Novak!!

The first piece of Serbian-related news my friend and I received upon arriving in Belgrade is that Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer were to face off in the Grand Slam finale last night. We planned to watch the match last night, but it was rained out so it happened while we were in a bus to Sarajevo. Still, Novak - as my Serbian friends affectionately call him - was the victor, adding yet another jewel to his crown of championships. Unsurprisingly, there's not a whole lot of celebrating happening in Bosnia right now but when we return to Belgrade it will no doubt be in abundance. Last time I was in Serbia, Djokovic was just starting to gain worldwide recognition after winning the Australian Open for the first time in 2011. Even then he was a Serbian celebrity, and now he has surpassed any other 21st-century Serbian superstar.

It's hard to describe his fandom in Serbia. He is beloved by everyone in this small country which is roughly the size of Austria or Maine. Last March, thousands of Serbs waited for hours just to see Novak Djovokic practice before his Davis Cup match against a Croatian player. Djokovic had requested to have his practice open to the public for fans who couldn't get a ticket for the match, and the fans came out in droves.

Though I'm a far cry from an avid sports consumer, it seems that the star athletes are usually beloved if they play for the team you root for or if they're from your hometown. When the Olympics rolls around people get excited about individual athletes because they're American, but the intensity of that admiration peaks every four years. Perhaps one could draw an analogy to, say, the Beatles or Taylor Swift, but Djokovic's fans represent every generation in Serbia, not just the youth. The mother of the woman hosting me in Belgrade is temporarily living in our apartment, and she informed us of the Sunday evening match. When the match was postponed this elderly Serb became distraught because, as she said, she had been looking forward to this match all week.

I'll keep an eye out for other ways to describe this extreme fame in Belgrade over the coming months.

Quest to Budapešt

As probably everyone knows at this point, Europe is currently dealing with an epic migrant and refugee crisis. Hundreds of thousands of people from the Middle East and Northern Africa are fleeing their homes, many of them war-ridden, hoping for a better life. Hundreds have died during this grueling trek through Southeastern Europe, and those who have made it have no guarantee that they will be allowed to stay. This has been going on for years but recently the numbers have risen exponentially and the crisis has gotten much worse. This week the EU laid out a plan to redistribute 160,000 migrants and refugees, making it the first time the EU has pushed for all member states to take responsibility. President Obama announced a couple of days ago that the US will accept 10,000 Syrian refugees over the next year, which is substantial since over the past four years the US has let in only 1,500 Syrians. However, since the UN expects about 1 million people to cross the border into the EU within the next year, there’s more work to be done.

Hopefully that wasn’t too much of a simplification. I have a natural inclination to sympathize with migrants, likely owing to my experiences teaching and tutoring migrant populations in Hawaii and Serbia, which enabled me to care for them and their plight. While this situation is absolutely awful with no obvious solution, I am glad to be based geographically close to it. When I get settled Belgrade, I will get involved in efforts to support the refugees, which will hopefully contribute to my writing on and work with the Romani population. 

Naturally, there are some drawbacks to being nearby. When a friend and I arrived at the Vienna central station only to discover that our train to Budapest had been canceled, we figured it had something to do with the crisis. We had thought it wouldn’t be an issue seeing as we were headed against the grain of the north-fleeing migrants, but because of the overflowing number of migrants at the station, all trains in and out of Hungary were canceled for at least a day. By talking with other English-speakers we learned that migrants and refugees were offering up their babies, laying on the tracks, and generally doing everything they could to make their plea known to the world. Uncertain if we would find make it to Budapest that evening or at all, we waited in line to get refunded for our train tickets among many disgruntled customers. No one we met had been informed of the cancelation before they arrived at the train station with bags in tow. When we got to the front of the line around 7pm, the customer service agent suggested we take a bus leaving at 7:30pm since buses were still running. The original train left at 6:12pm, and we had arrived at 5:45pm, so by that point we had been at the station without wifi (aka any means of communication with the outside world) and any idea where we would sleep that night for over an hour. The inability to communicate with either of our airbnb hosts (in Vienna and Budapest) felt most frustrating because we knew that they would have better ideas of alternative routes or suggested places to stay in the meanwhile.

We hustled to the bus station to catch the 7:30pm bus with a newfound friend who was behind us in line only to learn that, unsurprisingly, the bus was sold out. A large group no doubt made up of those intending to take any of the cancelled trains had gathered around the bus hoping to fill any unoccupied seats. My friend and I bought tickets for the next available bus, the following day at 4pm, and camped out in the free wifi-equipped bus station trying to find a place to stay the night.

We have exclusively stayed at airbnbs throughout this tour of Central Europe, which has continuously exceeded our expectations. When we told our Vienna airbnb host about our situation, she contacted a number of her friends and found a place for us to stay. What kindness! When we notified our host Budapest who we not yet met, she informed us of a Hungarian uber-type of carpooling service.

We looked into this service but didn’t have much luck since the website was in Hungarian, supposedly the third most difficult language in the world. We then asked our host in Budapest if she would make some sense of the website, and she booked us two places in a car that would arrive at 8:30pm in Vienna and take us to Budapest by 11pm. Getting our hopes up, we let go of the reservation to stay another night in Vienna and tried to figure out how we would meet up with this Hungarian car. Perhaps this service seems unsafe or unreliable to you, and perhaps it is. We had each other, however, and traveling with a male friend made me feel much safer than I would have alone or even with another lady. Unfortunately this car fell through; our host called him and he had just driven through Vienna without stopping (I believe his starting point was Munich).

At this point, it was 8:15pm and we had no place to stay in Vienna because our host’s friend was no longer available to host us, so we were desperate to find a way to get to Budapest. Through the inscrutable Hungarian website, we figured out that there was another car driving from Vienna to Budapest leaving at 8:30pm and, perhaps the most fortuitous element of this entire evening, this car’s pick-up spot was listed as none other than the exact bus station we were at. We frantically contacted our Budapest host, asking if she could contact the driver. For about ten minutes we heard nothing from her, so we began researching hostels in Vienna, but when she messaged us again, she confirmed that the car would pick us up at a place around the corner called “Burger Me.” At 8:24pm we dashed outside – as fast as we could dash with one suitcase, two large carry-ons, and two backpacks – and looked for this burger joint. Within two minutes we found the place and the car that we had been told to expect – an old, black station wagon – pulled up. We waved the car down perhaps a bit too excitedly, and a heavy-set Hungarian man stepped out and introduced himself.

Luck was on our side yet again as the driver, Laszlo, had enough room in his car for us and our belongings. In a usual uber/taxi situation, this is the point for a bit of small talk. However, Laszlo and his friend in the front seat whose name we did not catch spoke no English, so we did not communicate at all past our initial handshake. My friend speaks Russian, which was the language taught in Hungarian schools during the Communist era, so he thought perhaps he and Laszlo could communicate. But the only words Laszlo knew in Russian were “comrade” and “teacher.” Two telling residual words.

As soon as we entered the freeway and saw signs that indicated was Budapest 222 km away, then 200 km, then 180 km, and so on, we breathed a deep sigh of relief. Though we had the phone number of our hosts in Vienna and Budapest, it was more difficult to reach them outside of a free wifi zone. We could have turned on phones from the Fringe with our UK sim cards, or even turned Airplane Mode off, but the two-hour ride went without a hitch, so it never came to that.

Around 11pm, we reached Budapest’s Chain Bridge, which is a sight to behold especially at night when it’s all aglow. Laszlo indicated that it was time for us to get out, but in response to our confused faces he called our airbnb host and told us “400 meters.” We had looked up where the apartment was in relation to the train station, but we had no bearing on where we were getting dropped off. After futzing with a map we figured it out and realized that we were, indeed, very close. Gathering our things and paying the driver (just 13 euro/person for a two-hour drive! Even cheaper than the train!), we ascended the hill that led to our apartment (and then to the Matthias Church if you’re familiar with Budapest). A woman who works for our airbnb host was waiting for us at the door to the apartment, and she showed us in without words for she also had no English and we even less Hungarian.

When we stepped into our quaint new abode, we began to laugh. Anxiety, false hope, and uncertainty mitigated with mirth.

My friend later said he was wary of falling asleep in the car since he didn’t want us to wake up in a cellar somewhere. He even put his Princeton watch into his backpack so that Laszlo wouldn’t take it if he found out that we didn’t have the required money (we had to stop at an atm along the way) and asked that we give him valuables instead. That pragmatic, if pessimistic, line of thought did not cross my mind for the most part because Laszlo regularly called our Budapest airbnb host and both our hosts in Vienna and Budapest recommended this Hungarian uber service. Perhaps it’s naïve optimism, but I found the whole experience much more exciting than I did stressful. 

Three days hence, it still seems wild. We caught a ride with two Hungarian men who spoke no English through a potentially sketchy Hungarian online carpool service that our airbnb host arranged, and we arrived in one piece. It worked out better than either of us could have imagined.

Though our journey through Central Europe hasn’t exactly been smooth-sailing, it’s absolutely nothing compared to the grueling trek for which hundreds of thousands are risking their lives. At the train station in Vienna when the customer service agent handed me back my passport, she said, “If you have that, you can go anywhere.” What an indescribable luxury it is to be able to exercise freedom of movement.

This afternoon we take a bus to Belgrade. The bus company has notified us that it is delayed two hours, mostly likely because of the migrant/refugee situation, according to my host in Serbia. Even the city buses to the central bus station have limited service due to “public event.” I expect this will be a continual theme of my time in the Balkans.

All of the regional chaos is only adding to the nervous excitement to return to Serbia that has been growing inside me since February when I received the grant. At this point it’s basically boiling over…T-minus seven hours!

Somewhere between Prague and Vienna

            Happy Monday! I am, as the post title suggests, currently on route to Vienna. It feels somehow exciting to know the beginning and the end points of this bus ride while guilelessly taking in the views in between these European capitals. We must still be in the Czech Republic but the windows on both sides look out to dense forests that bring Maine to mind. Funny how one’s associations work. I suppose one purpose of travel is expanding one’s perspective in order to grow one’s range of associations with any given sight, sound, sense, feeling, etc.

            Since the Fringe ended a week ago, I’ve been traveling with two friends from college who were also working/performing at the festival. It was a happy coincidence that all three of us had some time off from our respective post-grad studies/projects to traipse about Central Europe together for the first half of September. We began in Krakow, took a sleeper-train to Prague, and next up is Vienna. Vienna is the first place in Europe besides London that I’ll soon have seen twice. That was oddly phrased. Basically while I’ve visited a number of European cities, I’ve only ever returned to London and, in three hours, Vienna. Although it’s only been three months since I first visited that beautiful capital, I think this time will be different since the context of this visit is different. First of all I have two companions whereas while last time I was staying with a friend, I mostly saw sights on my own. Vienna was also the first ever place I visited in Central Europe so my experience of it will likely change after having visited other parts of Austria, Germany, Poland, and the Czech Republic. I like revisitng a place, be it an elementary school classroom or a foreign town, since it helps to highlight how both you and the lens from which you view the world have changed. This principal revisit of this year will come in just seven days time when I return to Serbia. Even more dramatic than Belgrade will be return-trips to Novi Sad and Niš since most of my gap year was divided between those smaller cities north and south of Belgrade. My worldview has certainly changed in the four-year interim, some of which I’ve felt and observed and some of which returning to a previous place will begin to reveal.

            I’ll soon post more on the Fringe. The view from the bus has changed. Now we're out of the woods, somewhere else in the in between:

A revival post

As I write this, I sit in the Newark Airport uncertain, anxious, and eager. For almost four weeks I have been home, which is a luxury not often afforded to people my age now that we've entered "adulthood", now that home expands to wherever we lay our first roots. While home for me means humid days spent unpacking and getting my teeth cleaned and eyes examined, it also means hiking, snorkeling, and visiting friendly faces and joyful places. Home has always been hard to leave, especially when home is the first image in a google search for "paradise" (I would imagine), but home is comfort, and lately I've felt too comfortable. My surroundings at home - partially due to my mom's constant supply of homemade goods - lather me in ease, and at this very moment I wish to shed this skin and venture into uncertainty. The first time I fully followed this impulse was the last (and only) time I went to Serbia, and I still consider that the best decision I've ever made. Perhaps this year will pose the first serious challenge to that claim. There's no question that this year will thrust me into unease, and I think many of us operate best when we're out of our comfort zone.

You may be wondering why this blog has over 100 entries already. Well, as I just mentioned, I've been to Serbia before; I spent the year between high school and college there through Princeton's Bridge Year Program. Instead of creating a new blog, I elected to revive this one. Since Princeton has also graciously funded this second voyage, I felt "tiger" was apt. (For background: the name derives from the confusion I received when I explained my plans five years ago, "Siberia?" some replied. Fewer times this go-around but many still don't recognize "Roma" or "Romani", and if you're one of those people, no worries, read on!)

I digress. I suppose "thank you!" is in order. Thank you for reading this far, for clicking on the link in the first place, and for being one of the people to whom I sent the link. You're special to me and I'm grateful that you're in my life!
A rundown of the basics:

Tomorrow I leave for Edinburgh where I will be spending the month interning for Baby Wants Candy, a musical theatre improv troupe, at the Fringe Festival, the largest arts festival in the world. Last year there were roughly 50,000 performances of more than 3,000 shows. I can't comprehend that much theatre in just one month, but it seems insanely amazing. The calendar of events is more than 400 pages long. Unreal.

But this blog isn't called the Scottish Tiger now is it? A few things may pop up this month but I'll start blogging weekly-ish come September because that's when I head back to the Balkans.

Thanks to a generous fellowship awarded to a graduating senior, I am moving to Belgrade, Serbia for roughly a year to create and stage a documentary play that explores longstanding ethnic tensions between the Serb and Romani people. Interviews I conduct with individuals of all ages from both groups will provide the text for the play, which will be formatted as a series of monologues that interlace segments of interviews to draw out underlying themes and individual experiences. I intend to create two versions: a shorter play for performances at middle and high schools and longer play for the general Serbian audience.

This play aims to give audiences the opportunity to listen to voices that societal constraints and perhaps their own prejudices have prevented them from hearing. As with most problems, there is no simple solution to the combination of the injustices that befall the Romani population in Serbia and the difficulties that face programs that attempt to integrate the Romani people. Though this play will not single-handedly nullify existing issues, I hope it leaves people with more questions than answers and with a little more room inside of them to imagine how someone else experiences the world.

Alright, that's all for now. More to come in the coming weeks. Thank you, again, for reading and have a lovely week!

Remember Serbia

Hey there! Reporting from the most southern and western state for the first time since last August. Reporting from home, that's better.

Home is beautiful and I'm so grateful to be here, but I wanted to put one final word in for Serbia to close up this blog about perhaps the most meaningful nine months I've lived thus far.

This blog was about my year. It was designed to share information about a region of the world about which most of my friends knew little. It was designed to help me better understand my year through sharing impressions, observations, inferences, and reflections. Hopefully it fulfilled the former's aspirations and hopefully it will continue to serve as a reference to those who stumble upon it. Without question it served its later purpose. Not only did this blog help me discover an affinity for writing and sharing, it helped me to sort out my thoughts, to appreciate and remember moments and experiences as they came, to keep focused, to maintain perspective, and more generally to grow, and knowing that I had some small group of readers helped to push me to explore and take advantage of all I could. So thank you for reading and emailing and commenting and sending letters and packages.

I'd like to leave you with a final thought: remember Serbia. After typing it out it feels like some slogan, but I write it in earnest. Remember that tiny country in the Balkans. Remember the extraordinarily kind, elderly couple who lived next store. Maybe that's too specific but remember there are extraordinarily kind people there. Remember the Belgrade Pride Parade and how there is a small group of dedicated people about whom Margaret Mead preached but also remember that the small group needs to expand, and that it will in time. Remember the delightful villages like Čerević and quaint towns like Ohrid. Remember the traditions like slava. Remember Djokovic, now number one in the world. Remember the kafana culture. Remember my Roma students. Remember the Balkan wonders of the world.

This is a lot to ask, and I don't expect you to remember it all, but I would like to urge you to remember the beauty and wonder that lies in the customs, the music, the dancing, the countryside, the cities, and the people of Eastern Europe. I hope to someday be able to verify that this beauty and wonder lies in every continent, in every village but for now I am more than satisfied with two homes and many friends in a small corner of the world. After this year I have a strong inkling that it does. I'll it remember forever. I hope you'll remember it too.

Ima Vremena

Final Princeton Update


In high school, a history teacher gave us a class period to come up with a definition of time. This ostensibly simple task produced one of the most stimulating seminars in memory. “Time is a universal enigma” was the truest characterization my group produced. We also toyed with verbose depictions of the past, present, and future, none of which proved effective in conveying the curious nature of time. Although I had just spent an hour trying to make sense of time, I missed the point of the exercise for ironically as soon as I walked out the door my mind was on to the next subject, the next project, the next obligation. In high school there were a lot of activities and assignments and not a lot of time and then come September there was. Time to question, to infer. Time to realize, to understand. Time to decide, to conclude. Time to appreciate. Time to reflect.

September meant Serbia and Serbia, among other things, meant the first year I didn’t have responsibilities already lined up from the previous year and additional activities which would undoubtedly arise. This isn’t to say that the past nine months consisted of merely downtime. My days were occupied with work, interactions with my group and host families, and immersing myself in Serbia and language classes but within those areas I wasn’t time-bound as I had been in high school. At work I was given the freedom of working within preexisting programs or establishing a new program at a Roma settlement. Because I wanted to work directly with the Roma youth, I implemented English classes in their settlement and independently created three levels of English curriculum. No one at the Roma settlement spoke English and only a handful at my service placement so although I kept myself busy teaching and preparing to teach I was essentially in charge of my time and how I invested it.

This personal commitment factor was equally applicable to my involvement in the host families and Serbian culture as a whole. I learned early on that the host family experience brought me the closest to Serbian culture and I set as much time as I could to understanding and appreciating this culture through my families and their friends. I chose to help prepare family meals, participate in cultural and religious celebrations, and visit their childhood villages and other parts of Serbia. Time was well spent and the delegation of it was up to me. No one had expectations for how I would spend that time, which was surprisingly relieving, and I was left alone with my thoughts more than ever before. Thoughts, mind you, make for vital but unsolicited company and often I found their progeny overwhelming.

Time and time again I confronted focus, a concept I tended to steer clear of in high school. I’ve learned to appreciate the value of saying “no”, or rather the value of saying “yes” to things of most importance instead of spreading myself out so thin that each activity is given less commitment than it deserves. My Roma classes quickly became the most important aspect of my life in Niš and though my service placement offered other areas I could volunteer I chose to devote my time to making the most and best English classes rather than stretch my service over various departments where each would receive less than its due. I expect some of my focus-repellent habits will again tempt with the variety they offer, but in the end I’ve realized that I learn the most about the world and myself through investing fully in select projects.

Another conclusion I’ve reached through musings made possible by time is that not knowing is perfectly fine so long as you never stop wanting to know. Last August I had an idea of what I planned on studying at Princeton stemming from my preconceptions of what should be studied at college. This May I am more uncertain than I was nine months back but blissfully so. Though I know it will be a challenge, I’m determined to take advantage of Princeton by seeking the most meaningful and rewarding experiences.

Figuring oneself out is a daunting task but the insight gained is well worth the undertaking. The key ingredient is having time to explore beliefs, discover interests, and thoughtfully reflect. Learning to focus, to say “no”, and to be comfortable with the unknown are three of myriad conclusions reached through reflecting invaluably in time. In Serbian there’s a phrase ima vremena; you have time, there is time. Perhaps the point isn’t defining or categorizing it, just knowing ima vremena and being at peace with this universal enigma is enough.

A bit more to come

Until mid-June I'm away from home (in Italy with my family and a day and night in Belgrade) with somewhat limited internet. I have a few final thoughts and pictures to share which I'll get to when I finally return to the 'aina (Hawaii). After nine months. Baš sam uzbuđena = I'm really excited!