what happened to May?

Suddenly it is almost June- I'm not quite sure how it happened, but it did. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that this past month has been jam-packed with activities. So much so that it makes me tired just to think about writing about all of it. Here is the breakdown of my recent whereabouts in a nutshell:

May 1st-5th: Celebrating European Labor Day, my birthday, bidding farewell to my lovely roommate Lauren, and packing up all my possessions to vacate our apartment.

May 5th-11th: Organizing the Winds of Change Concert Tour "From Paris to Skopje" which was just 2 concerts in Sarajevo- but they still required plenty of work. (while taking up temporary residence on my friend Emira's couch)

May 11th-16th: Feeling horribly ill with some GI track bug, hoped to get better with rest & relaxation but ultimately had to go to the hospital, finally felt better by Friday night though. (Moved to my new place, sharing it with the previous tenant a lovely British woman, Emma)

May 18th-25th: Traveled to the Netherlands with the Winds of Change by bus, to perform in concert with the very prestigious Netherlands Blazers Ensemble for their concert "Balkan Wedding"

May 25th-Now: Finally enjoying a week to relax and sort through everything that has happened. Emma has departed from Sarajevo, my new roommate Bronwyn will move in sometime this week- we can begin to make this place really feel like ours.

So yes, it's been intense. I would be very content to do absolutely nothing at all this week. However, there's evaluating to be done at work, next steps to consider for Winds of Change, lessons to be learned, things to do for the aparment, etc. etc. etc. Oh wow, and here I am wanting to take a nap again...

The other current issue is that summer has suddenly made an early entrance. The past couple days have all been in the 80s and there isn't any sign that things will cool off again anytime soon. This came without warning and my body is none too happy about it. I was already feeling sluggish- and the heat is only adding extra weight to my limbs. I don't mind this sort of weather usually, so luckily it is only a matter of time until I adjust, but we'll see just how much time. A lake, river, or some other body of water would offer a welcome reprieve... too bad the Miljacka is small and smelly.

I'd like to crack open the nutshell version of events offered earlier just a bit, to offer a few anecdotes and details about this whirlwind of a month. Even if I don't get them all in right now, hopefully more will be added over the next week or so.

Many people helped to make my birthday festivities very happy indeed- including my parents, Janna Scott, and Emily Brown who arranged for me to receive flowers here which were all beautiful and very much appreciated. I also went out for several tasty meals with various friends- including a great group of undergrad girls who were here in Sarajevo for a month as part of their Balkan semester abroad. I was really impressed by them- to choose this region for an Under-graduate study abroad experience is very brave in my opinion, and they were also doing really intense research comparable to the work of some grad students. I enjoyed their presence too as a reminder of my study abroad experience and friends- and because it was nice to be the oldest member of a group for a change rather than the youngest. Being with them felt very natural and familiar: American college undergrads, now here is something I know. No un-stated cultural differences to determine, no traumatic pasts or grudges held to tip-toe around. A breath of fresh air indeed.

I must take a moment too, to relate the story of Rachel's (one member of the group) host-family in Zagreb. Once again, this reminded me of some of the qualms my study abroad group experienced in Barcelona- but perhaps on a more serious scale. She was with an older couple who fed her ridiculous quantities of food- so much in fact that on one occasion she was unable to keep it all down. She had been presented with entire large pizzas for her consumption in one sitting- which she had dealt with by throwing some out the window. The couple had photographs of students they had hosted in the past which they proudly presented to her, describing each student in terms of how much they could eat. Their degree of approval for each student was directly proportional to the quantity that the student could eat. “This is John. He could eat 20 palincinke- he was a great student.”, “This was Susie, she could only eat 2 palincinke- she was ok” (code for “she was no good at all”). Rachel apparently didn’t want to be deemed mediocre based on poor eating performance. I’m not sure what vomiting did to her approval rating. Her experience though is not untypical for any guest coming into a Balkan home. As a visitor you deserve the best and absolutely must get a taste of everything - preferably an extremely large taste and seconds too. Just when you think you've eaten all the dinner you can handle, your host produces some monstrosity of a dessert out of no where. I experienced this first-hand when I went with Emira and Bronwyn to visit Emira's Aunt in Osijek, Croatia at the beginning of February. It is quite difficult learning to manuever your way through meal time in a way that is polite but does not leave you wanting to explode. (Actually it is impossible.)

So enough about eating and the trials of Rachel- on to the Winds of Change concerts. Our 2 international musicians, Willem van Merwijk and Jaume Gavilan Agullo were set to arrive on Monday, May 5th. The first mishap of the week came though when I got a call on Monday morning from Jaume saying he had missed his flight because he had forgotten to bring his passport to the airport. So there was a bit of reshuffling and recoordinating with MwB Int to schedule him a new flight. But then Willem, who had been able to catch the flight enjoyed another whole set of problems due to delayed flights. Neither of them ended up arriving exactly as planned. The week contained various additional blunders, but we did make it through to the concerts on Thursday and Saturday evening which were both beautiful if small. People's interest here in Sarajevo still has yet to be proplerly sparked in terms of work that is new, fresh, and innovative. Instead there is an emphasis on the traditional and the rules of theory- and professional musicians are treated with very minimal respect. So our group is certainly of a pioneering sort, and at this point it is still an uphill battle... but our subsequent trip to the Netherlands offered a ray of sunlight, illuminating what the (distant) future might hold.

Besides the production of two concerts, the week was also a good one because of Willem and Jaume's presence. They came for a week in December too when I had only just arrived, and I regard them as wonderful friends. Both have a certain energy and zest which I associate with musicians and perhaps other artists and performers as well. Spending time with them is always great, and I also value the fresh opinions they can give about MwB's work here Sarajevo. Often they are able to confirm thoughts and suspicions I have already had- which is nice, because sometimes here I start to think that maybe I am crazy. Unfortunately the combined time and energy it took for all of the planning, concerts, and hanging out probably were what caused me to get sick the following week...

It struck on Sunday night but I assumed I would recover with a little extra sleep and fluids. Unfortunately come Tuesday morning (the mental deadline I had set for diving back into life) I felt just as bad, if not worse than I had the day before. Still bent on letting my body fix itself, I continued to wait things out until Wednesday afternoon when my illness took on a disturbing new development and I decided to take action. Unfortunately here, if you do not have a regular clinic you attend, there is a rather complex and bureaucratic system for obtaining healthcare (but it's cheap!). This involved first going to the emergency room where they write you some sort of entrance slip for the hospital- which is on the other side of town. Then you go to the hospital, there's an initial admittance room where they ask some questions and then you get sent all over the entire complex for about 3 hours seeing different doctors and having different tests done. It was thorough I must say- although who knew that for GI track complaints one needed to have an X-Ray done? I also had an ultrasound, blood taken, many questions asked, blood pressure, and even a bit more. Thankfully Emira came along to translate and Bronwyn was there for awhile as well to provide peace of mind. By the end Emira was more familiar with my bodily functions than anyone would ever want to be. Final diagnosis- food poisoning, which I'm not sure I even agree with. But whatever- they gave me medicine, and eventually it fixed me, and that is what is important. Friday still involved a lot of sleep, and Saturday a lot of packing and more sleep. Sunday however, we departed for the Netherlands...