Another week of exciting adventures...

So, since last week’s post things have been moving rather quickly. The first few weeks moved really slowly as each day presented many new challenges. But, now that I have the little things down pat, and I have been working tons, the days since my last post have flown by and now I have been here nearly a month! So what has happened in the last week or so….

Well, on the more dull side, I have read many books relevant to the research project I am working on here, and have gotten some writing and thinking accomplished through several days of concentrated and diligent work. In other news…

I finished with my job selecting Serbian university students for the USAid fellowship. All-and-all it was an interesting process through which I learned a lot about Serbia through both the colleagues I worked with and the students we interviewed. While it has been challenging to meet Serbian friends who are interested in spending time with me socially – which I attribute to the fact that Belgrade has more in common with New York in that foreigners are viewed less as an exciting novelty and more as a part of the landscape to be looked at with disinterest and stepped over – I did meet a few cool Serbian women through this process that I hope to spend time with in the future.

In my most eventful and somewhat frustrating professional day this week I made my first solo venture to my university. My last trip to my office had been assisted by my American colleague with whom I share an office, and while without his guidance I likely would not have found it a second time, my first solo venture was a bit trying. I woke that day to the sun shining…a phenomenon I had thought was rarely possible in a Serbian winter, but which, to my delight, persisted for 5 days afterward – reminding all of us who had begun to get the grey winter blues that spring is around the corner!!

So with the glee of a sunny day coursing through my veins, I proceeded to the tram stop where I was to catch the tram #10 to my office. After a charming interaction with the woman at the kiosk from whom I bought my tram ticket, I boarded the tram with hopes of finding my school. Now in case I had not mentioned it, the public transport here is very thorough, but the trams look to be from the dawn of electricity! Rumbling down the tracks as if they will crumble at any moment, the trams are packed like a Bangladeshi bus, and the fact that I had my map in hand made me feel all the more conspicuously foreign – as if the curly hair, short stature and “curvy” figure (coupled with my flat shoes inspired by my last bloody tram experience) were not enough to announce the fact that I am not them. (An experience that, when coupled with the day at large, left me singing the Nirvana lyrics “I’m not like them, but I can pretend…)

I knew approximately where I was supposed to get off the tram, but the stops are not marked with signs, for the most part, and there are no announcements to tell riders at which stop they are arriving. So I thought the best thing to do was to get off the tram where it appeared most student-like riders were departing. Well…failed logic at best!

The stop where I exited looked a lot like the one I had alighted from last time, but 45 minutes of aimless wandering told me I was wrong! After walking in the wrong direction for about 25 minutes (uphill), I turned and walked the other way (also uphill…unclear how this is possible) when I finally got up the guts to ask someone, only to find out that I was right the first time. So I turn around and walk (again uphill…am I in the twilight zone…how can everything be uphill??) about 35 minutes and arrive at my school! RELIEF!!

But wait…not yet…I realize upon my arrival that the school itself is more like a maze and I wander up and down the stairs and the hallways, feeling oh so conspicuous, trying to find the office of my mentor for whom I am already 30 minutes late. I ask directions at the main office, only to be sent to the wrong office…twice! But all is well when I finally find her.

Arriving very late and very sweaty, (by now cursing the same sunshine I had reveled in just an hour before), she agrees to see me, and we chat about which courses I will be teaching when the semester finally begins. So it turns out I will be assisting in 2 critical media courses (one undergrad and one grad) and one Women’s Studies seminar – cool! But the start date is still to be determined…fine.

Upon leaving the faculty in the early afternoon, I begin the journey to my other job – a volunteer position with one of the organizations I will be researching – Women in Black, Belgrade. Armed with my trusty map, I take the tram to the center of town. Yet, the stone-age contraption does not make it to the town center, instead breaking down in the middle of a HUGE intersection – god knows where! After several minutes of the tram driver trying to get it started again in the midst of dozens of honking horns and angry shouts from the surrounding traffic, the doors of the tram suddenly open and everyone gets off the tram. The surrounding drivers, now irate, honk furiously as we exit the tram, as if we had thrown a mutiny on the tram and demanded the driver stop and let us all off in the middle of traffic!

I walk as if I know where I am going until I reach a small park with benches where I can sit and look at the map. I think I know vaguely where I am, and even though the street signs are in Cyrillic script (which appears to me something like various conglomerations of a backwards 3, a triangle, 3 hooks, a square and the letter B) and my map is in Latinic script, I think I can make my way. Again everything seems to be uphill, but after about an hour of searching for something that was something like 10 minutes walk had I had my bearings, I arrive at my destination – frustrated and more homesick than I had been since my arrival!

I walk up the stairs to the office and meet my contact person – an American graduate student working with the group named Jennifer. I had imagined that I would spend ½ hour talking with her about the organization and their expectations for my service. Yet, after an hour or so of excited and interesting conversation the group’s charismatic leader enters the room. She seems to remember me from last time, and invites me to have a meal with them, which I gratefully accept as I was starved! By the end of my afternoon there I was reinvigorated and excited to be here in Belgrade and especially excited to be working with them again!

I find my way home with no difficulty, thrilled to have had such a productive and exciting day and excited to get down to work with the organization.

On Friday – after finishing my USAid job and meeting American friends in the park to enjoy the sunny day and eat lunch - 2 guests arrived at my apartment. An American-Croatian guy (Vjeran) who I had known from previous work in the region (who now teaches at the University in Rijeka, Croatia), and his American girlfriend (Julie) who works in Prague. After a dinner at my flat, the three of us went to check out some of Belgrade’s nightlife – HOORAY! We went to a Rakia bar near my neighborhood which featured hundreds of kinds of local brandies. I sampled one from pears, and one from walnuts…both excellent!

The next day we went to a seminar on transitional justice featuring some really amazing scholars from the region and beyond. Upon my arrival I saw several representatives from Women in Black who I had met earlier that week, and was excited to see Jennifer again! The seminar itself was excellent. There were headphones with simultaneous translation so that you could hear the proceedings in Serbian, Albanian or English, which was immensely helpful. I also encountered a scholar originally from the US who is a close friend of my advisor from graduate school! (Small world!) By the time lunch came around, I was both excited by all that I had heard and was suddenly taken by a wave of anxiety as the proceedings helped me to realize exactly how much work I have to do while I am here! In all, the seminar was fantastic! I met some of the most important people working on transitional justice in the region, and realized that 6 months may not be enough time for me here!

Although inspiring, the seminar was somewhat exhausting! However, after a short rest, I rallied and my guests and I went for a meal at a local Cevepci place, (Cevapci is a regional specialty consisting of small fat sausages on bread eaten with onions and a fatty milk product that looks like cottage cheese called kajmak) and then went to a really cool bar that featured belly dancers and apple hookah-pipes. It was great! Really fun and really unique, with vaguely Arabic sounding electronic music and a cool mix of attractive but not too plastic local folks drinking and smoking and watching the dancers). After this I was totally drained and went home to sleep while my guests continued to another place called Scandal.

When I woke on Sunday I felt in an utter panic. I decided that I would stay in the apartment and work all day while my guests did tourist stuff and would meet them in the evening. So after a full and productive day, I met my guests in the evening whereupon we first went to the very well known PLATO café. From there we met up with a Serbian friend of my guests who took us first to a old “Turkish” café for drinks. The place is named “?” – question mark – or “Pitanje” in Serbian.

As we left “?” to find a bite to eat, we happened upon a Serbian film crew making a movie which appeared vaguely anti American. There was a character dressed as Uncle Sam on huge stilts, while another character held an American flag dangerously close to a large open flame all against a backdrop reminiscent of Les Miserable. I stopped to take a few photos, but was quickly ushered on by my cohorts. After that we went to a really cool bar called “KGB” which featured an extremely attractive waitress (that looked like Shakira) and Soviet era posters on the walls as art. Here I felt really comfortable, as the people inside looked cool and relaxed and did not stare at us at all! We had a few drinks and chatted a bit, and eventually headed back to my place for much needed sleep.

My guests left Monday – which began another stretch of grey weather, which is OK given the 5 days of gorgeous weather that preceded it - and I worked here in the apartment for the day and went to bed very early to be able to make the most

In all, I felt as if the weekend and the preceding week were fantastic! While there were still some trying moments, I got a lot of work done, am re-energized in terms of my purpose here, and was able to taste the more fun and interesting side of Belgrade. I am not sure what the next week will bring, but I hope to get lots more work done and to perhaps see some more of the nightlife…but we will see.

So thanks for reading and enjoy the photos I have posted. More Serbian adventures to come…



Vjeran and Serbian friend Vladan in KGB

Weekend guests Vjeran & Julie pose in front of poster of Che in town center

Serbian film crew making some kind of potentially anti-American film - note Uncle Sam and flag near flame!