"Information Overload"

don't the summay's have a lovely view?!?

Information overload is an accurate description of what it's like to submerse yourself in a culture where you have no idea what is being said...ever, all the conversion rates are swimming (more like drowning) in your head, and all the while you're trying to understand and familiarize yourself with so many cultural differences...and I LOVE IT! 


Last night some of Jeff's Bosnian friends stopped by to visit and chat. It was my first experience with a lengthy, Bosnian conversation and I had no idea what was being said =] By forcing myself to tune into the interesting dialect of the new language, along with focusing on the casual hand motions to try and follow as best I could on what was actually being discussed, I actually gave myself a pretty serious headache. I was totally oblivious. To my knowledge Jeff could have been ranting about how much I smell and that he wished to God I'd bathe haha. i don't know. There was one part of the conversation that I did catch however... when Jeff was telling Sega (Shaygah) who I was and who my parents were, he rubbed his head as if he was bald ;D ...context clues for the win! I'm itching to start my language training...I wanna converse. After they left we were soon afterwards visited by Jeff's deaf mechanic neighbor guy whose name slips my memory. To me, he seemed like a friendly man. I introduced him to some of my pipe tobacco- which he in turn, rolled a cigarette with. So, we smoked and he and Jeff talked (dude is strangely excellent at reading lips) and it was quite interesting to watch. I think he really enjoyed my tobacco cos he kept looking over, and knowing that I knew nothing that was being spoken, he would just give me a wink. It was comforting? Anyways he left and Jeff went to bed and I stayed up amazed by the Bosnian night, stoked on it's beauty. The mountains were so soothing. I felt alright with everything. I must have sat outside on the Summay's deck for at least three hours, just looking... and praying. I played some guitar, smoked a few pipe bowls, then decided I'd better get some sleep cos I had no clue what Jeff was planning for the next day.

As it turns out a Sunday in Bosnia proved to be about as eventful as a Sunday anywhere else. We woke up with the agenda wide open and didn't really move from one spot until lunch time. Jeff decided we were going down into town for lunch, so we drove down there and walked around for a bit before finally stopping at this little restaurant to eat. I couldn't tell you the Bosnian name for it, but in english it's translated "The Ember." ...and it was delicious. cevapi = mmm. After a bit more walking around the town and driving to see some nearby villages, we retired back to the deaf mechanic guy's house and I met his family.
There I was first introduced to Bosnian coffee (thankfully I remembered Ben's words of advise to never say "bottoms up" unless you want a mouthful of grainy coffee grounds that taste like chalk but worse). I met their 10 year old son, who had learned english from watching cartoons, and we had a great chat about ninja turtles and some dragon show. It was awesome! I love talking about dragons...especially with kids who are as equally as pumped and fascinated by their majestic qualities. After a while of serious, enthusiastic dragon talk, we eventually went outside to practice our jump roping skills. He was impressed that I could even jump rope and showed me some of his tricks that he could do. I never really was much of a jump roper back in the day. I'd say my peak was several years ago when I got up to maybe 40 jumps in a row without tripping over my feet. (never could do the criss-cross or double spin thing) But dude pleaded for me to try...so I did. And after about 10 minutes of lessons I got the criss-cross move down! I was so excited! Not once in my 19 years of living had I ever been able to do that fancy criss-cross move...until today. I suppose it just took the excitement and encouragement of a Bosnian kid to get my coordination to work correctly =]

Then it was time for church. Foreign churches are always a treat to attend. Everyone was so friendly, all the songs and repetition helped with learning the new pronunciations, and I had the opportunity to worship the Lord. Life's good.

Grace and Peace,

Caleb (Kaleb)