Well, I arrived safely to Savudrija, Croatia after three days of travel from Seattle to Vancouver, Glasgow, London, Triete, Buije and finally Savudrija. The kids from Brcko and the other volunteers arrived from Bosnia mid-morning last Friday after a long, exhausting, hair pulling overnight journey. They had some trouble crossing the border from Brcko where everyone's bags were searched and finally the bus company was denied crossing. In the end they were able to pass into Croatia at another border crossing.
The last few days at camp (now that the honeymoon is over) have been somewhat emotional for me as I struggle to communicate in my very limited Bosnian (this language is more or less the same as Serbo-Croatian but is denoted as Bosnian to distinguish it as the national language of BiH). I am sharing a make shift metal cabin with 5 adolescent girls and Gordana who is one of Svitac's (Firefly Bosnia) staff. We rise at 7:30 every day for breakfast at 7:45, then have morning activities which is either music or creative camp. Lunch is at 12:30 then we spend the afternoon on the beach and then dinner at 6:30. Also, an interesting side note to the camp- we learned from an Italian that it was a camp for Bosnian refugees during the war.
I still am working on finding that special connection with some of the youth. I find it quite interesting that kids the world over hate eating school or camp lunch or dinner. It reminds me of my experiences working with "my kids" at Meany Middle School in Seattle who frequently skipped lunch because they hated the food. Same thing here- many of the kids seem to begrudge the dinner here and prefer the snacks they brought from home. :)
In our music camp, the youth are writing a play about two gangs where a boy and girl from each gang fall in love with each other (similar to Romeo and Juliet). The play ends with both lovers dying and the two gangs coming together in the end to make peace. I've been impressed with the beautiful song the children have composed and hopefully I will be able to get a recording for all of you. :)
The lovers from the Black and Red Rose Gangs meet.
I had an interesting experience of trying to throw together a kickball game yesterday. I assumed it would be very easy to teach and that it would be a big hit if I promoted it as a combination between baseball and football (soccer). The other British volunteers and I tried our best to explain it but everyone was left very confused in the end. I thought one boy named Nemanja was just getting the hang of it as he came in for a home run but then he continued to keep running towards first base the second time a round! :) Mainly the kids didn't want to waste their energy since they had a camp wide football match going on later against the other camps on the site.
The football match was a very moving experience. Since "our kids" are from Bosnia, we had two teams playing known as BiH 1 (Bosnia Herzegovnia) and 2. A group from Russia was the Russian team as well as there being an Italian team. Needless to say, both our teams defeated both the Russian and Italian teams effortlessly. They kids kids came together to support their teams and were proudly waving the Bosnian flag. I do think it's incredible that they identify themselves as Bosnians- whether they are Serb or Bosniak (Muslim) or Croat. They made a strong force together.
Cheering on the girl's football team and showing plenty of Bosnian spirit!
Today is my afternoon "off". I have come into Umag with a couple of the other volunteers (who are fantatic) to run some errands and catch up on internet. I hope to catch up with you all later this week or when I am in Brcko.
Jam session
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