Mindless amusement

I just discovered this. Really fun (unless you're color blind)!

It seems I've barely arrived and adjusted to Sarajevo, and the mission team is already coming on Wednesday. Last year at this time I was on the mission team; we'd just finished a grueling 3 months of car washing and other such fundraising, madly making up for all of the extra airfare costs because of highly inflated fuel prices. I'd just finished my bachelor's degree (finally), and we'd had a beautiful graduation party in my back yard, thrown by my lovely family.

Here I am a year later in a little apartment in Sarajevo reflecting over the last year of my life. I started this blog last July right after I got home from Europe. After a month in Europe I was feeling crazy and disoriented and the blogging really helped stabilize me. I never would have started blogging had Rachel not practically forced me to, and now I realize how smart she was in doing so.

So I blogged and sat in the basement wondering if there was life after college. I honestly had no idea how to write a resume (I still don't, really), and the thought of trying to tell prospective bosses "a little bit about myself" terrified me. I felt I had no skills whatsoever that would remotely contribute to the workforce, and as I monster.com'd my way through each day, I felt a growing sense of terror.

I was unemployed from July to September. During that time I spent most waking hours on the computer trying to find any employment, wondering why I'd gone to college if I was applying for the position of a receptionist at a dental office. Sometimes I would do temp work, sometimes I would pass out beer samples in grocery stores for $20 an hour. Every month my debts increased and I wondered if I should just start working 60 hours a week at a grocery store. September came along and I finally found something through a temp agency. The work was blue collar, I was bored by the second day, but it was work and it was $12 an hour, and it beat a grocery store.

September through March were probably the most humbling months of my life (so far). I felt I was subsisting, just making enough money to keep myself afloat, and I shuddered to think that this was how it was always going to be. I knew my job was menial but I wondered if all jobs would feel this way to me. I had so many desires and dreams, and I was afraid that if I became a teacher or an editor or something like that, I would find myself trapped with no way to see my dreams fulfilled.

In late December everything changed. I'd been so caught up in trying to find a good job and make a life for myself that I hadn't realized the golden opportunity right in front of me. Suffice it to say God provided way after way for me, and here I am in Sarajevo. He showed me how He'd brilliantly set up all of the circumstances in my life that would make it very easy for me to go. My car had been paid off, and was now running so weakly I was able to get rid of it for $300, my job was easy to leave, and I was single with nothing, and no one, preventing me from packing up and moving 6,000 miles, or 9,654 kilometers, away.

When I got on a plane and came to Sarajevo last June I had no idea that a year later I'd be back or what would have to take place to get me here. If I'd known all that was going to happen I don't think I could stand going through it. However, if I hadn't allowed God to change me the way He did, I never would have known the feeling of coming through that rough season and rejoicing.

One of the best dance scenes I've seen in a movie.

Post 92: The Headache

I've got the headache today somethin' fierce and I've been sitting motionless all morning and early afternoon. Sudden movements send jolts of unpleasantness into my already throbbing noggin. So I decided to make a list of all the items of comfort for the days when I'm under the weather...Please add yours under each category:

Clothing:
1 large bathrobe
flannel pants
inappropriately thick socks

Food:
Campbell's soup: tomato and chicken noodle
PG Tipps English tea
Baked custard
Cream of Wheat

Diversions:
Sandra Bullock or Bill Murray
Roald Dahl or Madeleine L'Engle
Word searches, horribly easy ones
I make pity party compilation CD's for myself

Preferred Meds:
Everything: Green and black tea
Headache: Ibuprofen
Cold and Flu: DayQuil/NyQuil
Puking: Nothing, I'd rather be dead

Bosnia is a very Caribbean-unfriendly country. No limes or coconut milk to be found!

Truly Sarajevo

It's a beautiful morning. Shopping later with a couple of Bosnian pals in Baščaršija (Bash-char-shee-ya), the beautiful Turkish section. In checking out some websites and pictures of Baščaršija I came across this article and thought it the first thing I've read that, coming from an American and an outsider, does Sarajevo justice. Enjoy.

Had a most freakish experience. All of the sudden last night around 4 AM I jolted wide awake. At first I didn't know what had waked me, but then I heard it--a high, nasal sound coming from the loudspeakers. "Allah u Akbar, Allah u Akbar (Allah is great, Allah is great)...Ash-hadu al-la Ilaha ill Allah - Ash-hadu al-la Ilaha ill Allah (I bear witness that there is no divinty but Allah)." I was glad I couldn't see the minarets from my bedroom window.

Right at that same moment, the lamp post outside my building that usually glares into my window went dark. I lay there, unmoving, eyes wide open, feeling like there was no one else in the world but me, blackness, and that thin song. Something about it terrified me--anyone who's lived in a Muslim country knows what I mean--it sounds like the song of the dead; listening to it in the pitch dark was horrible!

Click here to listen to the Call To Prayer

Blogging about nothing

"Peace, Mercutio, peace! Thou talk'st of nothing!"

We got Zarqawi! Zap!

Cheap shampoo has a waxy ingredient that creates a build-up on the hair, especially the scalp, causing a frizzy appearance. There are a few expensive exceptions, Redken being one. I am running out. The guy who cut my hair last made me irrationally fear a waxy build-up.

Cooking and Cleaning

Saturday I helped clean the guest house, a small house on the church property used for the administrative office and visitors' accommodations, in anticipation of Scott and Sue who are coming in a week with the mission team from Fredericksburg. When I got to the church in the morning Pastor Sasha and a few of the guys were busily set about destroying a pitiful-looking wooden book case that sagged in the corner. The guys were taking great delight in applying a hammer to the thing, and throwing the broken off chunks out of the window onto the wood pile below. I laughed at the scene--boys triumphantly destroying stuff. As soon as the furniture was gone and the trash hauled out, though, the guys disappeared. I later learned that the task of cleaning the place was up to Enisa and I: Bosnian men don't clean.

7 hours and one gargantuan bad mood later, I took out my irritation on a guy in line behind me at the supermarket--I was trying to check out, and all the while he and his cart were ever-encroaching on me, trying to push me out of the way. Because of the impending cart I became so far away from the cash register and nowhere near being able to sign my credit card receipt that, in great hmmph I finally turned, pushed him and his cart back, and said in exasperation, "Ex-CUSE me, I'm NOT finished here." I exited the store with a furious flourish, muttering something about rude Europeans and sexism and no concept of personal space.

I felt guilty later as I cooked dinner for company I was having that night, and as I sipped Cabernet Sauvignon, I repented for my bad attitude, although I think the wine, not me, was doing the majority of the "repenting." I found myself slipping from annoyance to condescending pity:

Poor things, they just don't know any better. Westerners are soooo enlightened--men and women can share tasks like housework, and they don't let it affect their sense of man and womanhood.

Agh! Is there no end to my sinful heart? I was on a vicious downward spiral of bitterness, and went to bed feeling utterly put out. I woke up Sunday morning in no mood to worship, and secretly glad that it wasn't communion Sunday, thinking any communion intake on my part would result in lightning bolts. During worship, though, God "corrected" me, and I left church feeling like a humble dog that's just been whacked with a newspaper for knocking over the garbage can.

Have you ever had this experience? Repenting for one's own "righteousness" is often a worse process than repenting for blatant and outright sin. I let such a minute thing ruin my weekend that I embarrassed myself. The humiliation, realizing my need for God in this situation was a great lesson, I think.

Worth 4 minutes

"Things have really, really, really....gotten good."

When babies are born August

I have a favorite little supermarket a block away from my apartment. It's open 7 days a week until midnight, and every time I go, the same lady is working. She looks about 7 months pregnant, and mans the place all by herself. She's always exceedingly nice to me, and I think, a little excited that an American frequents her store. She makes a pleasant comment about every item I put on the counter, and insists on speaking to me in German, even though I've told her several times that Americans don't speak German. "But you look German!" she always responds.

Yesterday I tried to ask her about her pregnancy, pointing to her tummy and saying heaven knows what in Bosnglish, but halfway through the broken sentence I realized I was breaking a cardinal rule: sometimes people who are a little heavyset look pregnant but actually are not, and, though I was almost certain that she was, I felt the color draining from my face as I tried to backpeddle out of the situation. But it was too late. She was already smilingly waiting for me to continue.

I understood that there was no way I could abruptly just shut my mouth and walk out of there, though I desperately wanted to, or at least find a hole to crawl into and die in, so I continued, bracing myself. In Bosnian, the rest of my pitiful sentence could be translated to, "Um, when babies are born....August...?" She knew what I meant, and to my great relief, a big grin broke out, "Da! Da, Avgust!" I smiled back. "My birthday...August!" "Super!"

She now thinks the world of me, I'm sure, but as I walked back to my apartment, I was feeling a little weak-kneed. Next time I try to make Bosnian small talk I'm going to stick with topics like music and football.

Top Picks

I heard it said that there are as many cafes in downtown Sarajevo as there are people. That's very possibly true. While I haven't visited all of them, I have been to many; some are great, some are so so, but most of them are fantastic! Below is a review of three of my favorites--enjoy...

Unitec--For the Starbucks (and air conditioning) lover, I'd suggest Cafe Unitec, located right next to the famous Holiday Inn hotel in downtown Sarajevo. Wealthy businessmen/women and foreign tourists staying at the pricey hotel frequent Unitec. Great selection/variety, and anything you'd want to find from a place like Starbucks: from iced mochas to double tall extra hot lattes with/without whip. Spacious, comfortable chairs, tastefully decorated, friendly, prompt, unobtrusive waiters, unobtrusive music. Great place to read or study for hours uninterrupted. Quite inexpensive compared to Starbucks.

Cafe Buybook--Downtown. Great location. Similar to Unitec, but smaller and a bit more "hip," with louder music and waiters under the age of 30 and dressed in all black. Great atmosphere: low lighting, wooden floors, large dance floor, artsy bookstore upstairs. Patrons enjoy a great variety from the menu: again the beverages are similar to Starbucks. Prices comparable to Unitec. For artists, readers of poetry, and those who are ironically detached or wish to be.

Nes (Nesh)--My top choice. A truly Bosnian cafe. Small, right off the street--majority of the patrons are locals. Very simple: just tables, chairs and coffee. Menu is much more limited than Unitec and Buybook: here you find Bosnian (Turkish) coffee, espresso, kafa sa mlieko (coffee with milk), and kafa sa slagom (coffee with cream--real, heavy whipping cream made by local dairy farmers: out of this world). Very inexpensive (kafa sa slagom is less than $.50 USD) Oh, and did I mention beer? From morning til night the locals (mostly men) sit and gab and smoke and drink Sarajevsko Pivo (Sarajevan beer). Happy hour is all day long at Nes. Don't visit Nes if being stared at and talked about by both the locals and the waiters makes you uncomfortable.

A cafe very similar to Nes

Last weekend I was in Zagreb, Croatia. I had been there 6 years ago but didn't remember how wonderful it was. Walking along the busy street past the piazzas and cafes, past the McDonald's and Subway restaurants, amidst the bustling tourists, and locals going to and from work, through the botanical garden that was reminiscent of NY's Central Park, I began to feel like I could move there and be happy for the rest of my life. I wondered why I was feeling such a strong emotion for the place, and then it began to dawn on me...what I had mistaken as affection for the city was, in actuality, affection for the prosperity of the city, and for the western influence that had touched it.

Sarajevo, and most of Bosnia, is so poor and depressed it is much less influenced by western culture than other countries. Being in a prosperous place caused me to realize the affect that the depression of Bosnia has had on me; I literally feel the weight of it. It also makes me think harder about where my priorities are.

I carelessly made a comment to my Bosnian tutor this week about how I would like to find some more furniture for my apartment: a couple of end tables for the living room and some shelves for the bathroom. She said, "Why do you want to do that, isn't what you have enough?" She was right--it is enough.