Week 1

Friday, September 10, 2010—Room #2, Tal Centar Hostel, Novi Sad, Srbja




I can’t believe it’s already Friday. As we speak, I am packing up my cloths and getting ready to leave the hostel that I have inhabited in for the past eight days. Later today, I will leave the relative comfort and familiarity of this place and move in with my homestay family. I am excited to begin this phase of my Serbian adventure, and I can’t help but look back on what a whirlwind this past week has been.

We arrived in Novi Sad last Thursday exhausted but excited. We dropped our bags off at the hostel and immediately began exploring the surrounding area. Our hostel is located near the city center in an area called the Pes̆ac̆ka Zona, or the pedestrian zone. This is an area dominated by sidewalk cafes and specialty shops where no cars are allowed. At the center of the PZ is a plaza that sits between an ancient catholic cathedral and city hall.

On our first reconnaissance mission, we sampled the food at a nearby pekara (bakery) and, of course, found the local McDonalds. While the pastries from the bakery were fantastic, it was their prices that truly surprised me. Five bottles of water and two pastries cost about 300 Dinars, or less than $4 USD. With food this tasty selling for such a low cost, it’s no wonder that last year’s group of students came back 10 Kg (about 20 pounds) heavier than they left.

On Friday morning we had our first Serbian language class. We started off pretty easily, learning the Cyrillic alphabet and how to introduce ourselves. After class, we began our orientation, which has been incredibly fun and interesting. We’ve taken care of the more mundane tasks, like meeting with our Serbian doctor and starting our application for long term visas, but we’ve also gone on several adventures too. On Friday, we took a river boat cruise of the Danube, and ate dinner at restaurant on a houseboat. During our cruise, we ended up talking to a man from Bulgaria, and we mentioned the fact that we would be working with Roma people in Nis̆. This led to our first encounter with blatant racism, as he proceeded to describe the whole of the Roma population as lazy and unwilling to adapt to modern society. Although it is unfortunate, this sort of attitude is one that we’ll have to get us to, as many people (in Serbia and in Europe as a whole) seem to share it.

On Saturday, we went on a scavenger hunt around the city. One of our tasks was to find a person who could sing a certain Serbian folk song (called Osam Tamburas̆a) and have them to teach it to us. After forty-five minutes of stopping random passersby and inquiring about this song in broken English, Serbian, and sometimes hand gestures, we were eventually successful. We finished our scavenger hunt by meeting Ceca (our fearless program coordinator) for dinner on the fortress overlooking the city, fully satisfied by our triumph. Later that night, as we returned to our hostel, Andres and I were invited to hang out and drink Rakija, the national drink of Serbia, by the son of the owner of our hostel.

On Sunday morning we took a break from class and ventured into the beautiful countryside around Novi Sad. We spent the morning at Asawari’s host mother’s vacation house in the tree covered mountains relaxing, hiking, and eating traditional Serbian food. Monday and Tuesday found us returning to our studies of not only the Serbian language, but Serbian history as well. On Tuesday afternoon, we had the opportunity to speak with Slobodan Ɖinvoić, a former professor of history at the University of Belgrade, and one of the leaders of the resistance movement that overthrew Slobodan Milosević in 2000.

Yesterday, I met Milovan, who will be my mentor at the Volunteer Center of Vojovodina (VCV), the organization that I will be working with. He invited me to attend an international conference that he organized in Belgrade next Tuesday. The conference is about youth volunteer exchange programs, which VCV helps to arrange. I probably won’t be able to understand much, as it will be simultaneously translated into French, German, and Serbian, but it will be very cool to visit Belgrade for the first time.

That’s about it for my week. I need to get back to packing, but I will probably post another update sometime next week. Until then, Chao!