Playing house.

I am pleased to announce that I am now the proud resident of a Belgrade apartment. I'm not positive I can find my way back there from this internet cafe, but the important thing is I have the keys and all my stuff is there. The past few weeks have been a bit rough... after spending a year in Baltimore (which was bad enough!) I spent three days in the hospital, 4 days at my parents' house, 6 days in Akron, PA, 3 days in Sarajevo, 2 days in Novi Sad, 3 days living above a Swedish pentecostal church in Belgrade, and 4 days living with a woman from work in her one bedroom apartment. There has been A LOT of moving, so when I actually got to unpack today, it was quite a celebration.

My first day at the kindergarten the kids gave me a bag of gifts, including a little book called "I Love Belgrade", which is full of famous (and semi-famous) quotes about this lovely city. Seeing as how I'm more or less an actual resident now, my favorite is this:

"Typical Belgrade girls are good-looking, bold, gracious, but they possess a touch of Belgrade-style naughtiness that does not spoil their femininity, and is a mark of courage and wit, qualities that one must be born with."

Now, I'm not saying that being the owner of keys to an apartment in Belgrade makes this apply to me, but it is good to have goals :o)

The apartment is technically furnished, but we went to a church bazaar at the church next to the kindergarten where I work to pick up some extra things. The bazzar was pretty much like any church bazaar in the US, with a few important differences. 1. Everyone was speaking Serbian, which I still find a bit alarming. 2. All of the prices were in Dinars, so I had no idea how much anything cost, and 3. Middle aged Serbian women kept handing me things they insisted I needed to start my household. At the end of the day the bare essentials we left with included, but were certainly not limited to:

every day plates
fancy plates
plates that are only for cake
coffee mugs
tiny cups that are only for Turkish coffee
three decorative candle holders
a decorative tea pot
two vases (for all the flowers from all the Serbian men I'm not allowed to date, I guess)
three water pitchers
an egg separator
every kind of spoon, utensil, and gadget known to man, including a few that I've never seen before
two decorative baskets
about 43 sets of sheets (none of which fit the bed)

So, I am clearly well stocked, and you should come visit! For the time being I have two bedrooms and a pull out couch all to myself, plus enough dishware to host a dinner party every night! I'll show you a good time.

Beograd

So, I made it to Belgrade, and was told that I would be living above a Swedish sponsored Pentecostal church and living with a girl from work who is my age and speaks English. Then they raised the rent on that apartment, and I moved in temporarily with a different woman from work while we try to find somewhere for me to live. I went around town with three Serbian women who had about 15 words of English between them to find a new apartment for my roommate and I (she is currently working in Greece and coming back in September) and we found an acceptable one, and it seemed things were coming together (again). Later that day we found out my roommate actually found another apartment on her own and won't be living with me. We are supposed to meet with the apartment owners, who are currently living in Australia, on Saturday to sign for it... although with the way things are going, I'm crossing my fingers but not holding my breath. We also tried to regiter me with the police today, but something happened or didn't work or wasn't there, and it didn't take. So, no visa for Maggie (yet?). Perhaps you will be seeing me sooner than originally anticipated...

Internet access has been few and far between, which ranges from mildly frustrating to catastrophic, depending on how many other things are going on. I am trying really, really hard to be sweet and gracious and flexible and thankful for the hospitality people are showing me, but the truth is, I am a little concerned. If this is my honeymoon period with Serbia, I might need an annulment.

At least one good thing has happened, though... a realization. For so long I thought I was attracted to gay men, but it turns out I'm just attracted to EUROPEAN men. I'm telling you, there are tight pants, nice shoes, cool glasses, and messenger bags EVERYWHERE. Thank you, men of Belgrade, for making this transition a little more tolerable.

Safe in Sarajevo

Well, I've made it to Sarajevo. I'm here for orientation for a few days, and then I'm off to Novi Sad, Serbia, and finally Belgrade, where I'll be living.

Sarajevo is a beautiful city. I've never been to Europe before, so I was excited to see rows of beautiful buildings along a river with pedestrian bridges over it... it fit into my stereotype well. Of course, many of the buildings (and sidewalks, and streets...) have very visible evidence of the war. I knew that, I had read about it and been told by people who had been here, but it is still shocking to see. Bullet holes and shrapnel damage are generally not a part of my mental image of European towns. I know if I had paid more attention in history class it would be, but I didn't. I don't count that as too great a loss, though, because at least I will learn about it now, and by seeing, not by reading.

This is my first time in a foreign country where I'm not constantly stared at. Being a foreigner in Nicaragua and in Kenya was painfully apparent, but I got quite used to it. Actually, come to think of it, I was stared at last year for being white in my neighborhood in Baltimore far more than I am here. It is exhilarating to think that maybe- if I keep my mouth shut- people will think I belong here. Several people have even tried to speak to me in Bosnian and received an apologetic smile in return. In the interest of full disclosure, though, people could be ignoring me because all of the women who really do belong here are tall and thin and alarmingly beautiful and well dressed, and maybe my little American self just doesn't make much of an impact. I prefer, of course, to believe the former.

I don't know what else to say about this place that won't sound cliche or naive. It really is beautiful, and the weather is great. The people are sweet and the coffee is strong and the peaches and tomatoes are some of the best I've had in my life.

I am trying not to think too far into the future because my head will explode. Today I am in Sarajevo. Thursday I will go to Novi Sad and Saturday I will go to Belgrade. I will live in Belgrade for at least a year. See, that's too far in advance. I can't think about a year of Serbian language and meat pastries and war trauma... so I will think about today. Today I am in Sarajevo and it's beautiful and warm. I had two peaches for breakfast and I'm happy. Tomorrow I'll think about tomorrow.

Not kidding anymore.

You know, I was always half joking when I would talk about how much I hated Baltimore. Apparently the Gods of Baltimore can't take a joke, though, and I have now moved from a general sort of tolerable dislike to full blown loathing.

Last Thursday, the 30th, I was packing to move out of Baltimore and RHHP forever, which I was pretty excited about. "Oh boy!" I thought as I put things into boxes, "I'm ready to move on. Sure, Belgrade is another economically depressed city with a lot of violence, but I'm sure it will be great!" Later I thought, "Gee, I wonder my stomach hurts! Oh well, haha! I'm sure it's fine!". About an hour after that I thought, "WOW! My intense stomach pain now has a friend, Sharp Stabbing Pain in my Side! OW!". At this point I had stopped packing and was, instead, lying on the floor crying. I called our local program coordinator and couldn't get a hold of her, and I called my housemate who had the credit card (which is also our only form of health insurance) and couldn't get a hold of HER. I lay on the floor and cried for a while more, and then started throwing up. The intense stomach pain plus the sensation of being stabbed in the side with a dull, rusty knife, plus the vomiting didn't seem like a great combination, so I did what any self-respecting 23 year old college graduate pretending to be an adult would do: I called my mom. Then I called another housemate and asked if she could leave work to take me to the er, which she did (THANKS, ANNA!).

Long story short, I was admitted to the hospital for three days for kidney stones- IN BOTH KIDNEYS- and a badly infected left kidney. It was a pretty miserable few days, as I'm sure you can imagine, although I'm fine now. The cause? Stress. Everyone knew I hated my job and had a tough time with some of my housemates and hated my neighborhood, but even I didn't know I was so unhappy and dealing so poorly with the stress that I would actually get sick from it. Quite frankly, next time I get sick from stress I would prefer a cold to calcium deposits in my organs, but no one asked.

I eventually was released and got to go back to my parents' house for a few days to prepare for Serbia. I didn't want my last memories of Baltimore to be of being in intense pain, though, so last night I went to finish cleaning my room and to say goodbye to some friends. We had a great evening, it was wonderful to be able to spend one last night with the people who made the year tolerable (and even good at several points) and I was quite satisfied with the experience. I was pleased to be able to leave the city- and the country- on a good note.

And then I got a parking ticket.

Kind of irritating, kind of hilarious, but mostly just a fitting way to end this year. I'm ready for new challenges. I promise you, though, if there is an ice cream truck in Belgrade that drives around at 11:00 PM playing Christmas songs and selling crack, I am moving back to Vienna so fast you won't even get a souvenir.

All good things must come to an end... thankfully, so must the awful ones.

Today is my last day of work at Project PLASE, the transitional housing facility where I have been volunteering full time since September.

It is tempting, though perhaps not entirely accurate, to describe this past year as the worst of my life. That's a hard call to make, though, and is clearly subjective. Overall I've been extremely lucky and had a fairly easy, joyful life. Of course there have been some less than stellar times, like when I broke my back in three places and ruptured a disc and lost several of my closest friends. That was really just a few months of suckage, though, and it was sandwiched between two fabulous things. The month before I broke my back I had a month-long internship in rural Nicaragua, and six months after I broke my back I went to Kenya for two months. While both of those trips had difficult times, they were also some of the times I've felt happiest, and certainly the times I've felt the most fulfilled. Thus, it would be inaccurate to describe that as "the worst year", because that year had two great things and only one awful thing.

This year has had quite a few awful things, but more than that, it's just been consistently discouraging. I have been yelled at, intimidated, and assaulted by the clients I'm trying to help. I have learned a ton about homelessness, mental illness, and addiction, but mostly I've learned about people. I've learned I can't fix people, and a lot of times I can't even help people. Some people in my house are fabulous, and some people I will say goodbye to and hope I never see again. Some of our clients are honest, hardworking, genuine people, and some are manipulative jerks who will take any opportunity to make sexually inappropriate comments to and about me. I can honestly say that I will miss my coworkers, the other counselors here who do this impossibly hard job every day for 20 years or more. Most of them love their jobs and do them well, and I and the clients are fortunate to have been in their presence.I don't, however, think I will miss anything else. I will not miss the unappreciative and often aggressive clients, I will not miss the drug infested neighborhood, and I will not miss being part of an organization that so blatantly disregards my personal safety and needs. Maybe the ineffectiveness, mismanagement, and poor communication isn't true of all non-profits, but it will still be a long, long time before I work at any sort of public service organization again... you know, my year volunteering in Serbia aside.

All things considered I am more than ready to go. It isn't that I think Serbia will be easy or perfect or carefree, but it I do know it isn't here, and right now that's all I'm asking for. I'm sure at some point- maybe soon- I'll be grateful for the experience and the things it taught me. Right now I'm just grateful it's over.

Jes Karper says,


"Try on Life it fits like a glove
and feel what it’s like to Be Free
Try breathing and seeking to be an instrument of Love
and encourage one another on the journey
Give thanks to the land and the sky up above
and pour your energy into building a community

Make a space for the traveler to stop and put some love in
Be a shelter from the rushin’ and the pushin’ and the shovin’
Let the music play all night so we can sing and dance
Grow good organic food and lots of bright flowering plants
Put it in a pot and stir it up with lots-o-lovin’
Roll out the dough and fire up the cob oven
Dig into the dirt so you can take a stronger stance
Educate, Relate and be creative with resistance
And Try on Life…

Try exploring and evolving in whole new directions
emanating light from your innermost reflections
Create your own economy not based on the love of money
but on the abundant and free source of the sun’s energy
Feel the Healing Vibrations of Light’s far reaching projections
Open up our arms for caring and sharing our affections
Strive for sustainability, give back to the land, plant a tree
Grow a garden of souls and minds for the harvest will be plenty
as we Try on Life…


Try making a life, filling two new eyes with sight
as husband and wife spin their love and unite
For Unity is the healing force that creates
as community blooms from its embryonic states
Give children wings for flight so that they just might
find new ways of making the light shine more bright
Sing with them dance with them learn with them help them carry their weights
and cherish them for they grow at alarmingly fast rates
and Try on Life…"

...and I agree.

Andy Warhol on Love

"I wonder if it's possible to have a love affair that lasts forever. If you're married for thirty years and you're 'cooking breakfast for the one you love' and he walks in, does his heart really skip a beat? I mean if it's just a regular morning. I guess it skips a beat over that breakfast and that's nice, too. It's nice to have a little breakfast made for you."

Andy Warhol knows everything.

Are you ready for this?

People keep asking if I'm ready to go to Serbia, and I usually smile and tell them there isn't too much I need to do to prepare. I don't need a visa or work permit and I've already been vaccinated against anything and everything. The climate is the same (more or less) as Baltimore, so I don't need new clothes. I've been studying Serbian and reading all the histories of the region I can get my hands on, and even watching the Serbian films I can find.

That's the easier answer, so it's what I always say. The truth is, I'm not nearly so sure about this or anything else. In fact, I'm a little scared... some days more than a little.

People keep asking if I'm ready to go, and I give them my lengthy, logical, rehearsed answer. What I really want to say is, I have no idea. How do you know when you're ready?

"Into the caverns of tomorrow with just our flashlights and our love, we must plunge, we must plunge, we must plunge... and then we'll get down there, way down to the very bottom of everything and then we'll see it, we'll see it, we'll see it..."

The church is a broken institution made of broken people. Sometimes it seems all that any group of Christians ever does- myself very much included- is build caricatures of other groups of Christians to tear down. I find myself getting so angry at groups of Christians for being hateful towards other groups of Christians, only to realize I'm doing the same thing they they are.

I find myself torn between two points of view. One says if you love Christ you will love his church... the other says I love Christ, but not Christians, because Christians are so unlike Christ.

I know I love Christ, but some days I find it difficult to say the same about his followers. I guess the grace comes in the assumption that genuine Christians are progressing on a path to be more Christ-like? I know none of us are there yet... but how many of us are even moving in that direction? I'm not sure I can say I am.

Come Thou fount of every blessing
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace
Streams of mercy never ceasing
Call for songs of loudest praise
Teach me some melodious sonnet
Sung by flaming tongues above
I'll praise the mount I'm fixed upon it
Mount of Thy redeeming love

Here I raise my Ebenezer
Hither by Thy help I come
And I hope by Thy good pleasure
Safely to arrive at home
Jesus sought me when a stranger
Wondering from the fold of God
He, to rescue me from danger
Interposed His precious blood

O to grace how great a debtor daily I'm constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to Thee
Prone to wander Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love
Here's my heart Lord, take and seal it, seal it for Thy courts above

Here is an article from BBC news on Bosnia. It wouldn't let me post it directly to the blog from the website, so I'm copying and pasting the text and pictures. It's by Paul Moss.

"Bosnia echos to alarming rhetoric"

They may have disagreed about politics, but the group of 20-something friends who had gathered for an after-work drink were all certain about one thing - they were Serbs.

"My father is a Serb, my grandfather is a Serb, I am a Serb. This is my nationality," said Vladislav.

"If we are looking at a football game," added Bane, "Serbia against somebody else, we are fans of Serbia."

These would not have been particularly notable declarations of identity, save for one crucial fact.

We were speaking in Banja Luka, a city in Bosnia, and all these people were Bosnian citizens.

But that meant little to Ivana, a trainee architect: "Bosnia is an artificial and silly creation, we naturally belong with Serbs," she said.

That "creation" was born out of the ruins of battle.


Everybody should be worried, this is the Balkans, and nationalist rhetoric here always leads to war

Svetlana Cenic, writer
At the end of the Bosnian Civil War, it was agreed that the country would remain a single nation.

However, the Serbs were granted their own officially-recognised region, known as the Republika Srpska.

It has its own parliament, and a fair degree of autonomy.

But now some fear this delicate constitutional compromise could be falling apart.

'Thinly-veiled threats'

The Republika Srpska parliament has issued a declaration, insisting that it has the right to make its own rules in certain key areas, like immigration and customs.



Milorad Dodik has hinted that he wants Republika Srpska to secede
That move was vetoed this week by Bosnia's High Representative, the internationally-appointed figure who still has executive authority in the country.

But the resulting row has left many worried about the country's stability.

"The way the Serb politicians speak is getting more and more nationalistic," says Svetlana Cenic, a writer and newspaper columnist.

"Everybody should be worried," she warns. "This is the Balkans, and nationalist rhetoric here always leads to war."

Svetlana and others are particularly alarmed by the pronouncements of the Bosnian Serb Prime Minister, Milorad Dodik.

He has made thinly-veiled threats that the Republika Srpska might secede from Bosnia altogether.

Any attempt at secession by the Republika Srpska would be seriously destabilising.

It would alarm the many ethnic Croats who still live in the region, as well as the Muslim population, known as Bosniaks.

It might also tempt the Croat region of Bosnia to contemplate a similar move towards independence.

But more than anything, secession would be resisted by the remaining part of Bosnia, with its capital in Sarajevo.

Hundreds of thousands of non-Serbs now live there, having been driven out of what is now the Republika Srpska during the Civil War.

'Betrayed'

And for those who remember this experience, like the actress Alena Dzebo-heco, independence for the Republika Srpska would be a moral outrage.

"The people who did the ethnic cleansing, they would get what they wanted," she argues.

"After everything my family went through - my uncle was in a concentration camp, my father was arrested.

"We would feel betrayed."

The ruling party in the Republika Srpska, the SNSD, has been playing down fears that it plans to secede - at least any time soon.

The speaker of the parliament, Igor Radojicic, said Mr Dodik, his party leader, was only responding to threats from Bosniaks.



He argues that they would like to take away the Republika Srpska's powers, and rule the whole of Bosnia directly.

"The fact is that Serbs are a minority in Bosnia, approximately one-third.

"There are fears that the Muslims might make decisions in favour of their ethnic group. So we are fighting to protect our autonomy."

There is certainly plenty of fear in the Republika Srpska that Muslims pose a threat.

They range from the kind of sober political argument advanced by the Parliamentary Speaker, to more lurid anxieties, whipped up in part by sensationalist newspapers.

"Osama Bin Laden has operations in Sarajevo," one well-educated man told me.

Others insisted that the Serbs were in the vanguard of the struggle against Islamic fundamentalism - this despite the fact that Bosnian Muslims tend to be relatively non-observant.

It is 17 years since the Bosnian Civil War began, sparked off by each different ethnic group believing that the others were trying to take over, and that they had to fight back.

The risk is that these fears, and the inflammatory rhetoric that tends to drive them, may be gaining ground once again.

Well timed, National Geographic. I appreciate it.

Thank you, Jessie, for alerting me to an article about Serbia in July's issue of National Geographic. It is informative and, unlike Noel Malcom's "Short" History of Bosnia and "Short" History of Kosovo, a readable length. I sincerely hope I have a chance to visit Kosovo/a while I'm there. I also hope there isn't any violence in Belgrade (or Bosnia, Kosovo/a, or anywhere else) while I'm there... or ever again. Perhaps that is wishing too much, though.

Here is the link to the article. There is a very nice series of photos as well: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2009/07/serbs/carroll-text

I don't wanna grow up, I'm an MVS kid...

I didn't realize how firmly planted in childhood I am until this week.

I'm house-(and dog)-sitting for a family from church this week, and it has been great. My house in Baltimore is great some of the time, but I am loving the quiet of the suburbs and the independence of living alone. I had no idea how anxious the neighborhood and, yes, the housemates make me until I had a chance to live my regular life but removed from RHHP... what a difference. Having an adorable dog around doesn't hurt, either. I've loved doing my own grocery shopping (I want some sunflowers? Great! I can buy some sunflowers!) and all my own cooking (dinner when I'm hungry, all foods that I like) and being able to be in the kitchen in my pajamas without a bra on (no middle age conservative male refugees to offend!). The one downside is that I have been making and drinking whole pots of coffee. At home I use a single-serving maker or a french press, but this family has a big, fancy coffee maker and I can't help but use it to its full potential. Clearly at 23 I am not yet mature enough to monitor my own coffee consumption.

So what defines adulthood? Paying rent? Having a job? Having self control over delicious caffinated beverages? Right now I don't pay rent, I don't pay any bills, and I don't make any money. Once a month Heather hands me $50 in cash. I spend it on what luxuries I want (coffee or drinks out, fancy soap...) and once it's gone, it's gone. If I need food I write it on a list and it magically shows up Monday afternoon. If there is something wrong with the unit car I take it to the shop and hand over the Magical MVS Credit Card, for which I never see a bill. Same with if I get sick- I don't have health insurance, but if I get hit by a bus or get swine flu, the Mennonites pay for it. For all intensive purposes I live right now the same way I did when I was 14, except I think my allowance may have been higher then.

Next year will be more of the same. I will handle my own money, but it still won't be MY money. I will take X amount of money and give it to the landlord. I will take X amount of money and it is all I am allowed to spend on food. I will get X amount of money as a stipend to spend on coffee, alcohol, and fancy soap. Baby steps towards adulthood... baby steps.

When I get BACK from Serbia I'm still not sure if I will meet societal expectations for adulthood. I am most likely going to try to do an Americorps position in Minneapolis so I can earn an education award to go back to school. I will make my own money that I can spend however I want, but it will only be about $900 a month, and that's BEFORE taxes. After a year of THAT, I am now 80% sure I want to go back to school- nursing school, to be exact. I will take pre-requisites at a community college or online while doing Americorps, and then spend the education award to work towards a nursing degree. Originally I wanted to go to nursing school so I could work towards being a midwife, but now I mostly want to go to prove wrong a friend who strongly implied I wasn't smart enough to do it... spite is a great motivator.

This is all to say that my post-college life isn't exactly how I (or my parents- sorry guys!) imagined it. Volunteer for a year... volunteer for a year abroad... volunteer for another year (but KIND of get paid!)... go back to school (there is an intensive 16-month program for a masters in nursing designed for people with a bachelor's degree in something other than nursing at the University of Minnesota that I would love to do) and then do some MORE school to specialize in midwifery.

What do I want to do after that? I will be 27 or 28 by the time it is done, specialization and all, and will have never had a "real job". So what would the next step be?

Why, volunteer with MSF or CPT, of course.

Low income countries have an infant mortality rate NINE TIMES HIGHER than wealthy countries (like the US). I don't think rich babies are worth nine times more, though.

I always thought I was called to work with the world's poor- the "poorest of the poor', if possible. Now that I'm going to Serbia I'm struggling with what it means to be a servant to people whose primary burden is not poverty (although Serbia certainly has more than its share of poverty)but violence. The more I read about the history of the region, the more confused I am. My questions are not so much how people can do these things to each other, because quite frankly, I understand the tendency to react to pain by hurting other people. What I don't understand is how people can live through the things that these people have lived through. Maybe I'm just being a pessimist, but I'm not as shocked by the violence and the hate as I am by the strength and the perseverance of the people. I'm almost afraid to meet people my age who grew up in Belgrade. When I was 13 I was thinking primarily about glitter eye liner and the boy whose locker was two down from me. When people my age who grew up in Belgrade were 13, they were living through the bombardment of their city (by my government!). What does that even mean? What do you do when bombs are falling? When actual bombs are being dropped on your city, what do you do? Do you go the basement? If you live in an apartment building do the people in the basement apartments let you in? Do you stay where you are? Eat dinner and try to talk about something else? My closest point of reference for something like that would be sitting in the bathtub in the basement hugging my dog during thunder storms, which, needless to say, is not even on the same graph as a war. I have so many questions... so many questions.

Lord, give me a humble heart. Make me a servant. Use me to lessen the suffering, Lord, but if I can't change the suffering, use it to change me. "Let my heart be broken by the things that break the heart of God".

Bwana Asifiwe!

I haven't really thought a ton about Kenya the past few months, but lately it's been making a strong comeback in the competition for the forefront of my thoughts. One of my best (and prettiest! Hi, Katie!) friends from college just got back from 8-ish months in Tanzania and a few weeks in Kenya, and I got to hang out with her this week. She brought me a can of DOOM, which is this insanely strong insecticide that is sold in Kenya and almost for sure not FDA approved. It kills giant roaches immediately on contact, and since the roaches in Baltimore are the size and strength of the ones in Kenya, I asked her to bring me some. I am shocked and delighted that it got through customs, and have used it to spray down my closet and the corners of my room where I have seen roaches. I also sprayed a circle around my bed and have the can sitting on my nightstand for any emergency roach spraying needs. I've been sleeping much better since then, probably both from the peace of mind and the fumes.

The cool thing about Katie being back, other than the pesticides and getting to hang out with her, is getting to hear about her travels and live a little bit through them. I have this problem where I think everyone else's life is infinitely more interesting than my own, so I enjoy sitting down and living vicariously through my interesting friends. Even just thinking about Katie in Kenya (and, to some extent, Tanzania, too) makes me think about my (very short) time in Kenya and the things from that trip that changed me, and the things from that trip that I've since forgotten. When I first came back I thought almost constantly about the dead babies I saw, the starving kids, the slums, the poverty, the pain. After a while I only thought about it sometimes, like when I would hear a baby cry or throw food away. When I started thinking about it this week, I couldn't remember the last time I had thought about it. While I was talking with Katie I was also cleaning my room and putting away clothes, and I kept thinking, oh my God, when did I get this many shoes? Why do I have so many shirts? Why do I need so many books? When did this become my life? Where did that girl who was so passionate about clean water sources for economically poor communities go, and why does she now care so much about nail polish?

Another reason I've been thinking about Kenya is that we just got a new client at work who is Kenyan. I was perhaps a bit overly excited when I found out and I think I might have scared him a little, but I'm going to make it up to him by bringing in some of my Kenyan chai. I might even make him some ugali and chapati and cabbage and oh... I'm excited.

The other country on my mind, clearly, is Serbia. I am getting much more nervous about moving, my main thought being "WHAT AM I DOING??" and my secondary thought being "WHO MOVES TO SERBIA??". The more I try to learn Serbian, the more I realize that Serbian is a really hard language to learn. They use the Cyrillic alphabet sometimes and the Roman alphabet sometimes, but the Roman one isn't the English one, it has all these EXTRA letters, and is missing a few, too. They all make different sounds, and some of the Cyrillic letters look like Roman ones but aren't the same. Also, Serbian not only has formal and informal forms, as well as nouns with genders, but it also has cases for the nouns. If a noun is the subject of the sentence it is in the nominative form, if it is the object it is in the accusative form, if it is possessive it is in the genitive, if it is the indirect object it is in the dative. And of course, just to mess with your head, the plural forms of the cases are different from the singular ones. And then they change the alphabet. And then you offend people if you call KosovO KosovA and vice versa.

To make myself feel better I formulated a 4-part fool-proof plan to make friends in Belgrade.

Part 1 (stateside): Buy lots of clothes from H&M to fit in. Ignore Kenyan memories about excessive spending and possessions. Try not to think about sweatshop labor.

Part 2 (in Belgrade): Smile a LOT.

Part 3: Bake a lot of cakes, cookies, bread, and anything else with a strong, welcoming scent. Keep all apartment windows and doors open. If necessary, place small fans in windows to direct scent of baked goods into the street and apartment building. Welcome and feed Serbians who follow their noses to my house.

Part 4: Marry hungry, handsome Serbian man. Steal his friends. Be doted on by his Serbian grandmother.

I'm pretty sure this will work, and it doesn't require memorizing any more crazy Serbian words and grammar. Check and check.

Hello, goodbye.

For the first time since moving to Baltimore I'm starting to feel like I have actual friends here. The worst part of this year- other than the physical assualt, of course- has been feeling so unloved and unwanted. It isn't that people are mean, but I have no connections with anyone here. Until this week I genuinely felt like when I moved to Serbia no one would miss me or even really notice I was gone. I'm not saying that now people will be rending garments and covering their faces in ashes for me, but I am begining to feel more understood and- dare I say it?- cared about by several people here.

It's a good feeling, but it makes the countdown to moving bittersweet.

88 days until Bosnia, 74 of those in Baltimore. I wish I knew how to feel about that.

Flowers CAN grow in Baltimore!

My strawberries are growing! Soon we will have no need for the farmer's market. Take that, Waverly.



They might not look like much, but give them time! Also, my mums are still alive! Photographic proof:



Many of you will not be impressed by this. That is because you didn't see the number of plants I killed in college.

I was assigned lawn duty this weekend. It involves mowing the lawn, and perhaps doing other yard-y things. I have never mowed a lawn in my life, and, as stated in an earlier post, my very presence tends to kill plants. My official plan was to have a boyfriend by this time and make him do it, but that didn't pan out. Sad day.

In other news, it is 85 degrees out, which is glorious, but I'm not allowed to open the windows in my room, which is heartbreaking. Thus, I will spend the day on a balcony learning Serbian flashcards and praying the grass cuts itself. Or dies. Either way.

Bout darn time.

I'm going to take a SHORT break from complaining about Baltimore to say that I get to LEAVE Baltimore for a week and go to the Caribbean! My sister was offered a free cruise from Carnival so that she'll write about it in the magazine she edits, and her husband can't go, and she didn't want to spend a week on a boat with her 10 month old baby and no help, so I get to go! I want to say that I do not approve of cruises. They are environmentally destructive, encourage gluttony, and provide ample opportunity for Americans to disrespect local people in the cruise destinations. That being said, I'm not the type of girl who holds on to her beliefs so strongly that she would turn down a free cruise, so I'm going.

You can read about how badly sunburned we are day by day here: http://maggieandkristenandjackonacruise.blogspot.com/

It will be awesome.

In other news, I made a basil pesto that is good, but not perfect. The quest for that continues.

Ouch.

Whoever said cockroaches can't hurt you needs to come take a look at the bruise on my leg.

Last night around 10:30 I was minding my own business, about to go to bed. I get up from my desk, turn around, and see a cockroach that must have weighed at LEAST as much as I do but looked much, much stronger. Like any young, responsible, college educated woman, I screamed and climbed onto my bed, begging my housemates in the living room to come save me. After about 10 minutes of no one coming to rescue me, I got up enough nerve to try to trap it so I could go demand aid. The only empty container I could find was a metal heart-shaped tin my sister gave me for valentines day. The cockroach was crawling on top of the lid to the bin where I keep my dirty clothes (we have to keep our dirty clothes in giant tupperware-like bins or else the mice eat our underwear. Seriously). The lid was on the ground, with a plastic grocery sack on it, and the cockroach was crawling on top of the bag. I put the tin over the roach and the bag, and then stacked two books, "Kosovo: A Short History" and "Bosnia: A Short History", on top of it. I should point out that both books are HUGE and very poorly named. For good measure, I threw my sketchbook and two pairs of shoes on top of the books. Then I went for help.

Anna was in the living room, and leaped to action after being briefed of the situation. We then spent about 10 minutes staring at the tin, trying to decide how we were going to dispose of the intruder. Anna was of the opinion that I could lift the tin and she could smash him to death with a hole puncher, but I was doubtful of this solution for several reasons. One: I have heard that cockroaches are hard to smash, and this one certainly seemed like a formidable opponent, two: I didn't want to lift the tin, three: I didn't want to have cockroach guts on my laundry bin or, worse, my carper, and four: I was about 87% sure that if I lifted the tin, the roach would fly or crawl around and Anna and I would both scream and panic and he would find a way to burrow into my underwear drawer or, worse, my brain.

I should point out that Sarah was on the phone with her boyfriend, Jeff, this entire time. I, of course, demanded that Jeff come save us, and he flat out REFUSED. What is the point of any of us having a boyfriend if he doesn't even come out to meet our needs in times of crisis?? Yes, it is 10:30 PM. Yes, you live 20 minutes away. What is the problem? Anna insisted that we were strong women who could handle the situation ourselves, but I was doubtful. I'm a pretty big fan of traditional gender roles, because I like babies, cooking, cleaning, and not opening doors or paying for meals. I have always thought that "bug killing" was in the "manly chore" category, along with yard work, taking out the trash, paying for everything, and defending my honor. If the men in my life will do that, I will be happy to bake scones and give birth. ANYWAY, Jeff refused, so I texted my sister and demanded my brother in law come to Baltimore to save me, mostly because he has a gun. And you know what?? HE refused, too!

Having exhausted the entire list of men I know in Maryland, Anna and I had no choice but to handle the task. We devised a plan in which we carried the entire apparatus- plastic lid, plastic bag, roach, metal tin- to the bathroom, where we would then try to flick the roach into the toilet, shut the lid, and flush. We were about 70% into this operation when Jeff (via phone) helpfully suggested that it could probably fly, would land in the toilet water, and then fly into our hair/ eat our faces. Anna was willing to take that chance, but I was NOT. Thus, we began the painstaking process of applying heavy pressure to the tin while sliding the plastic bag until the tin was INSIDE the bag, and the roach was in the tin. We tied the bag in a knot, and then lifted the tin enough to get the lid on it. I wanted to carry it up to the attic and leave it there, but Sarah said I had to take it outside. I ran down the three flights of stairs to the ground floor, opened the front door, and threw the whole thing in the trash. Then I shut and locked the door, and vacuumed my entire room. It was around this time that I realized at some point (probably the screaming/ flailing stage) I had banged my leg pretty badly on something hard. I now have a huge purple and green bruise to show for my efforts.

There is really only one conclusion to draw from this: I need a boyfriend. With a gun.

And... does anyone know if there are cockroaches in Serbia...?

Confession

So, I'm sitting here, listening to hymns and eating jelly beans (what? like you read to underprivileged puppies in your spare time?) and I caught myself picking out the army green ones that, as far as I can tell, are death flavored. I paused, and had a moment of quiet reflection on who I have become these past few months. Then I threw them back in the bag.

It was a long time coming, but something snapped in me about two weeks ago. It was the day the client attacked me (the first time!) I think. I came home, still fighting back tears, thinking about if I could move in with my parents, if I could find a job, if I could live with my sister... for once, no one was in our kitchen. I went to the pantry to get a snack, and grabbed a box of mixed nuts. I poured myself some tea, ate the nuts, and thought about the various ways I could get out of my commitment to MVS.

I don't really like mixed nuts; I mean, they're fine, but they're not my favorite snack. I, like everyone, like some better than others. I have this rule, though, that I really try to follow. I believe that one should eat what one grabs. Not just for sanitary reasons, but on ethical principal. If you are eating out of a communal bag of chex mix, for example, you can't pick out all the bagel chips and eat them because they're your favorite part. If that is just your chex mix, fine, but if you're sharing it you need to keep in mind that maybe other people like the bagel chips, too, or don't want the delicate bagel chip/chex/pretzel balance upset. It's taking one for the team, sometimes, when you eat the pretzels in the chex mix or the back jelly beans, but it is your DUTY as a member of a family or community to not mess with everyone else's snacking pleasure.

So, there I am, eating whatever nuts I grab. Cashews, hazelnuts, almonds, and pecans. I really just like the pecans. The others are fine, but the more I think about it, the more I know that I only really WANT the pecans, and I'm eating the cashews as more of a penalty. A penance. A necessary evil to enjoy the pecans. And then it happened- it was almost audible. The "snap" of my moral convictions about mixed snack food tearing apart. I was not going to eat any more f-ing cashews. I work 40 hours a week for free, I had just been attacked by a client, I get out of bed at 11:00 PM to pick up my stranded housemates, I live with 14 people in a neighborhood that scares the crap out of me, I make $50 a month, I hate my job, I don't drink bottled water, I don't buy clothes made in sweatshops, I give 10% of my income to the church, I match dollar for dollar what I spend on alcohol on a clean water charity, and I do NOT need to SHARE or GIVE or SACRIFICE ANYTHING ELSE, THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

I ate every pecan in the box.

I feel kind of bad about it. In reality, I don't think my housemates will notice, and if they do, I doubt they'll care. But again, it's the PRINCIPAL. Shouldn't I be willing to eat the proverbial cashew? This is the life I want- I chose this- because these are things that matter to me. I miss shopping at Gap, but I DO think human rights are more important than fashion. I DO think it's ridiculous to pay for water in a bottle when our tap water is clean. I DO think that the gospel is best lived out and understood in community. And yet...

I guess I'm learning my own boundaries. Sometimes my ideals don't look that ideal with flesh on them. I don't know if the pecan (and now jelly bean!) incident is just funny, or a sign of something larger breaking down. I guess at this point I can learn to love myself as a person who sometimes picks through mixed nuts. I think I can live with that. I want to be flexible, even within my concept of justice, because I know I don't now, nor will I ever, know all the answers. But if Bathfitter starts looking like a great deal on a good idea, I'm moving to a convent.