A Teacher's Journey

Let me preface this blog by saying that I am not going to take sides here.  Albanian Kosovars and Serbian Kosovars don't like each other.  That animosity has gone on now for generations.  More recently, Serbian President Milosevic in 1998-1999 genocided ethnic Albanian Kosovars, and if it were me and my family I'd have a hard time getting past that too.  It's unfortunate that Orthodoxy is connected so strongly here to Milosovic and the war/bombing/genocide on the 1990s, but without any high-level reconciliation it's hard for either side to move on. So, here are pictures of the Orthodox cathedral in Pristina, Church of Christ the Saviour.  Construction was halted in 1999, and the site has been contested since then.  Wikipedia actually has a lengthy discussion about the church if you are interested - I won't go into it all here.  But the pictures here of a vandalized and apparently abandoned church make me sad. Plus, as I was taking the pictures a very p...

It seems that every city I visit has some outdoor space - a city park with trees and walking paths for people to go, take a stroll, have a picnic, and just chill out surrounded by trees and quiet.  Pristina is no exception.  I spent the afternoon walking to the city park and taking a stroll.  It is a lovely refuge from the hustle-bustle and the street noise.  Of course there was a playground, and hearing the kids playing here like they do in playgrounds back home made me feel much more comfy in my new home. After strolling around the park I walked (Pristina is infinitely walkable) to the Xhamia e Madhe - the Great Mosque (sometimes it is referred to as Xhamia e Mbretit - the King's Mosque or the Imperial Mosque), built in 1461.  Below are lots of pictures of the scenes: Here is the entrance to the city park: There are several basketball cages scattered throughout the park.  I'm kinda liking the cages that keep the basketball contained instead of...

 The people of Kosovo have had a long friendship with the US. I say the people of Kosovo rather than Kosovo because Kosovo has only been its own country since 2008, and the friendship extends further back than that.  In 1998-1999 Slobodan Milosovic bombed the crap out of Kosovo, which at the time was part of Serbia. He further perpetrated genocide against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.   Enter Bill Clinton and NATO, who bombed Milosovic to get him to stop bombing and genociding Kosovo.  In their gratitude or whatever other reason, Pristina has a great statue of Bill Clinton and named a major street after him.  Here are some pictures of the statue AND the Hillary store next door.  There is also a George Bush Blvd. in recognition of really both of the president Bushes. George HW wrote a letter in 1992 telling Milosovic to back off of Kosovo or else.  George W. recognized Kosovo as an independent country on Feb. 18, 2008, the day after Kosovo declared i...

 There is an amazing bazaar down the street from the hotel.  It's a wonderful place to walk around, get lost, smell and hear and have all our senses activated.  Much more than a farmer's market in the US - this bazaar is open all the time, full of people doing their shopping and hanging out.  Here are some pics and a video, with some comments.  I'm not great at formatting, so we'll just go with what we got here. I took this video as I was walking along.  Look at all the bread.  OMG, so much bread.  My students told me it would all be sold by the end of the day.  Bread is revered here in Uzbekistan.  It is served at every meal, crumbs are picked up and eaten (a student told me that practice hearkened back to times of severe poverty/famine, when nothing was wased).  At the end of the video are boxes full of little white balls.  These are called curd .  Salty cheese (like parmesan) with extra salt.  I did actually try on...

 I set three goals for myself for this Uzbek gig: try a lot of new food meet lots of great people break out of my introverted tendencies I don't think extrovert/introvert is a binary.  I feel it's more of a spectrum.  I can totally be extroverted: in front of my class, presenting at a conference, professional stuff like that.  Socially though is a different matter.  It takes some effort and awareness to get my extroverted side to shine through in social situations.  But I have to make an effort, and sometimes I'm not able to make that effort, and other people interpret that as aloofness.  Sometimes I just want to be inside my own head where it's warm and comfy rather than out with other people.   I decided that on this Uzbek gig I was going to really work at getting out of my warm comfy head and go out and be social.  I vowed to actually go out to dinner with my team (there are five of us teachers from the US as well as Jesse the boots-o...

 Being a dumb, middle class Ammerican white girl, I am able to move about the world with a certain amount of privilege, surrounded by conveniences that I take for granted, never noticing them until they aren't there any more. I knew that Uzbekistan would shove me out of my comfort zone, but I didn't really unnderstand how far and how often I would be shoved. So, without further ado, here are a litany of privileges I have in the US that I don't have here.  In the US: I can turn on the faucet and get clean water that I can drink from the tap. I can take a shower with water that is hot. I can walk into a building or a room without breaking my leg.  (Notice in the picture the pipe on the floor across the doorway.  I'm sure you can imagine how I entered the room). I have access to a bathroom with a flush toilet near my classroom rather than down two flights of stairs and across the courtyard. I can go to a restaurant and be given a menu printed in a language I can read. I...

One of my favorite memories of traveling through Greece with my dad was going to church and experiencing the same Liturgy we celebrate every Sunday but this time in a different place.  I have wonderful memories of Vespers at Notre Dame, an evening service at St. Paul's in London, and an organ recital at Hallgrimskirkja in Rekjavik. Tashkent, although Muslim, also has a large Russian Orthodox presence, so I hopped a cab this morning to the Assumption Cathedral.  The doors were open, so I went in, lit some candles, and thanked God for getting me to Tashkent safely.  Several small cases held relics of various saints, including St. Nickolas.  My dad's name was Nick, so here was an unexpected and powerful connection.  They wouldn't let me take pictures of the inside, but here are plenty from outside.  I wish I were here longer so I could attend Liturgy here, but there will be an opportunity in Andijan next weekend. ...