The kindness of strangers

One of the perks of my position here as visiting professor is that someone else cleans my apartment and does my laundry. Her name is Mrs. B. and she comes on Friday mornings when I am at the university teaching.

We have a running joke: I leave her a few kuna as a tip, and we keep turning the same piece of paper around: on one side I have written Hvala! (thank you); on the other side she has written Molim! (you are welcome). Sometimes she leaves me bits of clothing that are not mine. These, of course, I return.

Last week she left me two amazingly wonderful gifts.

Eggs from her own chickens!

And a pair of hand-made wool slippers. She also left a note which translates roughly as "So that you will have something to remember the unknown Mrs. B. by." My friend V. commented that we see to have formed a very loving relationship--remarkable considering we've never met!

Kindness, indeed.

So as not to romanticize

People tell me that the country is bankrupt and the government corrupt. They are looking forward to the government falling. Apparently.

The trains that travel within Croatia are not very clean, and certainly not as clean as the ones that cross borders.

I have eaten enough burek to turn me off phyllo pastry for life. Maybe.

Taxi drivers might rip you off. One did, but this happened only once. 

One of these days I’m going to break my neck when I trip on cracked and dented sidewalks or fall down crumbling concrete steps—which seem to be everywhere in my daily life.

It is not pleasant to see old people digging through garbage cans looking for the plastic bottles that can be turned in for cash.

But then, Zagreb offers me this...sculptures by Ivan Mestrovic. This one is called "Waiting."

This one is called "History of Croatia"

There is no eastern Europe

There is no Eastern Europe.

I’ve been thinking about that statement, made by J, one of the colleagues I have met during my sojourn here. He’s another expat living and teaching Canadian literature at a nearby university. We talked about my surprise at the response I have received both by naming “the Balkans” here in the title of my blog and when I understood that to Croats, Croatia is in central Europe, not eastern Europe. Of course, the Balkans is a geographical term, but its connotations are that “Balkans” are peasants, brutes, primitive peoples. It’s heard as derogatory (and I’ve apologized for using it). The question of who is an eastern European is more complicated, it seems. Where is eastern Europe? I really don’t know.

One of the many gifts I have recently received is a book by Rebecca West called Black Lamb and Grey Falcon. It’s a BIG book (1,150 pages of small print in the edition I have), a travel saga, written in the 1940s by an astonishingly literate and skilled author who became curious about Yugoslavia (as it was then) and took two trips t/here. I’m learning a lot about the complexities of the histories of this region. The first part of West’s book is about Croatia, and I’m struck by how many of her observations then match with mine now. The market, for instance, where people still sell things under red and white umbrellas. In the 1940s the women selling produce are described by West as “peasants [who] stood square on their feet, and amazed us by their faces, which are as mobile and sensitive as if they were the most cultivated townspeople.” Of course, both women and men sell stuff at the Dolac market. Yesterday when I said “dovidjenja/goodbye” to the woman who sold me wild asparagus she giggled at my formality—or perhaps my bad accent! Rebecca West goes on to describe what the women who sold at the market wore: two aprons wrapped around the body, one covering the front; the other covering the back (I’ve worn two hospital gowns that way). Today the women wear completely ordinary modern clothing, but the point of the description of the clothing was this:

They gave the sense of the very opposite of what we mean by the word ‘peasant’ when we use it in a derogatory sense, thinking women made doltish by repeated pregnancies and a lifetime spent in the service of oafs in the villages that swim in mud to the thresholds every winter. This costume was evolved by women who could stride alone if they were eight months gone with child, and who would dance in the mud if they felt like it, no matter what any oaf said. This statue of a “peasant” market woman stands at the top of the steps that lead to the market.

I think I know what she means.

The history of this place is all about other countries, other empires, invading and controlling them, while there is a continuing sense of national identity that unites the regions and invites shows of patriotism. One evening in Osijek I went to a café for a last glass of wine before retiring for the night in the student residence at the university where I was lodged (rather than a hotel). There was a private party going on. Students. One of them was graduating and the friends were celebrating. One guy had a guitar and everyone was singing—loudly, and, clearly, everyone involved knew all the words of the songs. I asked someone what the people were singing and the answer was “old Croatian songs.” If I understood the guy I was talking to correctly, they were old pop songs from 30 years ago, but they were sung with such gusto! This was no karaoke. Describing the singing at an Easter Sunday Mass, Rebecca West writes this: “Western church music is almost commonly petitioning and infantile, a sentiment cozening for remedy against sickness or misfortune, combined with a masochistic enjoyment in the malady, but this singing spoke of health and fullness.” That’s what I heard in that Osijek café bar. Health and fullness. In the main square in Zagreb on Saturdays a man sings what sound to me like folk songs. This evening there is a concert of traditional Croatian choral music. Men and boys wear the colours of the national sports teams. Croatian identity is affirmed over and over again.

But is no one in this region from eastern Europe? Is that connotation of “east” too attached to threatening Turks and colonizing Hungarians? What about Serbians? Please tell me how you identify with respect to the muddled histories and cultures (because it’s not about geography) of Europe. Hvala.

Academic tourism

I’ve borrowed that phrase from one of my colleagues here in Zagreb. It’s a wonderful part of our jobs that we are often given the opportunity to travel for work. Conferences are obviously one way to work abroad (and add on holiday time); so is being a visiting scholar. So far in my career I have been to various parts of Canada and the U.S. including Hawaii, Mexico, Jamaica, Spain (twice), Germany, and now Croatia (plus Slovenia and Austria as side trips). I know I will one day go to Australia. And, of course, many of my colleagues in English routinely go to the U.K.

I haven’t seen much of Croatia yet (except for Osijek), though when Arlequino gets here [hurry up and get here Arlequino!] we will travel all over this country. On Friday, after my class was over, my colleague V. and I went to a small town not far from Zagreb. Samobor is a lovely Baroque town with well cared for streets and buildings and an absolutely gorgeous park. The town is built along a small river, with densely wooded hills as a backdrop. Of course, it’s spring, so the greens are light and fresh. The air was clear. We spent a lovely couple of hours wandering around and we both felt restored by the experience.  

 

Visiting scholar programs for Canadians?

I’ve been thinking a lot about the Fulbright program.

While I have been in Croatia and other parts of central Europe I have met several (and have heard about many more) American professors who, through the Fulbright program, have been enjoying their stints as visiting professors all over the place—and some have travelled on Fulbrights more than once. It’s a sweet, sweet deal if you get a Fulbright, and about 800 American professors a year do win these grants and take up positions at universities abroad for a full academic year.

Everyone here has been asking me how I ended up teaching at the University of Zagreb as a visiting professor, and I explain that it’s through a Memorandum of Understanding between our two universities which, as far as I can tell, is a new agreement and came about through personal connections between people in Zagreb and people in Waterloo. I expect that other visiting scholar or international student exchange programs came into being in a similar manner. Individuals have to adopt the cause and do the legwork to establish these international arrangements. And then, of course, the universities involved have to be constantly encouraged to keep them going.

And what’s the downside to international exchange programs? None that I can see. Students benefit by having foreign professors teach subjects to which they would otherwise not be exposed. The department benefits by having some of their teaching done by people from away. Individual faculty members benefit from personal contact with a Canadian who can help them with their research, can point them towards resources, introduce them to other colleagues, compare notes about teaching and research, and so on. We are constantly exchanging titles and authors and telling stories about our respective lives and careers. And for me, as the visiting professor, the rewards are endless. I hope I have conveyed some of my deep appreciation for all of my experiences in this blog. I am learning so much! And I am enjoying both the hospitality that has been extended to me—consistently—and the evident gratitude that my European colleagues and their students have conveyed. I feel valued.

Why wouldn’t universities develop and support these sorts of academic exchanges? Okay, they often rely on the free labour offered by individuals. More difficult is this question: where does the money come from? Through the MoU between Waterloo and Zagreb my university paid for my airfare (or will after I submit tickets and boarding passes) and covered the costs of shipping books to Croatia. I applied for and was granted an early (6 month) sabbatical, so I receive most of my UW salary. The University of Zagreb is paying for the apartment in which I am living and has given me some money for living expenses (about $900). When I have been invited to give a lecture at other universities, those universities have covered all of the travel, accommodation, and food/drink expenses. I am happy with all of these arrangements.

But where is the external funding? Where is our version of the Fulbright program? Um, there isn’t one, as far as I know. I've found these two programs. But there must be others.

Bridgewater University  http://www.bridgew.edu/canada/killamprofessor.cfm
University of Edinburgh http://www.cst.ed.ac.uk/Staff/Visiting/

Posted from the train!

The lady is on the train again, this time heading east to Osijek, in the Slavonian region. I will give another lecture at the Universtiy of Osijek, and I look forward to seeing a different part of Croatia. Even though I am not crossing any borders this time I have my passport with me. I always have my passport with me. I am wearing a new outfit: a skirt and matching short-sleeved cardigan, and shiny stockings. I did not know that the stockings would be shiny when I bought them. Professor lady attire.

Once the train moves out of the city and its outskirts we quickly come upon small towns with red brick or concrete houses with tile roofs. The houses built of concrete are whitewashed or painted muted yellows, oranges, and greens. The sun is shining and the compartment is stuffy, even with the window open. Across from me are three young people (or at least younger than I): a young man who seems to be traveling on business and is eating biscuits; a high school-age blind girl who is listening to something—a book?—on her laptop; and a very attractive young woman with short hair, black-framed glasses, wearing skinny jeans, a black t-shirt and yellow Converse sneakers. She is reading a Croatian translation of Ana Karenina. A student perhaps? In between staring out of the window (and typing this post) I am reading Dubravka Ugresic’s memoir Baba Yaga Laid an Egg.

In the wooded areas the forest floor is covered with violets and what look like the wild bleeding heart (can’t recall the Latin name) that I have in my garden at home. Marsh marigolds bloom near water. Along the tracks, some sort of bush is in flower, a bright white. 

Sunday afternoon in Zagreb

There’s not much to do in my neighbourhood except live, so on weekends I try to get out of the apartment and go into town to wander around in a wider circle than my day-to-day routes and routines. Yesterday, for example, after doing a couple of hours’ work (marking midterms, reading recent scholarly articles about the novels I will teach) I went into the centre. Did I mention how gorgeous the weather is? 20 degrees and colourful. This magnolia tree is in Trg Tomislav (he's the guy on the horse).

 There was some sort of festival/display going on in the main square, Trg Bana J. Jelacia (does anyone know how to find the Croatian diacritics in Word?). There was singing and dancing and accordian music.

For a moment it felt like I was back at Oktoberfest in Kitchener, and, indeed, I think I did experience a version of Croatian multiculturalism. It appeared that displays were set up to showcase products and activities associated with different regions in Croatia (maybe also nearby countries, but I wasn’t sure).

There were references to hiking and, um, bear hunting? There was food and drink—lots of honey and various cordials made from fruits. Felted wool products such as hats and slippers. Dried herbs.

This one is for Victoria: it’s advertising a frog museum!

In the evening I came home (after skyping with Arlequino at the Gradska Kavana), made dinner (chicken stirfry) and watched the sun set over Novi Zagreb.

Today I am in the old town. I climbed up the 13^th century Lotrscak Tower from which a cannon is fired every single day at precisely noon. This is the view.

Later, after enjoying this superb and gorgeous coffee I will go to a Museum. But which one?