I am feeling too good to report to work today

We're getting back into that time of year when the sun and I seem to be on the same schedule--waking up in the morning, the tree outside my window is bathed in that first sunlight,  the peak of the mountains, the neighbor's laundry all take on a softness. and the sun rises directly in line with our kitchen window--yes, I know in a few weeks it'll have shifted away, but there's something oddly beautiful about it, something surprising every time I wake up and there it is. Granted, we've also had our fair share of grey, cloudy, wintery (but not cold) days, so waking up to a beautiful day (and now I can say it in Albanian, sot është me diell--thanks Suzana for the language lessons yesterday!), well it's just glorious.

And all I can hear, repeating over and over and over again in my head is the poet Pedro Pietri's voice saying "I am feeling too good (rising tone) to report to work today!" a quote from his poem, Telephone Booth Number 905 1/2 (please watch the Poetry Foundation's video of him reciting it, right here right now right below), a poem I first encountered in seventh grade. And somehow, his voice has stayed with me since then (so yea middleschool teachers, be careful what you teach your seventh-graders, they might actually remember it).
And here he is, the man himself, 

 

 and today is one of those days--the mountains are out (on both sides) and I could spend all day watching the way the light changes on the mountainsides (and yes, Mike, you are right. there is red in everything. especially these leaf-less tress outside my windows).

But perhaps I'm not as hard core as Rev. Pedro--because here I am, at work. drinking tea with Suzana, and waiting for professors to return their books. and watching the light change on the mountainside.

Finding Freire in Religious Freedom Day

Last night was an event at the American Corner of Tetovo around the day of Freedom of Religion (a holiday I didn't know we celebrated back home), and Gezim and Saranda asked me to lead the discussion. As a rather agnostic person myself, I must say at first I was a little unsure about leading a discussion about freedom of religion, especially in a place where religion can be linked to issues of ethnicity--a volatile issue to say the least. But, being me, I said ok. and I'm so glad I did. Not because I've had some religious revelation, or some political epiphany about the importance of choice (something I believed already) but because it gave me yet another perspective on life here. It was a small group--not more than ten or eleven--but included a really eloquent (enough that even though he spoke in Albanian I could tell) professor at Tetovo State University, and the leader of the Bektashi community here in Tetovo (as well as regionally). The Bektashi are a branch/sect of Islam which have a Tekke here in Tetovo (although it's contested space--although between whom is somewhat up to debate). There were two comments from the leader of the Bektashi community which struck me profoundly--the first was "religion is not a profession."

In this he was commenting on some of the corruption within the religious leadership, but it mirrored oh so closely another conversation I had (the night before) with friends about how ethnicity was becoming a profession--or if not a profession, than at least the most important job qualification someone could possess. It's a scary thought, especially because it not only speaks to the degree in which ethnicity is understood as the primary "identity umbrella" as Malvina put it, but also, if this is indeed true, sheds light on the vicious cycle of identity reificaiton in process here. how do we transcend this process?

and again, I think of sitting next to one of the small rivers in Sanski Most, outside the CIM office, with the sun on our backs, laughing with Vahido, writing down different identities we felt we belonged to, and then slowly (sometimes painfully) crossing them off.

The second comment the Bektashi leader made was a bit more spiritual: he said "Religion. that is simple. The first step is to know yourself. and once you know yourself, then you can find the right (for you) path to God."

There's a simple beauty to it. Enlightenment as coming from within.

It, oddly, feels very Feirian--very praxis-ish, reflection first, then action.

and I want to just say something light--like 'sounds like my kind of religion.' which perhaps is true, but I think for me it speaks to a larger philosophy of being--which I guess could be religious, if that's how you see things, but I think I prefer the terminology spiritual. because I don't think the path from knowing yourself just leads to God--it leads everywhere. if you want to accept God as part of that--that's your personal choice, part of your personal path.

Over the weekend, I visited the other ETA in Stip and we got talking about religion, and she asked me what I believed in. In perhaps a roundabout way, I responded 'curiosity' which I'm not sure is really the answer to "what do I believe in" (other than papuci--house slippers). but it's certainly one of my  sources of motivation. But I think what the Bektashi leader said perhaps speaks more eloquently to what it is I believe in--which is self honesty, self-knowledge. and for me, this process has no end. there is no finite conclusion to a reflective process, a reflective practice. And that, for me, is where curiosity comes in.

It's also given me a chance to revisit Freire--I'm actually thinking of assigning sections for my classes next semester (and ooh is reading Pedagogy different here. it feels a lot more blunt to say the least, and I think my challenge will be to get students thinking about "oppression" as being broader than just ethnicity--because of course it is, but I think it can be easy to forget about the multidimensionality of oppression. or to be able to situate yourself within another system of oppression (for example gender)). and so much of what speaks to me about Freire is his emphasis on the role of dialogue, and how this pedagogy is a life-long project--a life philosophy in a way (what's that old civil rights song--they say that freedom is a constant struggle?).
There's a lot about Freire's presentation style which I'm finding myself jarred by (perhaps it's that it was 8am. brain calisthenics to say the least.)  and he does say that overthrowing oppression will require just as much violence as the initial oppression brought--and here I disagree, because I'm not convinced that this won't only lead to re-oppression, lead to more violence (is violence ever justified? I'm going to have to table that question for another day.)

I haven't found the conclusion yet for this piece--perhaps the subject matter itself lends itself to inconclusive writing?

oh what a night: Badnik 2013

I think, my friends, I have a new favorite holiday.

Badnik is some beautiful mixture of Halloween, Easter, Block party and a disco. and I hope no Macedonians are reading this, because for true Badnik-ers, that probably sounds kind of sacrilegious. For Julie and me, the night had an added twist: we went to the Frizer (salon) to get our hair done. and then had to walk through Tetovo in our jackets with huge '50s hair.

For quite a while I'd been hearing stories about this "badnik" holiday--something about dressing up, and kids going around the neighborhood asking for money, and an oak tree. Up until we stepped out of Culi's house, I really didn't know what to expect. and was delightfully surprised.

Early on in the preparations (a few weeks ago) Malvina, Julie and I decided we wanted to go in joint costume--and somehow we settled upon 1950's housewife. If things got slow at any point in the night, I had a batch of cookies, and Julie some yellow rubber gloves, so we could get down to business. Malvina, instead, took the more glamorous route, and I hear she was on local TV--but can't verify this myself. Between Julie and I is Darko--who dressed as some character (Freddie?) from a film I didn't recognize. Culi--in case this needs clarification--is Aladdin (note the curls on his shoes). and Nebojsa (friend of Culi's, one of the poets who read at the Scardina Fest back in Sept) was a ninja (although I was hoping he'd transform it into a super mutant ninja turtle. (thanks for the photos Sandra!)

So Badnik.
After our adventures at the Frizer (it was really beautiful to watch this woman transform Julie's hair), we all met at Culi's house to get ready. When we arrived, his hands were covered in green, and he was two thirds of the way finished with transforming Nebojsa into a ninja. All the while, groups of kids would come to the door, ring the bell and then start singing this song asking for gifts. and every so often Baba Sava would pop in, saying either "the priest is coming! hurry up!" or "don't you lose those cooking utensils." after we were all dolled up (quite literally), we went outside into the street where they had constructed a pit for making fires (two halves of a metal drum) and a table with food on it. and music! there were people dancing oro (and other variations) in the street, and it was only a little while before I passed my dish of cookies off to someone else and jumped in. I had forgotten what it felt like to just abandon myself in music and dance, although as the evening progressed the music got more and more turbo-folky. After a while the priest came and blessed this big round loaf of bread and the rest of the food ("sarma!" Malvina smiled), and then we all took a piece of bread. Inside the loaf is a coin, and whoever gets the coin is responsible for hosting next year's fire. Thankfully (unluckily?) none of us got it--I'd love to be back for another Badnik. but probably not as host. After the breaking of the bread, an oak branch was blessed and everyone took home some sprigs--and now if you walk through some neighborhoods, all the doors are adorned with little oak twigs. 

What was so beautiful to me was not just that we were all hanging out in the street, chatting, talking, dancing, drinking rakija, but that it felt truly like a neighborhood party. a neighborhood event. it was beautifully multigenerational--dancing the oro were both Baba Savas and little kids. and everyone in between. and each neighborhood (a small geographic area by my standards) had their own celebration, their own party and music. Some seemed a little less active than ours--no dancing (and no Baba Sava yelling "hush" as the priest was giving the blessing. I have a feeling she keeps this neighborhood running like a well oiled machine), but it was beautiful nonetheless to walk through and see this group of people, standing around a bonfire, smiling. kids knocking on doors, singing. many people were in costume--which I hear is a Tetovo tradition, rather than part of the Badnik kit and cabootle. and there was always some laughter.
 after a while, we moseyed into town, into a hall formerly owned by the local textile company and now a restaurant (where, as Culi informed us, "you can get the best breakfast soup in town.") which for the night had been transformed into a place for dancing. and we danced.

dancing isn't a huge part of my life these days--there aren't really places to dance in Tetovo, in part, I think, because the community is generally a bit more conservative. and oh how I miss it.

but the other thing Badnik got me thinking about was space. no surprises there. But walking through Tetovo (our Frizer was by the painted mosque--on the SEEU side of the center of the city, but a good 15 minute walk from Culi's house), we definitely got looks from people. and then it felt like we crossed the street and suddenly there were kids in costumes going door to door, the glow of fires burning just up the street. music coming from somewhere. the looks shifted from inquiring to impressed. all of a sudden it felt like something was happening. that it was a holiday (I felt that again today--Orthodox Christmas--walking around the older parts of the city, up the hill towards Kale (the fortress) where all the shops that usually have a small gaggle of old men sitting outside, basking in the sun, were markedly empty, or the basketball court by Sveti Nikola church had no kids playing games--some neighborhoods were totally quiet, everyone at home eating Christmas lunch). And I know that Culi's neighborhood (or probably any neighborhood in Tetovo) isn't solely Macedonian or Albanian--and so I wonder how the celebration is (or is not, but really I suspect is) made accessible to all--if people get turned off by the religious rituals around the priest and blessing and crossing yourself. because I see in a celebration like Badnik great potential to celebrate community--ours in the most open way. Certainly, there's a lot about Badnik--the symbolism, rites, history, context--that I don't know, and knowing it could change my impression (or at least supplement it) of it as a community/neighborhood party and not as a deeply religious, spiritual, national/nationalist hoedown (although--like any celebration, that really all depends on what people make it, and how they celebrate it. and for those who wanted their religious experience, I'm sure you could find it, and for those who wanted to do their Macedonia chest-thumping, I'm sure they found space too). so. yeah. a lot would need to change for Badnik to be a truly open holiday--but somehow in my gut, I can see it happening. slowly, surely. but happening nonetheless.one Badnik at a time

 maybe I'm drawn to Badnik because a lot of American holidays are either super family centric--or crowd focused (I'm thinking of all the 4th of July day parades I've been to in my life, and I guess they're about community, but to me it feels like it's more about spectacle). and maybe it's that I love this idea of having a strong sense of community at a really localized level, and finding ways to celebrate or build those relationships.

and maybe I just am looking for excuses to dance in the streets.

Chukaluk holiday!

Gezim--one of the two people in charge of the American Corner in Tetovo--always calls the kids 'chukaluks' and somehow the name has kind of stuck. and yesterday was our "holiday show." In the days/week preceding the show, honestly, I was feeling just a bit anxious--there were so many unknowns. so many things that hadn't come together just yet. and so many things we couldn't predict (like who was actually going to show up on Saturday)--but the kids never ceased to amaze me.
they organized extra practices, stayed at least for two hours each class (which are usually an hour long),  wanted to learn more songs ("but teacher," they'd say, "what about Rudolph the red-nosed..." and then they'd pause, looking at the word reindeer, puzzling.) and when I told them to go home and practice Deck the Halls--they did! they figured out the difference between the fa-la-la-las. I think I didn't expect them to be so dedicated, so invested in the show. but they kept surprising me.

Malvina--my fellow fulbrighter in Tetovo (she's here doing research)--and I decided just about a month ago that we wanted to do something for the holidays--and then dove in. I turned "learn English through games" into "chukaluk choir practice," and Malvina organized an adaptation of "how the grinch stole christmas." one girl and her cousin choreographed a dance, we made decorations. practiced standing as a choir. practiced our cutoffs. counting off the songs. practiced being sleeping citizens of Whoville (trying not to snore too loudly, or wake the others with our giggles). practiced holding up our signs for the 12 days of christmas. and then, like any good holiday show, it ended with a group boogie while Rina danced.

adorable. just adorable.

but more than being adorable, I was really proud of the kids. of standing up there in front of a bunch of mothers in headscarves and conducting a program entirely in English--and all the kids were right there, following right along. reading the lyrics, singing, reading their scripts with emotion and feeling.

Last week--in the heat of our rehearsal, it became evident that one of the boys was crying, or had been.
and this was my first real "oh my god what do I do" moment as a teacher. because with 30 kids--I didn't want to turn their attention just to this one kid (I had a feeling that probably wasn't ideal, especially as guys don't really cry here, or at least I get the sense they don't), and couldn't totally abandon the 30 other kids to spend the time with the one kid. After realizing that the issue was bullying--I pulled the two kids aside (bullier and bullied)--basically saying that this wasn't acceptable etc.
and then one of the other kids took over. I asked the kid who had been bullied if he wanted to come stand up towards the front, even though he's one of the taller kids--and then Kadir (who's one of the two kids who usually acts as my translator, and keeps everyone on task. seriously) took it upon himself to make sure this kid was doing ok--they'd disappear into the next room for just a minute, and I could just see that the kid who had been bullied really appreciated having someone support him/defend him/hear him. Kadir acted as his advocate, talking to Me, Gezim and Malvina about what had happened. it was really beautiful for me to see someone who I think of as a "kid" taking that kind of responsibility--of being so empathetic, so caring.
and then a second kid started to cry because he was worried that the kid who had been bullied would be upset with him for not standing up for him.

and on the one hand, I was mortified to have two crying boys in my class. all in one day!

and on the other hand, I was, and am, so inspired by them--because I saw them taking care of each other, and expressing this caring. so, if I didn't love them before, I certainly love the kids now.

we're already dreaming up a spring show.

I can't wait!

and for all you who missed it: how the grinch stole christmas, Chukaluk style and my debut as a conductor!

It also smelled like spring today--dirt-y and muddy, with bits of green poking out from behind the snow (some beautiful days did a number on the snow). although I can't wait for spring--I can't help but think "already? no. please. not quite yet." because I know after spring comes summer. and I want to savor each and every one of these Tetovo days/Tetovo dena/dite Tetova.

in gratitude/Neruda speaks!

I love the holidays (in part) because they're usually such an overload of people-time (family, friends, the hustle and bustle of doing all your christmas shopping on christmas eve), I'm always careful to find time for myself--to think, watch, listen, reflect. and I think being here, in Tetovo, for the holidays made me even more sensitive to myself, if that makes sense. But these past two days, I had both the opportunity and time/space to be patient with myself--take time to read, write, reflect. and I know this is totally cliche--but so much of my yuletide reflections ties back to gratitude. for having another holiday with my grandmother--even just through skype, for connection, community, family, good food. for coming home with homemade ajvar to homemade raw-milk yogurt.  for being here. for having gotten here (and perhaps more importantly, how we got here).
 
Gratitude isn't really a feeling I've figured out how to write about and not feel like I'm just preparing for my future career as a Halmark card composer. which, honestly, I don't think I'd enjoy all that much.
so rather than writing more, I'm giving the floor to Neruda

Your Feet


When I cannot look at your face
I look at your feet.
Your feet of arched bone
your hard little feet.
I know that they support you,
and that your sweet weight
rises upon them.
Your waist and your breasts
the double purple
of your nipples,
the sockets of your eyes
that have just flown away,
your wide fruit mouth,
your red tresses,
my little tower.
But I love your feet
only because they walked
upon the earth and upon
the wind and upon the waters,
until they found me.
 --Pablo Neruda (1959)

Here's to our feet

being present/presente*

It's been quite the week--news of Nick's death [Grinnell class of 2013] really shocked me, and left me speechless. and really wanting just to be able to sit at one of the tables in Saints Rest and be with Grinnellians. talk. listen. watch each other. be with each other. hug. cry if we need to. be present with each other. 
it's the social part of mourning that I both need, and is oh so place/community specific.
and not quite possible via skype (although it was wonderful talk talk with you Heather!)

and then friday, getting word about the school shooting in CT.

 
it hits me on the emotional level--of being a human being, mourning the senseless death of other humans; of being a teacher, being the child of teachers. as someone who profoundly believes in education. School, for me, has always been a sanctuary (not that I have a lot to escape from) but schools are sacred spaces for me, the school in West West was literally the heart of the community, and classmates, colleagues, teachers, friends, parents--these are the people who define my life. and events like this both remind me how lucky I am to have school as such a positive place in my life. and how easily violated that sacredness is.

 One of the things that I kept coming back to in my research in Bosnia was schools being spaces of violence, literally. Several of my interviewees talked about being detained in schools, and other research/narratives from the war talk about schools as actual sites of violence. and I can't wonder if the symbolic desecration of schools was intentional.

[you could also argue that they are currently sites of violence --structural, gender, and complicit in state-sactioned violence (they're certainly places where power dynamics are played out--which, some peace educators would also term violence).]

it's something I still don't quite know how to wrap my head around. but in these moments--something about our educational system (let alone society) feels broken--be it issues of gun control, violence (individual, structural, state-sanctioned), gender/gender norms, conversations about mental illness (not to add to the stigmas already surrounding mental illness--and not to imply that people with mental illness are dangerous (in fact quite the contrary), but I feel like it's a conversation we need to start having more/more frequently about how our society supports all its members). and then of the media coverage of such events.

One of the issues this brings up is how do we break cycles of violence/norms around violence--and what is my responsibility as an educator to tackle these issues with my students. much of the response that I've heard has been to pressure politicians to change gun control laws. yes. ok. great! let's do it. but I also feel that there's a deeper issue at stake--and one which I'm not quite sure my society is really ready to address--and that's violence in general. Although so much of my gut-reaction to these shootings is "'that' can't be normal"(although as Vahido pointed out--"my story is your story because we are both human. we all have the capacity to be as kind as angels or worse than devils.")--there's so much "legitimate" violence in American society-whether you look at american pop culture or political culture. and a lot of places in between. Gun control is one place to begin combating violence in American society, but it's going to take something deeper and more radical than that to really uproot the many ways in which violence has permeated American society.

and oh man is that going to be more difficult than the debate over the second amendment. 

I found out about the shooting over breakfast of the first morning of a non-violent training run by the NGO Loja (someday I'll have to dedicate some serious blog-time to writing about them.) the training was difficult for a number of reasons--and I think, for me, having these two events "set the tone," as it were, only made it harder.

I arrived for the final weekend (phase III) of a three-part training for university students, many of whom are studying to be teachers. Phases I and II consist of a series of workshops around different identity/dialogue/mediation skills, and part three is forming working-groups and designing projects to be implemented in local primary schools--which should be right up my alley.

I think part of my difficulty stemmed from some unclear communication as to what the training was--so it was only a day into the training that I understood what we were about to do. One of the big pieces of culture shock that I remember talking about before going abroad was the role of different/differing/unmet expectations--and how startling (and emotion provoking) that can be. and yes. if I didn't believe it then, I certainly believe it now.

another huge complication was the issue of language--the training was conducted in Albanian/Macedonian (it was a mixed group, with mixed trainers), and I felt really uncomfortable asking for translation in English--in part because I could watch the two main translators getting more and more tired as each day progressed because as translator/trainer--they never had a minute's rest, in part because of my own complex of not wanting to bother or impose on other people, in part because I didn't want another member of the group to remove themselves from the group/discussion to be my translator,  in part because I didn't really see my role as a "participant" but more as an observer--and there's a lot to observe without following the dialogue. and thus there were some unaligned expectations. and for some tasks, language really wasn't a problem--there was certainly a language barrier, but not (at least for me) a communication gap-- or at least not significant enough to pose a real problem. but discussing what informal education is, and designing a project are really hard things to do without shared language. let alone shared cultural knowledge (what does the Macedonian school system look like? what sounds crazy? what sounds reasonable? what is "realistic" mean in this context?). and then I also realized that my pedagogical training is different than that of my colleagues in the training--and that also became a source of tension for me because I felt like, on a philosophical level, we were just in different places around issues of power and control in the classroom. and then throw a language barrier on top of that.
and then this feeling of being responsible for what the outcome is--and how to resolve that tension within myself.

in short, I think identity (and the power/ability to define yourself) is at the crux of the matter (at least from my perspective). and I want to preface this by saying that I also understand how much more sensitive identity is (and differently organized--if that's the right term) here because I think that there's a lot of fear around identity being threatened, and I'm not quite attuned to what or how identity will be sensitive, in part because the ways in which I think about my own identity follow a different logic. For example, one of the activities we did was to pick the three most important items on a list (for example, having the right to choose, time for myself, keeping traditions, being on time...) and the overwhelming majority of the participants chose family relations as being one of their three top priorities. In general, I think individualism is valued (and expected) a lot more in the US, and so I don't quite fully comprehend or understand the importance of family here as a significant component and source of identity.

Additionally, during one of the breaks, when we were walking around Struga (which, like many former-Yugoslav cities (and I don't actually know if this is a result of Yugoslav city planning or something older) has a large pedestrian street (similar to Belgrade, Banja Luka, Sarajevo, Prilep, Bitola, Ohrid, Skopje...), I asked one of my fellow participants how they thought Tetovo would be different if it had such a public space, because for me, I experience Tetovo as a city with a lot of people, and not a lot of places for them to go. There--in my eyes--isn't a lot of public space set aside for pedestrians (most of it we have to share with cars (or in this time of year, snowpiles)). and she (the group was overwhelmingly female) responded, "well, Tetovo is a divided city. if we had such a pedestrian walk, there's be more inter-ethnic violence. who would want to walk down that street?" and this fear, I think, is part of the logic behind, part of the rational of living in a divided society--divided schools, divided public spaces (that's a Macedonian bar, that an Albanian), and as perceiving your context as so unique, so tense, so whatever, that whatever works someplace else couldn't work there. for example, Tetovo doesn't really have a dancing scene, a dancing culture. There aren't many places where you can go out and dance. it's in part, (I think), because Tetovo is a bit more conservative than other places, I think that conservatism is coupled with fear of what could happen if people got together and danced (and yes. it is important to acknowledge that violence does happen here. it is a legitimate concern--but I don't believe it's a healthy status quo to maintain. and, at least to me, the danger of dancing is a far cry from the problems posed by corruption, the mafia...). and yet, when we go out in Struga everyone's up dancing, and having fun. You could watch the Albanian and Macedonian students becoming more integrated through dancing together--in part because you literally couldn't talk (or at least you couldn't be heard) so we had to resort to body language, signing, smiling, the occasional wink. and yeah--the band was clearly Albanian (although their range covered Oh Suzannah, to We will we will rock you, to another song about balkava, to Xhamadani (Xh makes a hard j/g sound) vija vija (proud to be an Albanian)) and in the middle of a long Albanian set, you could see some of the Macedonian students feeling a little uncomfortable. but then the music would change and the dancing would begin anew. I know that participants in a non-violent conflict transformation training are probably not the members of society I need to worry about picking fights. but. how are we going to actually transform the conflict if we're afraid of even dancing together?
  People talk about the Čaršija in Skopje as being one of the last multi-ethnic spaces in Skopje and (not to sound like a broken record, I feel like this is all I write about these days) god, I think that's important for this society. because there's a lot of territory marking going on.

but I know that I also need to be vigilantly mindful that violence--especially inter-ethnic violence, or violence between ethnic groups spurred by any number of issues--is a reality. here and all over the place. including the United States. and it's going to be really difficult to transform the conflict here until there's a meaningful way to express/acknowledge/assuage this fear.


I was really happy that the issue my group chose to tackle was bringing students together from different schools (MK/AL) because we all agreed that this kind of division lead to stereotyping, fear etc. and I think my whole bend as an educator is trying to facilitate meaningful experiences for students (and again, let me introduce Brene Brown, she's got a great article on I-thou-it and cell phones)--and part of that process is letting students define what is meaningful for them. As one of my colleagues said today in a staff meeting for the Language Center--"well, by giving students those choices, we lose some of our autonomy as teachers." Yep--but I'm not sure that's such a bad thing (but, I can also see how loosing (or if we want to put more of a positive spin on it--transferring) that authority feels threatening to teachers). and I keep thinking about what it takes to "know" someone else--and how does education/educators help facilitate that process. of course it has to start somewhere--be it conversations about how we celebrate holidays, or how we cook or dinner. but I guess, my fear is that these getting to know about you activities also help shape and define who "we" are, who "you" are--and makes a lot of assumptions about similarities and differences between students, and already lays out the "identity vocabulary" available in this context, the lens through which we should see ourselves and "others."

how do we give students the power and opportunity to do this themselves--to pick who they are? what they are? and what do we have to do as educators to be ready to hear students?

 Obviously, this also raises the question (for me) of what do people here actually learn in school, and, perhaps more to the point, what do they learn about each other in school? but I got physically uncomfortable choosing the topic of "traditional identity" as the mechanism for "getting to know the other." in part because, for me, I'm much more interested in the skills--not the knowledge--that gets transferred (between trainers and students, students and students, students and trainers). and in part because I worry about conflating identities--between the individual and the collective, between religious and ethnic. I feel like tackling the issue of traditional identity will take a lot of skill as trainers/leaders, and honestly, I'm not sure I'm able/trained/ready to facilitate that kind of interaction.

in the face of all of this discomfort--on top of processing these emotional events, on top of linguistic isolation (being "lost in translation" literally, figuratively) on top of being dead tired--I felt myself pulling back, retreating.

and I hate that feeling in myself. I think for me it really gets back to this idea of being present with each other--and my own frustration when I feel that I'm not being adequately present/present enough with those around me, as well as challenging myself to constantly work on being more here.  


* at the School of the America's Watch protest I went to last fall, the event culminated in all of us carrying white crosses with names of the dead--and someone(s) reading the names of the deceased. after each name we chanted "presente," and walked in a processional, laying the crosses at the gate of the school. most of us were crying by the end of it.

No Country for old (or young) Citizens

In Spring 2011, one of the women I interviewed for my research in Bosnia commented, "a country without citizens, it’s not a country"--and her words have stuck with me. She was speaking specifically about citizenship policies in BiH--and how belonging to one of the three constituent peoples (Bosniak, Croat or Serb) is considered both necessary and simultaneously detrimental to the idea of Bosnia as a state--rather than Bosnia as a home of three nations, doing their own thing, pursuing their own objectives. At least for Bosnia--this three-nations under one state deal has created ample opportunities for nation-building, and not a whole heck of a lot of state-building. Although, of course, things have gotten better since '95 when Dayton was signed--there's now a united police force, common currency, a single flag, there are movements towards some common curriculum (although at least in 2010 that had stalled at covering math and science because they were the least controversial subjects, and therefore least likely to have an impact on national-identity development in schools/in youngsters. Virtually everything else is considered a "national subject" and the content varies considerably between schools/communities. which not only impacts what students learn but decreases mobility considerably (complicating processes of return) because schools are not comparable (for example: which year do you start studying English? how do you integrate a student who is one year, two years ahead or behind his/her peers?). In my research, I came across an amazing article called "Smoking Doesn't Kill, it Unites!" (what a way to kill those years of PSAs we all were subjected to in the States?) by Azra Hromadzic about inter-ethnic mixing in a two-schools-under-one-roof in Mostar over cigarettes smoked between classes (illegally) in the bathrooms (oh coffee and cigarettes. coffee and cigarettes). This isn't the exact article--but looks to be based off of that same fieldwork. and it's another fantastic read--she's doing some really great ethnographic research in BiH. who thought peace-building in Mostar begins in bathrooms? and let it begin with me? the image of hanging out in bathrooms over smokes... sign me up!(?)) 

I didn't expect Selma's (a pseudonym) words to stick with me, or to find parallel relevance here--but tonight I found myself re-reading the transcript of our interview. but one of the things that concerns me is that there's some vibrant nation-building going on, but not a whole heck of a lot of state-building. especially with politics so corrupt (I feel like I can say that pretty safely--but these are my own thoughts--not those of employers, state department etc.) there doesn't seem to be a lot of interest on the part of politicians to really invest in Macedonia the state (Macedonia, or X the nation is so much more sexy. or perhaps more importantly, emotional. there are are a whole heck of a lot more heartstrings attached, that's for sure) and money that should hypothetically be invested in the state--well, a lot of it ends up other places. which makes it even harder for citizens to feel like they belong to something called "the State"--and I mean that not in the socialist sense--when the state doesn't do much in return.