I have been in Zagreb for one week and already I'm exhausted! I have had quite a bit of homework over the past few days so keeping up with my blog is already getting difficult. I apologize for the lack of narrative on this post- I promise better posts next week! Let's start with Wednesday...
On Wednesday we had our first field study seminar exercise. What was it called? A "drop off". Does that sound like something easy? Nope. Was it easy? Nope. I, along with two of my new friends, was told to find Samobor, a small town outside of Zagreb. It took about an hour to get to by public transportation and when we got there, our goal was to find certain things and ask people about the town. Problem is... we had only participated in one Croatian class and people outside of the city don't really know English as well and the city-folk. We struggled and really had to push our limits to find our way and not get too lost. However, by the time we got back to Zagreb, we had toured almost the whole town and had a great lunch and boiled wine. Success? I think so.
Thursday was the beginning of my homestay. We were paired up with families that shared our same personality, likes, and dislikes. My match was PERFECT. My host parents are Visnja and Dario and they have three children, all of whom are older than me by more than 5 years. Visnja is as outgoing as me (yes, it's possible!) and sings in three choirs! A MATCH MADE IN HEAVEN. I have already gone to a rehearsal with her at her Renaissance choir. Singing has definitely helped my Croatian because you don't have time to analyze the letters in each word; instead, you must go for it phonetically and hope for the best. It's quite a fun game once you stop being self-conscious. Dario is also amazing- they are both retired air traffic controllers so their English is quite good. They have traveled all over the world and their living room proves it. They have shown me souvenirs from everywhere from Nigeria to Sri Lanka to Venezuela. Their stories are amazing and leave me praying that someday I can be as traveled as they are. Traveling makes you a different person, not just on a confidence level, but also on an awareness level. It's hard to describe, but every time I travel somewhere else, a little part of me changes. First it was my maturity, then my awareness level, and now I think it may be my pride. It has taken a long time for me to regain my self-confidence and remind myself that I belong and that I deserve a chance to widen my horizons and this family has helped me find that confidence. Visnja is now a phonetics professor and she helps me with my Croatian. It is getting pretty decent if I do say so myself :-). My two host sisters have both come to visit me and they are wonderful. Needless to say, I am thrilled with my homestay. They are so wonderful and treat me like one of their own.
What else have I done since I last wrote... OH! Saturday, the group went on a tour of Zagreb. It was pretty great and we learned a lot about Zagreb history. A special part about the tour was that one of the tour guides was an expert in influential women who lived in Zagreb- not something you get in your average tour. In a group of 9 with 8 being women, this was a must. I really enjoyed being able to see more of Zagreb than the main square, which is where my classes are located. I've also eaten wayyyyyyy more cevapi than I would have expected (four lunches in a row... oh no.). Cevapi and burek are two of my favorite meals in the Balkans. Cevapi is small sausages in pita bread, usually served with onions and I usually eat it with a vegetable sauce. Burek is also called pita, and it is either minced meat or cheese or spinach and cheese inside of a flaky crust. It is to DIE FOR.
Sunday was a great day... the carnival. The group took a 2 hour bus ride to Rijeka, a town on the Adriatic coast. It was beautiful, of course, but also about 10 degrees warmer than Zagreb. Definitely a nice break to say the least and there was no snow AT ALL. Their carnival is very much like a mini-version of Mardi-Gras- everyone wears masks and dresses up in costumes, many of which are extremely politically incorrect. The Wellesley woman in me wanted to be offended but seriously, I couldn't help but laugh. My friends and I consumed lots of Croatian beer and "Kuhano vino" (boiled wine) and pranced around in our masks and face paint. Aside from a minor asthma attack (forgot my inhaler, sorry mom), it was a wonderful day and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Today was lots of work. LOTS of work. My language class is getting more and more intense by the day- today we learned how to ask questions and change the ends of the verbs to match the pronoun it is with. As of right now, the vocab is giving me the hardest time because I simply cannot remember all of it. I am pretty good at the verbs... we'll see about this vocab. Our first day of our post conflict transformation seminar was today and we discussed conflict resolution versus conflict transformation. We had a pretty intense discussion on negative peace as well, considering my interpretation of the term was different from my teacher's. The class definitely got my juices flowing and I look forward to more topic-focused discussion soon. We had a reading by one of my favorite authors, John Paul Lederach, but we didn't really get to him because frankly, we were all exhausted from Rijeka and just didn't have time to ingest the material. Well, better luck tomorrow perhaps.
Well... I need to try and get some sleep. The cats (there are two in my homestay) are being silly so I have to shut the door so they won't ambush me in the middle of the night. Especially the tomcat... he's a bit of a sneak.
Well... until next time- laku noć (goodnight) :-)
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