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.
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