It's finally Friday

Yes, I enjoy Friday afternoons in Zagreb too. This week has been realllllllly long. We've had between 5 and 8 hours of class everyday since Monday and we're all tired of being in the classroom. But, we had 3 guest lecturers and did a documentary marathon, so it wasn't all bad - and there were fewer circular discussions about conflict theory than last week, thank God.

We had a great field study seminar (FSS) class today. We discussed some of our impressions that we had of "the Balkans" (although I am increasingly seeing that as a loaded term) before we got here. Also, some of the reactions people have had to our plans: lack of knowledge about the fr. Yugoslavia, misinformation about violence, fears of human trafficking, etc. We talked about "war tourism," that is, coming here with our own agendas of sightseeing/voyeurism. I don't think any of us can say that we are exempt from this - there is a certain fascination that even I have with the history of violence here, even if it is at a subconcious level. It's intriguing. So, we talked about how to manage that and go about our study here effectively and objectively (we are not tourists!!).

I've been sort of annoyed with some of the coursework. I learned loads of Croatian before I came, when most didn't know how to say hi/bye/thank you. Luckily, they're catching up and Marija is doing a good job at challenging me. I'm particularly fed up with people who didn't seem to open a book about history (at least of the 1990s) here before they came. I'm really bored with the introductions to such characters like Milosevic and Karadzic, and events like the Siege of Sarajevo, Srebrenica, etc... and I'm tired of Orli saying, "Oh, but we'll get to discuss this more in Week 5." Everyone is really smart and they catch on quickly, but I expected more competition - I'm a little disappointed, that's all. I'm also bored with all the theory we're learning, it doesn't grab my attention...

We are doing a two day field visit to Vukovar and Ovčara next week. Vukovar is a town near the border with Serbia and was a site of a 3 month siege by Serbian paramilitary/nationalist forces in 1991. About 2,600-3,000 people were killed. Although it will be a very sad and humbling, it will be good to get out of the classroom for a bit.

More next week when I get back to Zagreb!

P.S. Happy 21st, Erin!!