Ja sam Leez. Ja sam Amerikanka

I am Leez. I am American.

I was adopted by the Turić family on Saturday – wonderful people. They live outside the city center, near the Arena Zagreb, where the handball championship final (France-Croatia, France won) was held tonight. It’s a typical Bloc-style high-rise residential area – everything is sort of cement colored, graffiti everywhere, stray dogs, the usual.

But, the Turić’s live in one of the rare houses on a nice side street – the neighbors have lots of chickens and some turkeys. The church bells woke me up at 7am, before the sun even rose. Two other SIT students – Alex and Fiona – live in a building about 200 meters from my house, so we’ll spend a lot of time commuting together. It’s about 45 minutes by a bus and tram to Jelačić Square.

Mama – Branka – is a nurse, working at a hospital in Zagreb. She moved to Zagreb from Bosnia in 1989; she speaks very little English, but we get by. We laugh a lot. I’m getting the hang of all the polite phrases of refusal – she has been stuffing food in me since we met at the homestay reception on Saturday night.

Tata – Slavan – is a big Dalmatian guy. I haven’t really figured him out yet. He is a restaurant manager and doesn’t speak any English, and so I think I unnerve him. He likes sports and cigarettes, and that is about as much as I’ve gotten.

The twins – Brslav and Blaž – are 14. They look EXACTLY alike and are REALLY tall – I’m talking, like, six feet. They love sports too, especially basketball. They are sharing a bedroom while I’m here – I’m in Blaž’s room, it’s papered in basketball posters. They speak pretty good English, so they translate whenever it’s really needed.

Veronika, 12, is daddy’s little girl. She’s sort of shy, but I can tell that she is proud of her American sister. Everyone is so fascinated by me, it’s sort of off-putting.

The neighbors came to see me today – Marija (nicknamed Kika) is 17 and is so sweet. She couldn’t wait for me to come over to friend her on Facebook (she’s addicted) and to see her room and tell her if it was “American enough” (it’s great). She goes to a high school focusing on language and speaks really good English – she’s memorizing Caesar’s monologue (“Friends, Romans, countrymen…”). She wanted to hear all about shopping in the States – she only has H&M. There definitely isn’t a lot of selection here for the middle class.

Marija and Luka – Fiona’s host brother – showed me how to get into the city this afternoon. Luka is 16 and speaks really great English. He’s a character. He professes a love for capitalism and thinks that the McDonald’s Big Mac is the best help America has ever given Croatia. He wanted to know what Burger King is like… (I told him not to worry about it, that McD’s has better fries anyways).

I’m beginning to understand what life is like for these kids… I know that I already understand the excess of American life better than most people, but it hit me today… How must it feel to hear about Burger King, the Gap, whatever, and not be able to access it? They asked me how much a Big Mac costs in the U.S. – I said we can get meal for about $5 (20 kuna or so). Luka said that it was bullshit, that average Americans earn 4 times the average Croatian salary (about $1000/month) and McDonald’s is still cheaper for us.

Something about all of that seems unfair. I know that retail and fast food aren’t the most important things in life, but here are two incredibly bright, smart kids, who will probably live at home until they are their late twenties, because they still won’t be able to afford housing/living expenses, even though they will each have free college educations. There’s something that gives me the feeling of non-prosperity…

The past week has been altogether surreal – Today was probably the hardest day so far. I think I’m slowly progressing through the next stage of culture shock; I’m quickly becoming disillusioned with Zagreb, and although I like it and I’m happy for the most part, it’s getting easier and easier to find things to dislike – a phase that I know will pass.
I’m glad that I’m moved in, settled, and can begin some sort of routine.

Tomorrow I can continue my ontological and epistemological questioning of existence and meaning... Nothing like a foreign city, culture, language, family, that can make you question your world, knowledge, and experience.