After a full week living here in Sarajevo, I am only beginning to understand the culture that is, at points, a leap and a bound away from the American lifestyle that we often times grow so used to.
Through my previous experiences abroad, and through conversations our group has had, I have learned that it is important to be cautious when comparing and contrasting different cultures because it can quickly lead to hurt feelings or judgement on someone else’s way of life, even if that wasn’t the intention. Saying that, I still believe that it is important to be honest about how some things differ from how we expect them to be, or how we can confused as to why someone did or do not do something and how that could be a reflection of their culture. Reflection on the relationships between cultures is important, but I believe that there are times when we should tread lightly.
One large example of where I see a contrast to American culture is in the workplace. I can only speak about my own experience but I have heard similar experiences from others. As I arrived to my first day of my internship last week, everybody immediately stopped the work they were doing, and we all sat down and had coffee together and just started talking about the possibilities for the internship as well as other, less formal things. These (what I deem very relaxing and wonderful) coffee breaks can be instigated at any point in the day, and often more than once a day. Instead of putting your head down and plowing through as much work as possible during the eight hours that you’ve got, as sometimes I believe is the attitude in the United States, there seems to be a serious emphasis on the relationship atmosphere in the workplace. Taking half an hour (or one or two or three hours) to sit down, take a break, and learn more about the people you work with can be tremendously beneficial, and I believe that advantage is well recognized here.
Another place that I see serious differences from my lifestyle back in the states is simply concerning daily interaction with people in the city. I have been exposed to it once before as I began my eleven months in Brasil last year, but I have now remembered how much I dislike being completely incompetent when it comes to speaking the native language of the country/area in which I am staying. Daily tasks such as buying “one bus ticket please” all of a sudden become increasingly more difficult, not to mention trying to communicate that I would prefer my scoop of ice cream in a cup instead of a bowl. To my (and every other american that unfortunately can’t speak a lick of Bosnian) luck, many people who work within the center of the city have a good grasp on English. Slowly but surely, I am working on my Bosnian, but every day is accompanied by the occasional language barrier that causes frustration on both sides of the conversation. I forgot what this feels like and sometimes makes me feel like the stereotypical, somewhat arrogant american who can’t take the time to learn someone else’s language, as the entire world has done for us.
On a brighter note, the architecture that surrounds me every day continues to delight me as I walk to the bus stop or down the street to get ice cream. Our hostel is pleasantly placed in the center of Sarajevo where there are many older buildings and cobblestone sidewalks and streets. The tall (ranging from three to ten or more stories) buildings that occupy the area where we live have an old, rich with history feel to them that I think is hard to get anywhere in the United States, especially on the DU campus or in small town Northfield, MN. Some architecture in the city dates all the way back to the medieval period and the invasion of the ottoman empire.
Lastly, I have never lived in a place where Christianity is not the main religion. Though I am not necessarily religious myself, religion seems to play quite a role in many lives here in Sarajevo. Sarajevo, as a predominately Muslim city, is just beginning Ramadan (the ninth month in the Islam calendar that is traditionally observed by Muslims as a month of fasting) so every night right around sundown there are cannons that will go off to signal the call to prayer. The hostel is also located near a Mosque, so depending on the time of the day, sometimes I will be walking by the Mosque and see people removing their shoes and praying in the entrance, a somewhat foreign ritual to me, despite my frequent joking claims of being cultured and worldly. All in all, I haven’t really been exposed to many other religions besides Christianity and my exposure to Islam here is serving to be quite enlightening and educational.
The photos are from a hike up at the village of Lukomir, which is located at about 1500m above sea level and is the highest and most remote village in the entire country. As we returned to the village from our hike, we were warmly greeted with homemade bosanska kafa (bosnian coffee), homemade yogurt, and two varieties of pita (bosnian stuffed pastries/pie), krompirusa (stuffed with potato), and sirnica (stuffed with cheese).
University of Denver in Bosnia 