Thursday, July 26, 2007

Inferno

So I am finally able to post again. For some reason the computers I have been using have not let me write any new entries...very strange. Oh well, it's Serbia. I am in the last week here in Novi Sad and it is somewhat strange. While I am really excited to travel for an entire month, I will miss the friends I've made in Novi Sad and the cheap prices of Serbia. :)

The past week has been hellishly hot. Southeastern Europe was hit with a wicked heat wave and it was miserable. It was in the 40's all week long and didn't drop much at all at night (maybe high 30's). For those of you who, like me, are not familiar with Celcius, that means it was in the 100's and dropped to the 90's at night. 104 to 110 degrees F for a week sucks, especially with the humidity and no fans. That's right folks, Serbia doesn't believe in fans. Some people have AC (the stupid little units drip on ou as you walk down the street), but apparently fans have not caught on. I asked Dejan about fans and he said you could find one for about 50 Euro. I told him that was crazy. $65 for a fan! Sheesh. So Susie, Anhchi, and I just puddled. Sleeping was nearly impossible and when we woke up we were in a pool of sweat...good times. Thankfully, a cool front has come through Serbia and the weather today and yesterday has been beautiful. It's so nice to be able to sleep at night and not want to shower 20 times a day.

EXIT was fabulous. We all had a blast and of course I got sick afterwards from not sleeping. I'm too old for this stuff. :) We all were in the papers, which was funny. Being in the front row helped with that, as did having an asian girl in our crew. Since Serbia is SO white, they are fascinated by anyone who looks different. It is very different from what I'm used to in the U.S. The Beastie Boys concert was really good and we have some really good pics thanks to Anhchi's camera. Lauryn Hill and Snoop were alright too...Snoop puts on a really good show. My favorite, though, was Basement Jaxx. I had not even heard of them although I knew some of their songs, but they were great! I think that was by far the most fun of the performances we saw up front. I would have liked to see more of Groove Armada, but we had to get out of the crazy Prodigy crowd and take a breather, so we missed most of their performance. Those were all acts on the main stage. There were over 20 stages at EXIT. The dance arena was probably the wildest...people were packed into it until they forced everyone out of the fortress each day at 8am. I have some video footage and some pictures. I would definitely recommend EXIT to anyone who loves music and likes to party...you should check it out next year.

Work is winding down. At the same time, however, it is picking up in some ways. I had a workshop on Classroom Management for the volunteers at the Roma Children's Center on Tuesday evening and Susie and Anhchi are doing a Stress Management / Self-Care workshop on Friday. Nena has also asked me to give suggestions about what other workshops they should have for the volunteers before the Center reopens. I probably could have had four or five workshops with them if it had been planned earlier. Live and learn. Next week we hope to go visit a Roma NGO that is also working with the kids, helping to register them in school and prepare them to go to school if needed. It sounds like a great organization and is even cooler, in my opinion, because it is a Roma NGO (ie, Roma people run it and work there). It flies in the face of all the negative stereotypes that people in this region have about Roma. I love that!

If you ever happen to find yourself in Serbia and you find out there is a basketball game against the U.S., don't go. This happened to us this past weekend. Apparently, there is some championship tournament for "under 19" basketball teams. Countries send their "national" under 19 basketball teams to compete. It's like an international high school bball tournament. I wonder about other countries and how seriously they take their national teams...I think ours was some AAU team that just decided to do it. Serbia takes it VERY seriously. Good grief. I have never seen such a hostile crowd. I felt really bad for those kids on the court. They were booed consistently, including during the national anthem and when they went to shake hands with the Serbian team and after the game when they had lost and went to shake hands with the Serbian team again. Ridiculous. Talk about poor sportsmanship and disrespect. Now part of this is political, which I understand, but these are a bunch of high school kids that have nothing to do with our governmental policy. I was really proud of those boys though. They were very classy and were good representatives, never stooping to the level of the crowd. Susie, Anhchi, and I were the only U.S. citizens in the crowd and we were loud and cheered the whole time. I think if we had been men we may have had some trouble, but being women, we only got minimal crap from people around us. We ended up leaving before the medals were awarded because I couldn't handle the booing any longer. If they booed the boys after we lost and were going to shake hands, what would keep them from booing throughout the awards ceremony? I would have gotten too pissed off and something may have happened, so we left. Why the hell would you boo the team you just beat? Ugh.

My final note for today...any of you who are Harry Potter fans, go get the book and read it now. It is fantastic! I couldn't wait, so I got a copy here. It would have been awful if someone had given away the ending before I could read it, so being the nerd that I am, I got it and read it within two days (it would have taken less time if I hadn't had to go to work). :)

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