Lunch in the country

Posted on 30 Apr 2012 by lornaofarabia

Andreas is feeling a little under the weather today. I’m afraid he’s fallen victim to Bosnian hospitality.

Our landlady, the vivacious Valida, and her husband Momar have a weekend house out in the country.  It’s the long Labor Day weekend here (as it is most everywhere except the US), and they invited us over for a Sunday barbecue.

summer house
Valida and Momar’s house in Osjek

It was a gorgeous day.  We took the streetcar to Ilidža and from there caught a bus that carried us past green meadows and flowing rivers to the little village of Osjek.  There is a forest there with hiking trails; summer houses are set in clearings for gardens with vegetables and fruit trees, sheep pens, hay stacks, barbecue pits for roasting whole lambs, wading pools, and other amenities you don’t find in the city.

Over the course of the day, the six of us (their son Timur is the same age as Alekka) managed to consume a mountain of food: ćevapčići (ground beef shaped into sausage fingers; Bosnia’s version of the hamburger) with somun flatbread ; chicken and vegetable ražnjići (kebabs), veal ražnjići, sausages, steak, salads, cheeses.  Every time we ate what was on our plates, our dishes were filled up again.  Same with our little glasses of apple brandy…  and pear brandy…  and beer.   Our pleas for mercy went unheeded.

just getting started
Round one

At one point I had to ask Valida if I’d missed the chapter in the guidebook about Bosnian host/guest rules.  Do we have to say no three times before they take us seriously?  No, she said, just say the word when we are done.  What that word is, we never found out. The feast went on, like Strega Nona’s magic pasta pot.

Several hours into this baccanalia  I groggily hit on the idea that if I did not drink my little glass of slivovitz, then Mumar would not be able to refill it.  I tried to pass the secret along but alas for Andreas the revelation came too late.  Ah well, it’s nothing that a day in a dark room with pitcher of water can’t cure.

The all-day grill
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Walking tour #1

Posted on 25 Apr 2012 by lornaofarabia

This morning I updated my Facebook status:

Coffee, scones and kaymak breakfast consumed. Now on to the real business of the day: compose blog post, edit DCS yearbook pages, score grade 5 science test, walk downtown for batteries and notebook, bake brownies, catch up on email; this post ought to take care of any lingering envy about the exciting expat life.

My friend Jamie in Medford commented from her cell phone:

Still sounds fun because you’re in another country. 🙂

And Jamie is right; just being here makes everything a little bit of an adventure.  I took my camera with me on my walk downtown.  Here’s my route to the stationery store on Marshal Tito Avenue.

 

Directions: walk along our block past the Sarajevo Stock Exchange (SASE); look at the pictures in the window of the dance school; turn left at the corner park onto Ali-Pashina Blvd.; turn right at the 16th century mosque onto Marshal Tito Blvd.; walk through the little park with the busts of famous Bosnian poets; check out the 19th C European architecture downtown; pass the green Monument to Murdered Children of the siege across the street from the BBI Centar mall; pass the city’s best ice cream shop (it’s too cold for gelato today); pass the McDonald’s – thankfully, one of only two American fast food restaurants in Sarajevo; pass the burly pair of light-holders  in front of the Central Bank; Papirnica – that’s the stationery store!

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In medias res

Posted on 21 Apr 2012 by lornaofarabia

Long time no see! My fault, I know. We left the Middle East’s no-post zone at the end of January and have been settled in one place with excellent connectivity since the beginning of March. But the thing is, I just haven’t felt like blogging. After the intensity of our sudden departurtulips in the cemeterye and the subsequent fabulous-but-exhausting vagabond tour of three continents, I didn’t have much enthusiasm left over for writing about it. Now after a few weeks of cocooning (think Internet Scrabble and Downton Abbey) and with the tulips in the cemetery starting to bloom, I’m starting to feel the urge to write again. I am afraid the long silence may have cost me my loyal readership (all five of you) but perhaps I can entice you back with promises of tales from new and exotic locales.

We were in Damascus, Syria from August 2011 until January 31, 2012. During that time I was unable to post: while blogs are not specifically outlawed, WordPress and Blogger are both blocked by the Syrian government. There are ways to get around blocked sites using an out-of-country proxy, but it didn’t take me long to decide the risk wasn’t worth it. I’m sure you are aware that a person can get in serious trouble in Syria for saying the wrong thing, and it’s not always easy to know what the wrong thing is. I did however keep a private journal the entire time I was there, and I wrote up a series of blog entries with the vague plan of posting them from outside the country. But although we did take a few trips out to Lebanon and Central Europe, knowing we’d have to get back into Syria again had me questioning the wisdom of posting at all.  So I didn’t.

We left Damascus unwillingly, but for the last time, on January 31. The American embassy essentially evicted us from the school premises for our own safety (they own the property). DCS teachers scattered to the four corners of the earth like dandelion seeds. We three bummed around Europe for a while as Andreas and I searched online for new international teaching posts. We landed here in Sarajevo because we were tired of living out of our (numerous and heavy) suitcases, and a little internet research led us to believe that Bosnia was a good deal with fast internet. Luck has shined on us since our arrival in the form of new jobs, new school, and a fantastic apartment in a great location.
When we arrived here, the city was just beginning to emerge from a record-breaking winter snowfall. Now we wait with great anticipation for the rain to stop and warm weather to arrive. Alekka started classes at Sarajevo’s international school a few weeks ago. Andreas has been filling in for a departing teacher since spring break and I have had a couple of subbing gigs. Andreas and I also teach on-line classes for students still in Damascus.

Now that we are settled in with the aforementioned excellent Internet connection, I am getting back on the blogging bandwagon. I figure I’ll just pick up where we are right now, but I’ll also post entries from my Syria journal as time allows. I hope that by the end of summer, I’ll have filled in the gap between past and present. And you, dear readers, will get the inside scoop.

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A new chapter

Posted on 27 Feb 2012 by lornaofarabia

It’s a long way from Paris to Sarajevo.  Or at least it’s a long time. Our flight from Paris to Zagreb was delayed but Croatia Air appeased us with croque monsieurs at the airport.  We were expecting a 7 hour layover in Croatia anyway so it wasn’t like we were worried about missing the connecting flight.

Zagreb’s facilities are awfully spartan for a capital city airport.  If there’s more to the place, we weren’t going to see it. Travellers passing through without Croatian visas are confined to a small waiting area with a snack bar: ham sandwiches, cheese sandwiches, ham and cheese sandwiches, and beer.  We tried to escape to see if we could find other food (after the croque monsieurs, ordinary ham and cheese sandwiches did not appeal) but got sent back by passport control.  No visa, no sandwich.

So I read my Kindle book, Andreas took a nap, and Alekka caught up on her math homework.

428032_3431998643942_1741799384_n

We learned that Croatia Airlines operates 13 planes.  By the time we got to Bosnia we had ridden in 15% of the fleet.

We arrived in Sarajevo on the tail of a massive snowstorm. We had booked a hotel ahead of time so were able to tell the taxi driver where to take us. But the driver was so worried about getting stuck in a snowdrift that he left us at the bottom of the road and we had to lug our five giant suitcases and five overstuffed carry-ons up a slippery hill and then wrestle them upstairs one by one to the third floor.  We seemed to be the only guests in the hotel so there were no witnesses to the spectacle. I am so done with this luggage.

Fender-bender on a slippery slope

A wisecracking young couple runs the front desk at this hotel.  I like them.  They are funny and helpful.  They told us how to get to a street where we could find good Bosnian restaurants.

We followed their directions down the hill along narrow, snowy residential roads to an old part of the city that is closed to automobile traffic.  It seems like a touristy kind of area but without any tourists at this time of year.  The restaurant we picked had descriptions in English – good thing, because just from the look of it, the local language (Bosnian) is going to be a challenge for me.

The menu options were heavy on meat, with lots of beef and veal.  I chose what turned out to be a very tender steak and a shaved cabbage salad dressed in oil and vinegar that tasted like good home cooking.  No alcohol at this place – over half the population of Bosnia is Muslim – but surprisingly no coffee on the menu either.  As we walked around after dinner, we realized that there are sweet shops all around where you can get coffee and fancy pastries.  We stopped into one and ordered espresso and tiramisu. I think maybe we’re going to like it here.

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Weight loss

Posted on 10 Aug 2011 by lornaofarabia

I feel so much lighter today.  Like, about 1,000 pounds lighter.

The shipping company picked up our things yesterday.  As I described in an earlier post, we were weighing the boxes on the bathroom scale as we went along, so I was a little surprised when the movers’ final total came in at 1,088 pounds.  “Is there anything you want to add? We can wait a few minutes,” they said.

This is what 1,088 pounds of stuff looks like.

So I wandered around the house, opening drawers and looking in closets.  All I could come up with was a journal with a only a few pages written in it.  It was the diary I had on my first long distance relocation adventure, in 1981 when I bought a one-way ticket on the Green Tortoise from San Francisco to New York City.  My journaling pledge only lasted as long as the bus ride: the challenges and excitement of being in a new place soon took precedence over recording it all for the reading  enjoyment of my future self.

When I took my Green Tortoise journal off the shelf yesterday, I noticed for the first time that the cover is decorated with camels and what looks to me like Arabic script….  strangely prophetic?  I don’t know.  Anyway, it’s coming with me.  Maybe I’ll write in it if my blog gets shut down.

But I couldn’t find much else I wanted to bring.  I had already made up my mind that everything not already in a box was staying home.  I did toss in one more item at the very end: the bathroom scale.

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Kitchen decisions

Posted on 9 Aug 2011 by lornaofarabia

Once I went on a weekend campout training session for Girl Scout leaders at Lake of the Woods. Camp Low Echo is wonderfully old-fashioned camp in a gorgeous lakeside setting.

The view from Camp Low Echo, near Klamath Falls in Oregon

I met a woman there, another Girl Scout leader, who told me in her charming southern accent that she always takes her bread machine along when she goes camping. Now I love to cook, and I like camping, but I would never even think of bringing a bread machine on a camping trip.  Camping trips are about toasted marshmallows and grilled hamburgers and bacon and eggs.  Not to mention, where do you plug it in?

So I am thinking about this as I try to figure out what kitchen items to take with me – and more importantly, what not to take with me – on this Middle Eastern adventure.  Anything I take needs to be useful and usable.  And it also needs to not detract from the experience of a foreign culture that is our reason for going overseas in the first place.

The handbook we got from the school includes some guidance on packing.  Because of the difference in the electrical current, they recommend minimizing appliances.  Small ones like toasters and coffeemakers are best purchased there.

But what about my Kitchenaid mixer?  I love that thing.  Andreas bought it for me right before we moved to Oregon.  I use it almost every day.  Of course, it weighs 35 pounds, but still I’m inclined to think it’s worth it.  I have to hope it won’t fry – or burn up the wiring in our new apartment. An email from a future colleague informs us that voltage converters don’t always prevent this from happening.

The Cuisinart?  My big one is in bad shape.  I’ve had it since 1982. The cover is broken, the pusher is missing, and two of the rubber feet are gone.  It will stay home.  But I think I will bring the small one, just in case I can’t find one there.

Kitchen essentials.

Beyond that, what do I really love that I think I would have a hard time finding in Damascus, that I would want to use there? Probably more gadgets than most people. I’ve put a lot of effort into finding the perfect vegetable peeler, spatula, ice cream scoop, tongs, and egg pan.  I also am very fond of my set of heavy anodized pots and pans, my mandoline, the microplane graters, the Silpats, the air-cushioned cookie sheets, and my Henckel knives.  All those things are definitely coming along.  I don’t know much about Middle Eastern cooking yet but I’m pretty sure they will be useful in their new home.

What I should NOT bring…  that is harder.  The mortar and pestle set, for starters.  Not only does it weigh 10 pounds, it came from Turkey…  kind of like carrying coals to Newcastle.  Storage containers, mixing bowls – easily obtained in Damascus.  The dim sum steamers: har gau won’t be on the menu for us (shrimp? pork fat?  bamboo shoots? I think not).  My favorite Dutch oven that belonged to my great-grandmother and that is perfect for making rustic bread – I would feel too awful if something happened and it didn’t make the return trip.  The slow cooker – I don’t know, that one just seems too American.

At any rate, I’ve got to make my final decisions now.  The shippers come later this morning to carry it all away.  They will weigh before they go.  If worse comes to worst, I’ll have to ditch a few items.  Kind of like the stoves and pianos that overpacked pioneers left along the Oregon Trail.

No inspirational ancestor left behind. The picture comes, too.

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Things fall apart

Posted on 8 Aug 2011 by lornaofarabia

I once read an article that explained why appliances always seem to give up the ghost when a new owner moves into a house.  This article said not to blame the seller for foisting off defective items; it’s the change in usage patterns that does them in.

That sounded sort of plausible at the time.  But it doesn’t explain why all our appliances have waited until two weeks before we leave to quit on us.  I think that, like the dog and the chickens, they sense that Something Is Up and they are conveying their deep displeasure.

The broiler turns itself on and won’t turn off, and I don’t need to tell you that this is a very bad thing indeed. The refrigerator is leaking water all over the kitchen floor – we have to pile towels in front of it every night.  The shower drain is hopelessly stopped up.

Honestly.  I have other things I need to be doing right now.

I’ll spare you the pictures.

Update 11 August 2011: Just called the towing company – the Honda overheated on the way home from the post office downtown.

Update 12 August 2011:Andreas thought he’d fixed the oven.  Well, I’ve got news for everybody and it’s called Broiler Blackened Banana Bars.  They don’t taste as bad as you might think (they have kind of like a caramelized crust) but that range is a serious fire hazard.  Looks like we’re getting a new one today.

The evil appliance lurks darkly in the background.

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Formalities

Posted on 7 Aug 2011 by lornaofarabia

One interesting aspect of our new school is its association with the American Embassy in Damascus. It’s not technically an embassy school (I’m not sure if there even is such a thing), but the American diplomats are on the school’s board of directors, the building belongs to the embassy, and teachers can join the commissary and pool, among other perqs.  I think we also get some kind of embassy ID that helps us with official business. On top of that, it seems teachers are invited to some embassy-related parties.

The teachers’ handbook lists these events:

– Marine Ball (cocktail dress for women; suit or tux for men)
– International Gala (formal event)
– Various embassy receptions requiring cocktail dresses and suits.

Given the state of foreign and domestic affairs over there just now, I have to wonder if any of these parties will happen this year. Non-essential embassy staff and dependents were all sent home in April, but I suppose we have to prepare for any eventuality (right now the soundtrack running through my mind is by the Titanic dance band… if the dj plays “Nearer My God to Thee” at any of these parties I will hop on the next plane home).  Anyway, it seems I need to pack cocktail dresses.

I can’t remember the last time I had occasion to wear a formal, or even a semi-formal dress.  For sure it was a long time ago because the only “little black dress” extant in my closet is a skimpy silk number, size 6.  Right.  Time to go shopping.

I hope these will do.

So yesterday I was off to the Ross discount outlet – maybe not a recognized source for high-end society fashion, but hey, you can get four outfits there for the price of one!  So instead of getting just one, I got four (can’t wear the same dress twice, can I?)  My wardrobe got a major upgrade, and I can get all dressed up – let’s hope we’ve got somewhere to go.

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Flying high

Posted on 6 Aug 2011 by lornaofarabia

Revolutions don’t scare me.  Airplanes do.

I can date my fear of flying to a rough landing in 1983.  Ever since then I’ve avoided airplanes whenever possible.  On those rare occasions when it is not possible, I get by with self-medication. A drink in the airport bar and two more on the plane is sufficient to get me from one coast to the other.

But our journey this time involves 5 separate flights over 27 hours. Not to mention that the director of the school will be picking us up at the airport, so I have to be mindful of my condition on arrival.  We don’t want to make a poor first impression.

I hear this is a good book.

My good friend and fellow book-clubber Jenni used to suffer the same phobia until she cured herself with Qantas airlines’ Fearless Flier’s Handbook.  As you might expect, the idea of a book solution appealed to me.  So I checked a copy out of the library.  The thing is, I was afraid to open it.  I kept it for two months before returning it unread.  Jenni and I are in agreement that library fines support a worthy cause.

Finally I decided to see the doctor.  She laughed and made some jokes about flying.  I criticized her bedside manner.  She gave me a prescription for 30 pills.  Apparently she expects me to start flying a lot.  I asked why so many, and she said she wanted to make sure I could get back home.

Between the drugs and the travel angel pin my buddies gave me yesterday for a going away present, I think I’ve got it covered.

To infinity and beyond! Thanks, Jan and Cindy.

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Expatzilla

Posted on 19 Jul 2011 by lornaofarabia

I recognize this feeling. It’s been 25 years but it’s all coming back to me.  That scene where you’re planning a wedding (your own) and at some critical juncture the florist, the baker, the dress, the bridesmaids, the tuxedos, the caterer, the musicians, the photographer, the guest list, the printer, the rental space, the groomsmen, the rehearsal dinner, the vows, and the future in-laws all get to be too much. You scream something regrettable at your maid of honor or your mother (or both) before running in tears from the room where you have all spent the last four hours tying Jordan almonds up with pieces of netting and ribbon.  Later, you whine to your patient-bordering-on-saintly fiance: “Why are we doing this? We should go to City Hall and forget the wedding.” And he gives you a look that reminds you that if you had said those words six months ago he would have been more than happy to do exactly that.  But now it is too late and you are just going to have to finish what you started.

That is just about where I am with this move.  Some of this hassle is unavoidable.  We have to do the paperwork (the visas, credentials, insurance, medical records, blah blah blah).  But the moving part…

The school hired one other person this year in addition to us.  Her name is Mariah and she lives in Virginia.  She is not shipping anything.  All her stuff is going with her on the plane.  Huh.  I think it is too late for us to do that.  The shippers are coming in five days.

Oh well.  The wedding turned out well.  Maybe the move will, too.

And they all lived happily ever after.

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