A Lovely Day

On Wednesday we took a step back from meeting with Bosnians and had a lecture by one of the Northeastern professors on the trip with us, Professor Lovely, and yes he is a lovely guy!  Professor Lovely was in the Marines during the war in Bosnia and was stationed in Sarajevo after the war to help with reconstruction.  Therefore, he lectured on the role of government and tactics for state building/counterinsurgency.  We discussed the benefits and the faults of each and the balance that is needed in government in order to have a legitimate government.  After the lecture we were graced with a writing assignment that in short asked us to find the solution to one of the largest problems in BiH, how to integrate the youth of Bosnia… a problems that even the experts have not found the answer for!  But we were up to the challenge are happy to put our knowledge to the test… but if you have any genius suggestions I will not be opposed to you sending them my way!  

Professor Lovely and Kate in their archeologist outfits! 

On Thursday our meeting with a member of the Serbian Orthodox Church was cancelled due to a death in the family so we had the entire day off!  A lot of people did their last shopping duties and exploration of the city and some began working on our paper.  It was nice to have a day to relax!

Friday was a packed day!  We first visited the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina that focuses on persecution for war crimes and crimes of genocide that were committed during the Bosnian war.  Initially the court was primarily made up of international judges; however, there are only two international judges that still work for the Court of BiH.  Both of the judges happen to be American and one is a Northeastern University alumni and the other is a Northeastern mom, her son is a senior at Northeastern!  We are all over the world!  

Each of the judges in formed us about the history behind the Court and problems that they are faced with today.  The Court uses a hybrid of common law (what we use in the US) and civil law systems.  Therefore, no one had experience with this type of law, which made it more difficult to train everyone.  They essentially had to start from scratch. They are currently working with law schools in order to change or at least influence the curriculum so they do not have to train new employees form the beginning.  When the judge spoke about changing the curriculum it made me realize that they have already been working to prosecute war criminals since 2002 and they still do not foresee an end in the near future, which is pretty daunting.  Because laws of war crimes are quite new (around 20 years old) the Court of BiH is still receiving criticism from all sides of society in Bosnia and Herzegovina.  The maximum sentence for a war criminal is 45 years and for the people that are not informed of this notion criticizes the court for being too lenient because you can only go down from 45 years.  There are also the people that criticize the court for favoring different ethnic groups because there are Bosnian judges making decisions for or against their ethnic group.  At the same time the Court of BiH is being used as a model in other countries that are setting up a court system for war criminals.  All publicity is not negative; other citizens in BiH are appreciative of the role that BiH has played by prosecuting war criminals.  The prosecution of war criminals gives citizens the fulfillment that the solider that kill their son is being punished.  It gives them closure.

After visiting the Court of BiH we took a lunch break then we made our way to the U.S. Embassy!  At the Embassy we talked to the Head of Political Affairs minister.   He informed us of the role that the U.S. still has in BiH and what new initiatives the US is working towards in the future for BiH.  Because the US helped end the war in BiH (still a controversial subject but for now we are sticking with this statement haha) we held a great amount of responsibility in helping BiH rebuild and become a stable state.  The US has people working for the Office of High Representatives, who we met with last week, and the Court of BiH along with 100 plus people working at the US embassy not to mention other non-governmental organizations that are working toward strengthening BiH.  

Unfortunately, neither the Court of BiH nor the US embassy would allow cameras so I do not have any good shoots from either of the meetings or buildings. 

ATM Guard Dog!  :) 

Got to Catch Them All!

We have officially met with nearly every religious group in Bosnia-Herzegovina!  On Monday we meet with the Muslim leader, Grand Mufti of Bosnia, Dr. Mustafa Ceric and on Friday we met with a member of the Serbian Orthodox Church.  Therefore, in all we have meet with Jewish, Orthodox Christian, Muslim and Catholic religious leaders.  I am still amazed at how tolerant they are of each ethnic group especially after the ethnic war. 


Mustafa Ceric is also part of the Interfaith Council along with the Catholic Cardinal and the Jewish leader Finci.  He was extremely happy that we were able to join him. Like many other people that we have spoken to, Mustafa Ceric accredited the United States for ending the war in Bosnia.  He spoke of the need for the community to forgive others for what was done in the war otherwise there will soon be another war.  

Dr. Mustafa Ceric

Last week we met with a member of the Office of the High Representatives, Rod Moore.  The OHR was established from the Dayton Peace Accords (the peace agreement established in 1995 to mark the end of the Bosnian War).  The OHR was established because they knew there was going to be a heavy influence of international personel in Bosnia after the war.  At first the OHR had a great amount of power but today they are working towards pushing Bosnia to make progress themselves.  The OHR was only supposed to be temporary however, the international community is still not fully convinced that Bosnia is fully capable of continuing on there own.  Rod believes that EU accession will help BiH over all because it will improve human rights, decrease corruption, and improve the economy (hopefully).  However, as we heard at East Sarajevo University, not all Bosnians would like to work towards EU accession.  

Peyton, Myself and Allie

Looking official at the conference room!

Perspective.

Wow.  Just when I thought I was getting a decent grip on the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina I was thrown a massive curve ball!  Today, we meet with the Dean and Faculty members from the East Sarajevo University (ESU) in Pail.  Pail is about 35 minutes from Sarajevo but it is in the Republic of Srpska (Sarajevo is in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina).  The two autonomous entities were formed as a result of the 92-95 war in Bosnia.  The entities virtually divide Serbians from the Bosniaks and Croats and other ethnicities.  This statement is very general but there is a majority of Serbians in the Republic or Srpska and a majority of Croats and Bosniaks in the Federation of BiH.  Therefore, because the University was in the Republic of Srpska the university was mostly Serbs, both faculty and students.  After meeting with many tolerant religious and political leaders I was expecting the same opinion from the Serbs at the University just 30 minutes from Sarajevo… the furthest thing from the truth! 

Wireless. or in BiH "Wirelles... we thought it was funny. 

Perspective.  First off I want to try to explain a huge factor in understanding the history and current standing of BiH.  When we listen to people tell stories about the war and the current situation and ethnic tensions that still exist it is nearly impossible for us to understand.  We come from a country where, for the most part, we all get a long and there is little ethnic tension.  We are a country of immigrants from all different ethnicities.  Therefore, we cannot understand the division between ethnicities and understand how they truly fair, which makes it extremely difficult to understand the entire history and current situation in BiH.

The meeting with faculty and university students was planned last minute so things were a little un-organized but everyone was making the best of it.  The Dean and a few of the professors told us about the university.  It was formed in 1992 from the University of Sarajevo, there are 17 academic departments, etc.  Then the floor was opened for questions for either Northeastern students or student or faculty at ESU.  The questions started out tame and then things got a LOT more intense!  A NEU student asked why East Sarajevo University was separated from Sarajevo University (SU) and a faculty member answered a little uncomfortably that the Politicians decided to create a new university and the Serbs wanted to “turn over a new leaf.”  A student then asked if there was any cooperation or interconnectedness between ESU and SU and the faculty member answered hesitantly, no.   Then she followed up this disappointing statement with, “Us Serbs feel as though we have been blackened from the media.”  After a little more dialogue and a few more questions our TA asked an apparently extremely controversial hypothetical question, “If it was the difference between joining the EU and not joining the EU would you be willing to eliminate the division of the Republic of Srpska and become a united Bosnia and Herzegovina?” Holy H-E-double hockey sticks! The responses and our questions to the responses created an extremely intense and uncomfortable but intensely interesting conversation!  My hands were literally shaking and my heart was pounding so hard because it was so intense!  Things were getting extremely interesting and voices were beginning to raise when the Dean suggested that we take a coffee break haha Many of us were disappointed… no one was violent, yet…. It was just getting good!  I am going to try my best to explain why this Q&A session was so controversial. 

… The past week and a half, prior to today, we have heard extremely tolerant religious leaders and optimistic politicians who disagreed with the constitution and in part the government.  A cross the board everyone that we had talked to prior to today completely agreed that BiH accession to the European Union would be the best thing for BiH.  The standards that must be met to join the EU would force BiH to eliminate laws that violate human rights (ethnically divided political parties) and help to improve economic standards (Greece and Spain are not helping me on that statement).  They all noted on the need for integration between ethnic groups and were aware of the current ethnic problems.  Anyhow, in short we have heard positive things about joining the EU and the need to improve ethnic division.  But at ESU that was not the case!  Students were completely insulted that they would ever consider giving up their republic to become part of the EU.  Some of the responses were, “Why would we want to join the EU?  To become like Greece or Spain?  I don’t think so!”  “Just a few years ago we fought for this Republic why would we give up on that now?”  I know this is probably hard for you to understand but basically after hearing we were just thrown a HUGE curve ball that went against everything that we had learned the entire week before.  We were hearing harsh ethnically divided opinions.  They saw nothing wrong with the divided country and nothing wrong with how BiH is divided into two different ethnic groups.  I now have to completely change my perspective and try to take into consideration of different views, whether it is right or wrong.  I am now looking forward to moving on to Serbia to hear the Serb opinion on the war in BiH and their stance on the Republic of Srpska.

After our interesting discussion at ESU we shifted gears and went to the Tunnel Museum.  The Tunnel Museum is a renovated part of the 800 meter (.5 mile) tunnel that was built to cross the Serb territory.

The part were there is only a narrow strip of blue between the Serbian Forces (orange) is there the tunnel was built. 

In the tunnel!

The confusion continues…  (My friend Allie and I) 

  

It is like Hogwarts… food just appears!

What a week!  It has been just over a week since we arrived in Sarajevo and it feels like we have been here forever.  We have all become comfortable with navigating the city and are keeping ourselves extremely busy between lectures, meetings and experiencing Bosnia food!  Last week, a large group of us decided to get dinner at a typical Bosnian food restaurant.  After we sat down we soon realized that the entire menu was in Bosnian and that our waiter knew just about as much English as we know Bosnian, which is thank you, hello and goodbye.  At this point we had only been here a few days and did not recognize a single thing on the menu.  After contemplating what to do for 30 minutes we then decided to be adventurous and just point to a name on the menu and try it!  This became difficult when the waiter would blow by us as if we had already ordered… Well that is because we did in fact order, without knowing.  Earlier he had asked us a question and we just shook our heads but did not really know what he was talking about, apparently that nod was agreeing to order a variety of things on the menu to share.  (It wasn’t until he set down the first plate that we realized what was going on.)  It was a funny experience and we joked about how it was like Hogwarts and food just appears in front of us but we did still have to pay for it.

This week in Sarajevo is the 18^th Film Festival, which is one of the biggest doings over the course of the year in Sarajevo.  Angelina Jolie even made an appearance on opening night!  On Saturday night a group of us went to see “Children of Sarajevo,” a movie portraying the struggles of two Muslim orphans after the war.  The movie was at an outdoor theater about 20 minutes outside of the city, which made for a unique atmosphere.  There are films that will be playing sporadically over the course of the week mainly pertaining to Bosnia’s history and future so I am hoping to make it to one more movie before we leave Sarajevo on Friday. 

The 'Red Carpet' for the Film Festival!

The outdoor theater for the showing of "Children of Sarajevo"

  

This past week we have met with an array of political and governmental leaders.  I have been surprised with the amount of optimism that each of the people we have met with have when they speak of the future for BiH.  They also tend to be extremely grateful that they were able to speak to a group of Americans as they accredit the United States for ending the war in Bosnia in 1995. 

On Thursday we spoke to Jakob Finci, a Jewish community leader who formed the Inter-religious Council after the war in BiH.  Finci is most famous for suing the BiH’s government for not allowing “others” to run for presidency.  I know that this sounds weird but I am going to try and explain it as best as possible because it is a bit confusing. As mentioned before BiH has 3 presidents, one from each major ethnic group, Croat, Serbian and Bosniak.  This also means that if you are not Croat, Serbian or Bosniak, you cannot run for president.  Therefore, anyone who is Jewish, Romanian or of a different ethnicity or of mix ethnicity cannot run for president, which explains why Finci sued to become president.  Finci did this more so to make a statement rather his desire to become a president.  Finci won the case and BiH is currently working to change the constitution to allow others to be involved in the constitution, which is a long process because it is still quite controversial.  After talking with Finci I was really surprised by how tolerant the religious leader was, especially after Bosnia just suffered an ethnic war.  However, I realized that this was not exclusive to the Jewish community leader in Bosnia but many other religious leaders in Sarajevo share the desires to work together to create a more peaceful and stable Bosnia.  We also met with the Cardinal of the Catholic Church and the Mustafa Ceric of the Islamic community in Sarajevo who spoke of the same desires of integration of different ethnicities to create a more tolerant BiH. 

Jakob Finci! (Thank you Professor Sullivan for the picture)

Religious leaders can be funny too.  I have to share a few gems after boring you with the complex history of BiH.

Finci spoke of the tension prior to the start of the war in 1992 and said that the Jewish community began making arrangements to move abroad.  He followed this up with, “When the Jews leave the city you know it is a bad time.”

We were getting together to take a picture with Finci and the cameraman said “say cheese” and Finci responds with, “Not everyone likes cheese but everyone likes money.” “MONEY!”

The Cardinal of the Catholic Church, Cardinal Puljic, spoke with a smile on his face when he said.  “I stayed in Sarajevo during the war, my house was bombed.  I had no roof so when it rained I got wet.”  He giggled at this and having no roof did not seem to faze him one bit!

I am sorry if these are not as funny to you… I try!

Srebrenica. Srebrenica a small town about 3 hours outside of Sarajevo was the site of mass murder during the Bosnian war in 1995.  During the war over 40,000 Muslims fled Serbia to Srebrenica, the Republic of Srpska in Bosnia.  In July 1995 the Serbian Army invaded Srebrenica and killed over 8,000 unarmed Muslims.  This is the elementary version of this incident as for it is a very complex event and can be disputed by different ethnic groups… and I am not going to delve into it.  Regardless of ones opinion about the events that occurred in July of 1995 it is still incredibly heartbreaking to see a cemetery with thousands of head stones.

Srebrenica was first invaded by the Serbs on July 11^th 1995, making this upcoming Wednesday the 17^th anniversary.  To recognized the 500 plus bodies that were recovered and identified this year by the ICMP (International Commission of Missing People) they held a procession today in downtown Sarajevo.  The procession consisted of three tractor trailers containing the coffins of all 500+ bodies that parked in the middle of the street where people were allowed to put flowers on the trucks.  The mood was intensely sad and I almost felt bad to have no idea what their loss must feel like. 

They were digging new holes for the 500+ people that were identified this year.  They will be buried on Wednesday. 

Sarajevo/BiH is one of the most interesting cities that I have been to in terms of its history and current situations.  Sometimes the history and conflicting beliefs between ethnic groups can get bit overwhelming but I am trying to be optimistic like the Bosinans that we have spoken to and think of Sarajevo like a city with a big personality that you can just never get bored with!  Thanks for reading and look out for another post at the end of the week!

For more information on the people that we have met with you can view my professor’s blog that gives a better descriptions of the background people we have talked to.  Blog link, http://egypt-dialogue.blogspot.com/

We Just Met The President.

For those of you reading this blog I am going to apologize now for how much more educational and historical this is about to get.  I will also be updating it more often because part of the program here is to keep a blog and update it a few times a week so I will not be offended if you just look at the pictures! 

FYI - BiH is short for Bosnia-Herzegovina

Monday morning we met with the International Commission of Missing People (ICMP), which is a non-governmental organization that in short locates mass graves and small gravesites from the war and identifies bodies.  ICMP does so by taking DNA tests of family members with missing people and matches samples with the bodies that they discover.  This task is an enormous project because in BiH there were around 30,000 missing persons after the war from 1992-1995.  So far they have identified and informed the families of over 22,000 persons, which is pretty amazing!  The ICMP has state of the art software and has worked on other cases of mass death that required human identifications such as hurricane Katrina, Iraq, Columbia, etc. 

Yesterday morning we all met at the hotel (we are split between two hotels) and walked to the Presidency building.  The term sounded a little weird to us all because we have the White House which to me sounds a more personal (probably because it is more familiar). One person asked if the president lives in the Presidency Building… no they do not live there and it would also be strange because there are 3 presidents in Bosnia. There are 3 presidents because they represent the 3 main ethnic groups in BiH; Croats, Bosniaks, and Serbs.  Each president rotates once every 8 months but they are all part of decisions even when they are not president.  It is more the sense that there are 3 presidents in terms of the power that they have it is just that one would act as the representative for the country during the respective 8 months.  At the Presidency building we met with Elvir Camdzic who is the foreign policy advisor for the current BiH president who is Bosniak.  We met in an impressive room in the Presidency building and began discussing and asking questions about the government and foreign policy in BiH.  While Elvir was talking the door opened and Bakir Izethegovic, the current Bosnian president walked in!  We met the Bosnia President! He even posed for a picture with the group!  It was a fantastic surprise!  After our meeting with Elvir we walked about 300 meters down the road to the parliamentary building and met with two of the government officials working on redrafting the BiH constitution.  They briefly explained why it is so important for the constitution to be redrafted, which is because the constitution violates human rights, i.e. only allowing different ethnic groups to run for president, everyone should be able to run for president.  The meeting was then open to Q&A, which was really interesting to see how insightful other students are and also to hear more about BiH country, history and political future.  

The 2012 Balkans dialogue group with Bosnian President Bakir Izethbegovic! (Photo by Marie)

Listening to Elvir

I am about to get extremely nerdy right now… Yesterday after talking a walking tour of Sarajevo our group sat down in the lobby of our hotel and began to listen to, Mladen, our Teacher’s Assistant lesson about the history of the Balkans war conflict.  Mladen grew up in North Serbia and is getting his Ph. D at Northeastern University.  Mladen began by explaining that he tries to be as unbiased as possible but it is hard to be completely unbiased because many issues are no certain and can be disagreed upon.  Throughout the lesson it was great to see how engaged everyone was and then when it came to Q&A my colleagues were incredibly intuitive and genuinely interested!  It has been wonderful to be around such an incredibly smart group of people. One of the my colleagues, Kelsey, made note of how at the ICMP the woman presenting had said, “I guess we just like to kill each other” with kind of a laugh when discussing how there has been a war in the Balkans at least once every 50 years for the few centuries.   Kelsey then stated how striking this statement was to hear (and to all of us) and asked if there was ever a possibility of there being something for people to unite on so the trend could end.  Mladen began to answer the question and then the owner of the hotel that we are staying in, Maya over hear the question and asked to respond.  We were more than welcoming to hear her opinion and it turned out to be the most moving, emotional and eye opening speech that I had yet to hear since arriving to Bosnia, possibly ever in my life.  Maya spoke of never having animosity towards other ethnic groups prior to the war.  In her opinion/view, they were all just Bosnians living in Yugoslavia.  She spoke with frustration, loss and anguish.  It was devastating to see in her eyes how hard the war was and her confusion of why it even happened, she was nearly in tears.  After, the lobby was silent and it was just an amazing moment where all of us were really struck by her words.  The discussion continued on and after a few of us asked if we could have these types of lectures more often and everyone agreed and my thought to this was, Only at Northeastern!  I am really grateful for all of the opportunities that have been available to me through Northeastern and I am really looking forward to the next few weeks! 

You can see the holes on the bottom in the cement wall.  This was caused by mortar shells... imagine the how much damage the shells cause to a human body if this is the damage it did to a cement wall. 

After the war the an artist in Sarajevo would melt pieces of medal in the holes left from mortar bombs and paint it red.  They were then coined with the term "Sarajevo Roses"   It marked a place of loss and and reminder of what happened.  A little while after the war they then decided to remove most of the "Roses" however they left a few to keep the reminder. 

The river divided the city but was united by the 12 bridges that cross the river.  However, during the war the bridges were extremely dangerous because snipers would monitor them. 

Getting away from all of the educational information… We have had quite a bit of free time to explore the city and enjoy the food!  Sarajevo is surprisingly small and is very European.  I am still a bit shocked at how well the country has recovered, architecturally and in on the surface, socially.  The food here is A LOT of meat and bread and it is actually hard to find a salad… I don’t understand how they can still be so skinny here!   There are ton of mosques, churches and cathedrals.

I am sorry that my blog has taken such a serious turn.  The history in the country is incredibly dense and such a big part of the culture that it is hard to ignore.  Thank you for reading, ta ta for now!

Ciao 

                                           Spotted this gem on the walking tour! ... Smart dog!

The Next Adventure

Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina 

After fending for myself for the last 6 months in Costa Rica I am a excited to have someone to direct me where to go and figure out how things work, how to get where, etc.  However, I am a little apprehensive about being surrounded by a group of 26 Americans after spending 6 months in English exile.  Although, I am happy to have company so I think it will all go well!  I will be updating this at least once a week for the next month to update you on my adventures! Thanks for reading!

Back in the air… again.  I am not going to sugar coat this… After just arriving back from Costa Rica only a couple of weeks ago I am incredibly sick of packing, moving, going through airport security, and most of all living out of a suitcase.  However, when an opportunity as great as this little adventure comes along, it is hard to turn down.  For the next month I will be traveling around Bosnia, Serbia and Kosovo with 26 other Americans (I always want to say gringos but that no longer applies here).  Along the way we will be meeting with government leaders, NGO's, religious organizations, diplomatic core, educational institutions, and ordinary citizens and learning about the past, present, and future for the Balkans.  We will use the information that we learn from the individuals and organizations along with a few lectures from the two professors on the trip to form two makeshift classes that will come back as credit at Northeastern.

Off the plane.  We were assigned a few readings and documentaries to watch prior to the trip so all of us have a general, basic idea of the recent history in the Balkans, i.e. the violent fall of Yugoslavia from 1991-1995.  While I was reading and watching the assignments it is pretty striking to learn about the brutal violence and war, however, it is another one to see and hear about the effects of the war, personally.  On the plane ride from our lay over in German to our destination in Sarajevo, Bosnia I sat next to a late 20 to early 30 year old Bosnia.  He inquired about the huge group of young Americans on the plane and asked if we were all traveling together and what for.  After finding out that he was Bosnian that then led to me politely drilling him with questions about growing up in Bosnia during the war, about Sarajevo, and anything that could come to mind!  He grew up in Bosnia until he was 13-14 and then his parents sought refuge in the United States after the war.  He has since lived in the United States but returns to the Balkans to visit his extended family once every 5 or so years.  He was extremely prideful to be Bosnian and was extremely open to answering any questions that I had.  He was telling me how when he had returned to Bosnia in 2003 it was incredible to see the amount of buildings that were still left damaged and in ruin.  He noted that the city is now finally decently recovered but you could still see bullet or grenade holes on the walls of buildings all over the city.  I had also heard this from other sources before coming but it is another thing to see it.  Walls on so many buildings were covered with bullet holes.  I couldn’t help thinking about how much of a harsh reminder that must be for the citizens in Sarajevo.

On to a lighter subject...  At the airport in Boston we were all waiting in line to board the plane and talking about what we were arriving to and what the hotel would be like etc.  One of the professors, Professor Lovely, was with us and when the debate/concern of whether or not we would be sharing beds (for example, if there were two queen size beds in a hotel room would there be four people in the room or just 2) came up I decided to ask him.  I addressed Professor Lovely and said “Will we be sleeping in the bed together at the hotel?” … for someone who had not been part of the conversation prior to this question this question came across as being a little aggressive! Haha  Of course I didn’t get why he had such a stark reaction when I asked but soon after figured out how wrong my question must have sounded and we all had a good laugh at my accidental inappropriateness.

Language.  The predominate language in Bosnia and many other Balkan countries is, Croatian-Serbian-Bosnia which is the same language with different dialects.  After spending 6 months in Costa Rica and getting in the habit of speaking Spanish in return to a foreign language it is so hard to remember that me replying in Spanish will not help if anything they probably understand more English than Spanish here, yet I still instinctively reply in Spanish when I do not understand what they are saying (which is always).  I think this instinct is also reinforced by my non-existent knowledge of the language here.  I have rarely been in situations while traveling where I have to ask “Do you speak English?” without even trying to speak in their native tongue and it just feels rude.  I have finally learned how to say Thank you, “Hvala” but I have to work on some simple phrases so that I do not come across as an ignorant American.  I hope to have a primitive vocabulary by the time I leave so that I can at least be polite.  

After fending for myself for the last 6 months in Costa Rica I am a excited to have someone directing me where to go and figure out how things work, how to get where, etc.  However, I am a little apprehensive about being surrounded by a group of 26 Americans after spending 6 months in Spanish exile.  Although, I am extremely happy to have company this time around so I think it will all go well!  I will be updating this at least once a week for the next month to keep you on my adventures! Thanks for reading! 

Below my itinerary for the next month!  

July 1st to July 13th Sarajevo, Bosnia

July 14th and 15th Mostar
July 16th to August 3rd Belgrade, Serbia
Novi, Pazar, or Nis and if permits Kosovo


Lots of pictures to come!


Ciao!

Life Lessons. The Good, the Bad, the Ugly.

Well it has been an exciting last couple weeks… to say the least.  Last weekend I ventured out to Poas Volcano (about 1.5-2 hours by car from San Jose).  I am proud to say that after living here for 5 plus months that I was able to navigate the bus system in Costa Rica by myself…  This is an accomplishment because all bus companies are privately owned and there are no route schedules or bus times and buses are hardly ever labeled with where they are going it is just something that you have to learn from word of mouth, getting on a bus and seeing where it takes you or asking the bus driver if it goes where you need to go.  Basically, it is an extremely effective bus system, ha.  I left my house at about 7am to catch the first bus from my neighborhood to downtown San Jose then from San Jose I went to Alajuela then from Alajuela I took the bus to Poas and arrived at Poas at about 10:30am which made for a long trip for a relatively short distance but I made it!  I was even able to help a few Gringo tourists along the way!  Once at Poas we were told that the bus back would leave at 2pm so we had 3.5 hours to roam around and check out the Volcano.   However, it turns out other than looking at the Volcano and the small lake near by there is not much to do but it was well worth the trip and I made a few friends with the other gringos visiting Poas and a local on the bus ride back to San Jose.

                                          Poas Volcano!

                                       
                                         Poas Lake

Karaoke. On Tuesday night Anais, my German friend Alissa, and I decided to make our way to a Karaoke bar. With it being my first time going to a Karaoke bar I was excited but also severely intimidated when I saw that it was a live bad playing behind you not just a TV with the words scrolling a crossed it.  My nerves multiplied after the first three people went up and sounded like professionals!  However, I did it! … Not alone but I did one song with Anais and one with Alissa!  We were sitting next to a younger guy sitting alone and Anais asked if we could see if he wanted to join us so that he didn’t have to sit alone.  He was a really nice guy and was extremely grateful that we invited him to sit with us because in the Tico culture that would never happen and he liked that we were so inviting and out going.  He was so grateful that he ended up paying for our food and drinks before we even had a chance to pay!  Overall, Karaoke was good experience but I will spare the audience with my tone-deaf voice and keep my trips the Karaoke bar limited. 

                                                     Anais and I singing!

All good things must come to an end.  This past Friday was my last day of co-op … I can’t believe it is over!  It really did go by incredibly fast!  In celebration of my last day of co-op and a welcome to the person who is taking over my position my boss, Wirlan, took us out to dinner and after we got a few drinks.  All was well until it all went bad… Wirlan dropped me off at my house around 11:45 and I dropped off my work things and was heading back out to meet up with my friend.  I am well aware (now) that I was an idiot for walking up to the main road to grab a taxi to meet my friend instead of having a taxi come to the house. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Two blocks was all it took… I was almost to the main road when a red car pulled up and before I knew it someone ripped my purse off me and another person held out a gun and asked for my cell phone that I was holding.  Obviously, the gun trumped my phone and I immediately handed over my cell phone and luckily they got back in the car and drove away.  Lesson Learned.  I am well aware that I needed this lesson and that I was getting too generous with my confidence of walking around at night in Costa Rica.  I was told it was unsafe to do so and had done it before so I thought I was fine but I obviously it is not.  So now I am petrified of red cars and leaving the house after dark… lesson well learned.  I know I am incredibly lucky and grateful that they only got away with my cell phone some cash and my purse and most of all happy that I was unharmed.  For my public safety announcement… don’t walk around at night alone in an unsafe neighborhood the chances are slim but it only takes one time. 

L-R, Nick, Myself, Wirlan 

The Costa Rican adventure has come to an end.  The past 5.5 months have been a huge learning experience and something that I would suggest for everyone to do.  Moving to a foreign country, not being fluent in the language, not knowing a soul in the country and living there for an extended period of time is the biggest life lesson anyone could experience.  You grow up fast and learn things about yourself, other people, cultures and the world.  Overall, I am proud of myself for doing this because at times it was really hard, you can’t call your mommy or your friend to come help you… you have to figure it all out by yourself.  I know this all sounds cheese but it truly is a great experience and if anyone reading is considering moving abroad or thinking of traveling to Costa Rica contact me I would live to answer any questions that you have!  

I will be leaving Costa Rica on wednesday morning and especially after my little run in with a pistol being pointed at me I am ready to go home to my little ole' home town in upstate New York for a few weeks. And then… the adventure continues!  I was accepted into a summer study program in the Balkans for the month of July so I will be updating this blog with my travels in Serbia, Kosovo and Bosnia!  See you in July!