really beautiful sunset:

While out and about, we started chatting with a family from Montenegro and girl from Atlanta who was on the bus with us. It was really quite pleasant. Then we see our bus start to pull away. No biggie - it never moves very far. We can just walk a little further to catch up with it. Only this time, it doesn't stop after 100 feet. It keeps going. I start to have a panic attack. My passport was on that bus. My phone was on that bus. I have no cash on me. I'm somewhere in Croatia on the side of a highway with no way to contact anyone. Holy shit. The bus keeps going. It turns a corner. I can no longer see it. So I start sprinting. Pretty sure the last time I ran that aggressively was during the state track meet in 8th grade, but it was either that or go into a panic attack on the side of the road. I had sprinted about a quarter of a mile, when I hear someone calling my name, coming up quickly behind me. I turn around and see Kim and Jeannine (girl from Atlanta) waving to me from the backseat of the Montenegrin family's car. They pull up beside me, the mom opens up the front passenger side door and tells me to jump in - on her lap. Whatever. It's better than running. The bus eventually stopped about 3/4 of a mile from where it had started, still stuck in traffic. We thanked the Montenegrin family profusely, hopped out of their car, and scrambled back onto the bus to much applause from all the Brits and Americans on it. Needless to say, from that point on, Kim and I did not leave the bus. 

Eventually the traffic cleared (3 hours later) and we got into Dubrovnik around midnight. We had left Sarajevo at 2:30. The shuttle from our hostel was supposed to pick us up at 9:00. Obviously we had no way of contacting them, so we just hoped that they'd come around at some point to try and find us. Wrong. It got to be 12:15 and we realized we'd better find a Plan B. Jeannine didn't have a hostel reserved, so she tagged along with Kim, myself and a Canadian named Dan who had been on our bus and had reservations at the same hostel we did. We went to find a city bus. I asked the bus driver if he knew where 'Hostel Dubrovnik Sunset' was, since none of us had written down the address or had any idea where the stupid thing was. The driver repeated 'Hostel?' and I said 'Yes, Hostel Dubrovnik Sunset, do you know it?' He nodded 'Hostel, yes.' Ok. So we pay the 1.5 kuna to take the bus. He drops us off a mile down the road. Definitely not right, since I knew the hostel was at least 7km outside of town. Turns out he had just dropped us off at the nearest hostel, and if I hadn't been exhausted, I probably would've picked up on that sooner. Luckily, at this random hostel, we could use wifi, find an address for our hostel, and catch a cab to Zaton Mali. By the time we got to bed, it was 3am. Woof.

It's ok though...because this was the view from our balcony:

The weather was perfect all weekend and I got back a bit of my tan so I no longer feel transparent. We explored the island in Dubrovnik harbor and had some delicious seafood. It was really nice being next to a huge body of water again (my apologies to Colorado...) I picked up a pink coral necklace for myself, since Dubrovnik is known for their coral jewelry. Upon telling Dad about it, he replied 'oh lovely, so you're contributing to the depletion of the coral reefs.' Way to be a downer about it.

And, to be honest, by the end of the weekend, I was very ready to get back to Sarajevo. I knew that once I had my first excursion, Sarajevo would feel much more like home, because that's how it went in Switzerland. Don't get me wrong, I would've stayed in Dubrovnik in a heartbeat, but the room was far too small for the 7 people it had in it on Friday night, and the bathroom was not cleaned once while we were there, and the towels were the size of large napkins. I felt a bit dirty by the time we got back last night. So I reveled in my nice hot shower and my huge bed and relative privacy in my 3-person room. Then when I woke up this morning covered in bug bites again, I remembered why I wanted to leave in the first place.

TILAS3: Beers the size of your head...

...that only cost $6.

And the fact that I had veal medallions along with it that were only $12. That same meal in the states would've been $30. Easily.

TILAS2: The Elusive and All-Too-Brief Cold, Rainy Day

Today...was amazing. There had been rumors for the past three days that there was a cold front coming through sometime soon. Of course, there have been rumors of this nature the entire time we've been here, and it always turned out to be false. Talk about the worst case of blue balls ever. When it's 95 degrees with 30% humidity every day...it gets real old, and all you want is one day of reprieve. That never comes. Except for today.

We woke up (I dragged myself out of bed after not sleeping due to an attack by the Bosnian Mystery Bug) and looked around stunned. It wasn't disgusting. We weren't dripping sweat within 30 seconds of waking. We could walk into the common room and not feel exhausted. WHAT IN THE HELL IS HAPPENING?!

It was 58 degrees and sprinkling when we walked to our internship today. I had packed my windbreaker as a precaution, which was lucky, because I was legitimately chilly. HOLY HELL. We even opened the window in our 'office' (AKA former operating room) at work and had to close it part of the way because we were too cold. I know I'm harping on a seemingly mundane event, but I'm telling you, it made all the difference in the world. I didn't feel lethargic. I was happy about life all day. I came home and didn't need to nap. I did, however, immediately put on my sweatshirt and yoga pants and create a nest for myself on the hostel floor:

I didn't want to sleep. I just wanted to back in the glory of being able to wrap myself up in my previously oppressive comforter and snuggle. And oh...did I snuggle. With myself, but whatever. It felt amazing. And I will remain in my sweatshirt and yoga pants all night. While bundled up in bed. And the Bosnian Mystery Bug won't be able to get at me through all of that fabric (or he'll just attack my face...we shall see) and I'll finally sleep well because it won't be like an oven in my room (maybe...just maybe...we can even close the window?! I might be getting ahead of myself...)

Even though I know this will only last one day, and tomorrow will be hot as balls again, just having this one day of relief has made me realize that the heat is really one of the main factors of my displeasure at being here, which makes me feel A LOT better about the whole experience.

And now...I sleep :)

Things I Love About Sarajevo (TILAS)

Here is my concerted effort to be able to appreciate this summer in Bosnia instead of looking back on it as a waste. I'm going to try to post about an experience or food or something like that every day (well...maybe every couple of days...) I'm sure you're all tired of my bitching. I kind of am.

So, today's positive thing that I love about Sarajevo is the Sarajevo Film Festival. It's pretty legit. Not quite at the level of Cannes, of course, but they're doing their best. Since they started it in the basement of a bombed-out building during the war, you really can't judge them. In any case, I bought tickets to three movies for this year's festival: The Amazing Spiderman ('merica), Crossing Boundaries and Whore's Glory. Spiderman was great (the spiders in 3D were not), but I kind of expected that. Crossing Boundaries was really pretty spectacular. The showing at SFF was the world premiere, so there isn't even a page on IMDB for it yet. Because it was the world premiere, they showed it at the National Theater, where the red carpet was set up. Coolest. Thing. Ever. Everyone going to see the movie got to walk up the red carpet (after the actors and directors and fancy people did, of course) and all the paparazzi were flashing their cameras and there was a huge screen set up to show all the onlookers who was walking up the carpet...I felt like a movie star. Until the moment when I whipped out my camera to take a picture of it. Pretty sure that killed the illusion. But whatever. I was on Bosnian television and I'll probably be in a couple magazines or newspapers. Awesome.

The last film I saw, Whore's Glory, was a delightfully uplifting documentary about prostitution in Thailand, Bangladesh and Mexico. Didn't make me want to kill myself at all afterwards. Or at least donate all my money to these women who feel that they have no choice but to sell themselves in order to survive. Really phenomenal film, but don't see it unless you have an abundance of happiness that you'd like to take care of.

Voyeuristic Intentions

I know...it's midnight. And I've already posted once today. Pretty sure that's bordering on being a hipster. But since the sleeping pills haven't kicked in yet, and the bars across the street are playing their techno extra loud tonight, I figure I might as well do something productive (research for my internship? ha!)

Today in our weekly circle-jerk session, our director asked us to talk about voyeurism in a post-conflict arena. Some people are feeling awkward about getting excited to take pictures of bullet holes and bombed out buildings and basically proof of mass destruction and death. And yeah...that kind of sucks. My friend Kim said that she was taking a picture of a house that was covered in bullet holes, when the woman who lived in the house suddenly appeared in a window. Kim felt super uncomfortable and awkward, which is entirely understandable. The way she put it is that if she had been in that woman's position, and someone was taking a picture of her house purely because it was proof of war, a war that very well may have been responsible for the deaths of multiple family members, she would be horribly upset.

But...is it better to not take these pictures? Our director kept calling it voyeurism, and I kind of have a problem with that. To me, voyeurism implies malicious intent. When I take a picture of a building that was destroyed, or the side of a church riddled with bullet holes, I'm doing it because I want to document for myself the pain and trauma that crimes against humanity cause, so that when I'm back in my comfy house in Denver, CO, trying to write papers about international law, I can look back to these pictures and remember the intense sadness that I felt and impart that in my paper. To my mind, it honors the victims of the war and the country itself. I'm pretty sure it would be worse if we just covered up all traces and forgot that it happened. We need to take pictures and remember so that we can try to avoid it in the future.

My director also mentioned that she had talked to Bosnian friends about it, and they said that basically they wanted the world to remember and acknowledged what happened here, to their friends and family. And yes, it is clearly very important to Bosnia. But, for me, genocide and crimes against humanity and mass rape are a blight on humanity as a whole -- the war in Bosnia is part of a global history that impacts every person on the planet, not just Bosnia. That's why they call them crimes against humanity...clearly. So I don't feel that I'm being a voyeur into something that is specifically Bosnian. Unfortunately, what happened here is innately human. And as a human studying human rights, I feel that it is almost my responsibility to document what I see and to capture the emotions that I feel here so that I can bring it with me into the future and into the work that I'm going to do in the future.

Thoughts?

Thursday Night Bitch Fest (because I'm good at it)

I honestly have been trying to find positives to being in Sarajevo for the next five weeks of my life. I really and truly have. Contrary to popular belief, I really don't enjoy complaining. And it really bothers me that I'm paying close to $8,000.00 to sit here and have a miserable time. So I have been making a concerted effort to enjoy myself and find things to love here. For instance...smreka. It's this super refreshing drink that is made out of spruce berries and is really quite delicious. Also...I do love all of the amazingly friendly dogs and cats that wander around the city who appear to be well-treated and well-fed. I love that the clothing is ridiculously cheap here (food too)...I bought two amazing dresses yesterday for what one might have cost on sale in the states.

However...these are all fairly minor. Having one kind of tasty drink and a couple stray cats and dogs does not mean that life is perfect, birds are singing and the sun is always shining. In fact, the sun is shining far too brightly and far too aggressively here. That's one of the issues. I can't walk out the door without immediately being drenched in sweat, which does not make me a happy person. When my director was having a 'check-in chat' with me last week (when I told her that no, I am not comfortable being sent to the outskirts of town to work in a room in a bombed-out building with one guy all day long...go figure), she said that I needed to accept the weather, because there was no changing it.

Gee...thanks for that. I thought you could command a sudden cold front and bring snow in mid-July to the Balkans. I understand that it can't be changed. Doesn't mean that it makes me happy or that I'm willing to go along with it like it makes my life better. Odds are that starvation and genocide can't be changed either, but it still upsets me and I'm not ready to say 'Ok...just let thousands of people die unnecessarily. That's fine.' The same with cigarette smoke. It's everywhere here. More so than anywhere else in Europe I've ever been, and I can't stand it. It's not that I just would rather it wasn't there...I physically can't breathe when people are smoking near me. So yeah, that makes life here pretty miserable. 'Well, it can't be changed.' I. Understand. That. But I am not capable of flipping a switch and suddenly being ok with second-hand smoke and lung cancer. It's going to negatively impact my time here regardless of whether or not it can be changed. And I really don't feel like I should change my opinion on that...it is an absolutely disgusting habit that has no benefit whatsoever and is directly responsible for the premature death of my grandfather. So no, I'm not going to accept it.

Another aspect that really tweaks me is the living situation. I do greatly appreciate that I snagged the room with only two other people in it, and my roommates are fairly low key and non-invasive. And the shower in our room is apparently the best on the floor. I do appreciate this. However, the laundry situation is something that I can't handle. We aren't allowed to touch the washing machine located in the main bathroom in our living quarters. I don't know why. They evidently think that a dozen graduate students will fuck it up. So we have to leave our laundry in bags on top of the washing machine, and leave it up to the non-English speaking cleaning lady to take care of. The non-English speaking cleaning lady tries to speak Bosnian at us, even though we have clearly said many times 'Ne znam' (Bosnian for 'I don't know'). You would think that if we say that to her after everything she says to us, she would get the hint. Nope, she still tries. Fine. But I gave her my laundry on Monday. It went in the washing machine, proceeded to sit there overnight (cool...so it'll smell awesome, since they don't have a dryer with yummy smelling dryer sheets), they hung it up to dry on Tuesday, it disappeared Tuesday night, and I finally had to ask them today where it was. I was told to go upstairs and dig through piles of everyone else's clothing (clearly proving that separating it to begin with is useless) to find mine. Yep, it smells like must. And, because it sat overnight, and they don't separate whites and colors, my nice white facecloth from Anthropologie is now covered in pink stains. Facecloths are probably a stupid thing to spend good money on, but dammit, I like to own nice things. It is true that it could've been a lot worse...my white shirt and tank top survived unscathed. But are we serious?! It's not your own laundry that you can screw up as you please...someone is paying you to do it. I suppose I take it a bit more serious than other people, since I spent many weeks of my life being paid to do other people's laundry, and having respect for other people's property.

I promptly went out and bought laundry detergent, as I will now be doing my own laundry in the sink. Even though they've told us they don't want us to do that. Well, if you didn't ruin my shit, then I wouldn't have to. So suck it.

I like being clean. I like having nice things. I don't like having my lungs filled with smoke. And these are essential elements to my happiness. Sarajevo doesn't seem compatible, unfortunately.

I am going to try to make a concerted effort to find one thing a day in Sarajevo that makes me happy. I'm hoping that will improve things and convince the three people reading this blog that I'm really not trying to be miserable.

Insert nonexistent Bosnian word for internship here

Last night, I woke up around 3:30 am. I'm assuming it's because my wine-induced haze wore off, and I hadn't taken any sleeping pills. I had hoped that the wine would last me through the night. Lesson learned...techno trumps three glasses of wine. I tried to go back to sleep, I really did. But I couldn't stop thinking about how much I didn't want to go to my internship today. And suddenly, it was 8:00, and I had barely slept.

I was up for 4.5 hours, stressing out about how much I didn't want to go and how the whole situation put me into a panic. Tossing and turning. By the time I got up out of bed, I felt sick. I had literally made myself sick thinking about going to the outskirts of town to sit in a room with a guy who didn't speak English. I don't want to spend another day talking to him via Google Translate and then going to have a beer with him. I really don't want to have a beer with him afterwards, because we literally won't be able to speak to one another. And he didn't seem to understand the concept of just one beer last week when he first suggested it.

If there was one other person in the office, it might be ok. But it's just me and him. And it stresses me out. I feel like a pansy for saying it, but I was raised to be cautious of situations exactly like that. When I first mentioned it to my dad, his response was 'I wish you had taken those self-defense courses in Denver like we had talked about'. It's not even that I feel threatened by this guy. He seems perfectly nice (except when he starts to tell me that I'm cute...then I get uncomfortable). It is just not a positive work environment for me.

I really don't want to go back in. I want to tell my director that I'm just going to go to the Genocide Institute. When they get back this afternoon, I'm sure that I'll have to explain what happened today. I predict she responds with something along the lines of 'you just have to give it a chance. it could surprise you.' Unless he learns English in record speed, I'm not sure that will happen. And I know I sound like an ignorant American, saying that people should know English. But dammit, everyone else is at an internship where their supervisor at least has some handle on the language, and they can communicate without the aid of a computer. Just as an example, when I sent him the e-mail this morning, saying that I wasn't coming in, this was the response I got: "The problem is not just you do not heal and a cold beer :) It's too hot, because it harms :) see you on Wednesday". Google Translate, ftw.

I really don't know how to proceed. I want to keep helping the organization, but I really don't want to go back out there. Maybe he could e-mail me the documents that he wants me to translate? Somehow I doubt that would fly, given the emphasis on relationships here. And then I'd be 'missing out' on the true experience. What experience is that, director? The one where I sit on the couch, awkwardly, while he and another Bosnian have a conversation that I can't understand for shit? I don't think Korbel would have a problem with it, if I explained that there was far more to do at the Genocide Institute, which doesn't seem to be a lie. When I sit here and think about having to go to that place twice a week, for the rest of the time that I'm here, I feel ill. Physically ill. I can't decide if it's worth the resume booster to be miserable for another 6 weeks, or to just run with the Genocide Institute. Ugh.

Zdravo...or something like that...

I know...it's officially been three years since I've even attempted to sign into this blog. The Lone Yodeler no longer really holds that much significance since I am not in Switzerland and no longer attempting to yodel. But, let's face it...I'm far too lazy to try and come up with a clever new name for a Bosnian blog. And really, since I only want to use it rant (in contrast to the 'politically correct' blog that we all have to write for a grade here), I'm not sure the title really matters.

I've been in Bosnia for about a week and a half now, and I can safely say that the honeymoon period has worn off. I was absolutely stoked to go overseas again, since the last time that I was abroad (apologies to Puerto Rico...you don't really count as international travel) was when I was in Switzerland, and I was going kind of stir crazy being stuck in the United States for that amount of time. My travel bug was going haywire. So, besides how hard it was to say goodbye to a certain guy and a certain feline, I was fully prepared to love Sarajevo and spend my summer learning amazing things about the war in Bosnia and war crimes and things that I just wouldn't be able to learn anywhere else.

My first mistake was getting an internship through a service learning program. Since I work at the International House at DU, I'm essentially paid to promote it, and I apparently was so good at convincing other people that it was an awesome idea, that I eventually started to believe it was too. I preached to undergrads, day in and day out, that going to Bosnia with a group of other students to live in a hostel and work at various NGO's was an incredible way to spend their summers and that it would be a life changing experience. I told them that even though the Bosnian work ethic was drastically different than the United States (understatement of the flipping century), it would be amazing, because they take a dozen coffee breaks a day, you only end up doing a couple hours of work a week, and still get credit for it. What sounds bad about that?

To be fair, the skeptical side of me did try to reason with the euphoric side. Being the Type-A individual that I am, I did worry about my ability to assimilate into a culture that didn't seem to do a whole lot of anything besides sit around and drink coffee. I talked about my concerns with my director before I left, and she said that it was good that I was acknowledging it but that she thought it would be really good for me to sort of branch out and expand my horizons, if you will. I agreed with her at the time. I have a tendency of getting wound fairly tightly and getting really intense about work, so maybe it would be good for me to take a break from the Northeast work ethic and stop and breathe.

Sometimes, I do stupid shit.

We just had our second 'group session', which already upsets me. I've never been one to sit in a circle and talk about feelings. I internalize most things, unless it really gets to me, and then I'll tell you straight up. I expect the same. I have never been ok with group therapy sessions where I have to sit and listen to everyone elses' concerns, hopes and dreams. Just not something I'm interested in. It's why I dropped Theories of Non-Violence winter quarter. In this session, our director asked us to speak up about any concerns we were having with regards to our internships. After having two beers (yes...two beers...my tolerance has gone to hell since I've been here, thanks to the mouthfuls of cigarette smoke that are part and parcel of every bar here), I felt like I had to speak up and say something. I didn't even mention the Genocide Institute, because at least there I have entertainment in the duo that is Travis and Travis. And hopefully once Enis gets back from the United States, we'll have actual work to do instead of sitting in a room and reading poorly translated texts all day long. All I wanted to mention was the fact that on the first day of my other internship, only half an hour out of the four hours that I was there was actually spent doing work, and I felt useless.

My director essentially said the same thing that she's always said, and it's really starting to get on my nerves. I was told, for the umpteenth time, that I need to understand that Bosnian culture is very different and to appreciate it for it's differences and not make it something that it's not. First of all, I wasn't saying anything negative about the Bosnian culture. I knew coming into this that they had a different work ethic. I just figured that since I'm only working at this place for eight hours a week, that those eight hours would probably be filled with useful work. When I told her this, she asked me what I thought 'useful work' is.

I feel like I'm in kindergarten again. I shouldn't have to explain to someone with a PhD what useful work is. I am here to gain marketable skills that I can put on my resume and use to get a job once I graduate next year. She can tell me all she wants that being here isn't necessarily about the internship, it's about learning about another culture, but that's not why I signed on. I want to do work. I am here to do work. Drinking coffee is awesome, and having down time is awesome, but when I'm already doing that for the majority of the rest of the week, I really need to do actual work at my job or I am literally going to lose my mind. Korbel would be absolutely appalled if they knew how much work I wasn't doing over here, especially after I explained to them that I was doing two internships here for the exact reason of wanting to get enough work experience.

She tried to say that I need to not think about it benefitting only me, but benefitting the people that I'm working with too. My presence at the Genocide Institute is laughable; they already have paid researchers there...I'm pretty sure they couldn't care less about us. If we were translating their painful texts, then maybe we'd matter, but with all the extra rooms in that creepy ass abandoned hospital, I'd be willing to bet that they forget we're there half the time. My presence is certainly felt with the concentration camp organization...since I'm the only other person in the room with the one guy that works there. The half hour that I spent actually translating a document was awesome. That's a skill that I can use to apply for a job next year. The hour drinking coffee and 2.5 hours typing a conversation on Google Translate with Amir? Probably not. Ann said that the interaction is benefitting him...how exactly? He's learning how to type in Bosnian on an English keyboard...that's about the only skill I'm helping him with. Otherwise, the computer does the thinking for both of us. He relies on Google Translate to ask me if I want coffee, for Christ's sake.

I guess I just have no idea why I'm paying over $5,000 for this program, aside from the fact that I need the credit, but that could be easily taken care of with an extra 3-credit class next year. As far as I can tell, I'm spending a LOT of money to live in a less-than-ideal environment, to 'work' at two internships that aren't actually going to teach me anything that I don't already know, and to spend the rest of my time exploring a teeny tiny city that could easily be seen in one day. Most of the people that I'm here with are awesome, but paying $5,000 to make new friends is kind of steep when I've been able to that for free for 24 years. I could've taken the $5,000 and spent it on a furnished apartment rental, plane ticket, food for two months, and hooked myself up with a far more beneficial internship somewhere else. As far as I can tell, the $5,000 provides me with the weekly kum-bay-ah session.

Holy hell I got screwed over.