h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Well, I'm done writing my "new-norwegian" paper... So it's time to sum up my trip to Bosnia and Croatia...

For those of you who haven't been paying attention, I've been part of a cultural exchange program between Norway and Bosnia, more specifically between Buskerud and Mostar.

So, when the time came for the Autumn (potato) vacation came... I was packed for a week and a half in Mostar, with some days in Dubrovnik, and some in Split, Croatia.

We were, originally, going to stay in Bosnia for nine days, and we were flying directly to Sarajevo. But... alas... Air Bosnia went bankrupt, and we had a last minute change of schedule, resulting in our flying to Split, Croatia in the middle of the night, and going on by bus to Mostar. This also resulted in some crew changes on the music group...

After three of hours of busing through pictoresque landscape in the grey light of dawn, we arrived in Mostar. Mostar is a relatively small city. It is divided in the middle by a river (which I never learned the name of). In Mostar, you see the beginnings of ethnical segregation, with the Christians having their quarters on one side of the river, and the muslims on the other. Mostar has something like 27 mosks, all of which hold prayers five times a day (mind, I didn't see a single soul praying in the streets during the prayer-shouts). I have a sneaking suspicion that they are actually using a tape-recorder and speakers, instead of doing it manually, as was the custom before.

But I digress...

We stayed at a children's home built as a gift from Egypt. The standard was allright (though, the beds were a bit cramped when it came to handling huge norwegian musicians). My only real complaint when it came to the orphanage was that they had unisex showers... with windows, without curtains (!!!).

When we arrived at ten in the morning, we hadn't had more than a couple of hours of sleep for the entire night, so, naturally, we went to sleep at once, and slept through the rest of the morning, and some of the afternoon. We were avoken some hours later by the ferocious cries of a dance instructor telling us that we were supposed to be at the centre an hour ago, that both the dancers and the media group had allready gotten there, and that we were making a bad impression and so on... Of course, nobody had even bothered with telling us when to get up, and nobody had bothered with waking us up...

Anyway, we went over to the centre where we were going to be working for the next eight days (Pavarotti music centre, built with funds from (among others) maestro Pavarotti, Bono, Brian Eno and Peter Gabriel), and were introduced to the musicians we would be working with.

Ready...?

Okay... here goes...

3 (yes, that's right, three) classical pianists
and
1 Classical guitar player.
All age fifteen.

My first reaction was... "OMG, how are we going to make anything with that bunch?"... still, I kept myself from fretting... for the moment.

We weren't scheduled for any work that day, so we just went to buy something to eat (the lunch at the orphanage was terrible... I won't go into details, in fear of having flashbacks). And I made my first cultural blunder. We went into a shop (a local mini-market), to get something to eat. We had brought Euro, which was accepted allmost everywhere in Bosnia, regardless of the fact that they're not a member of the Europian Union (or at least I think so). Anyway, I had brought two notes, at the total value of 150 eur. Later I found out that this was about a months wages to a Bosnian doctor, and I (in my stupidity and short-sightedness) tried to pay with a 50 EUR bill... My friends... that was not smart... I could hear the gasp from the bosnian musician as I pulled out one third of a months salary, put it on the counter and tried to understand what the person behind the counter was trying to tell me (which was that she couldn't give change to such a large note). Tina ended up paying for me (thank you Tina).

The next couple of days we were working. We found ot early on that our instructor couldn't speak english/german/french/spanish, and thus we ended up getting overrun whenever she was around for the first couple of days... We eventually had to complain, and get a translator in, in order to help us communicate. Another early on realization was that the piano players couldn't play chords... We were quite frustrated at the end of day two... We had worked for two days, and had so far come up with one song, discarded three, and had two more in the pipeline, but heading for trashing. That was when we really decided to work like hell... We eventually ended up asking for a bass guitar, an electric guitar, and some amps. We taught the classical guitarplayer to play electric guitar, and we taught one of the piano players to play the bass (poor girl, she had huge blisters on her fingers after a couple of days). So, we managed two songs... Some home made bosnian pop ballad, and "Tears in heaven", and we were working like hell on "Walking on Sunshine".
On the evening of the second day, we went to the (outdoor) cinema, and watched Terminator 3. I'll have to admit that I hadn't seen the previous two... but ((un)fortunately), the plot was easy to latch onto.

So, were there traces of the war?
Yes, indeed there were... there were ruins everywhere, bullet holes, not to mention the huge damages caused to buildings by artillery fire. Also, the whole place seemed... tense... It was as if you could sense the enormous agony that the people felt. Some of the dancers actually broke down and cried when they got back to their rooms at the orphanage, and they couldn't account for why they felt that way afterwards... It was as if they had picked up on the frustration that was to be felt everywhere in Mostar. I later learned that there are very strict unwritten rules and social codes in Mostar, and that the consequences of breaking them are... terrible. Hence, no-one dares to question anything established, for fear of the consequences...

Anyway, on tuesday we went to Croatia, and lovely Dubrovnik. Dubrovnik is a city rich in culture and history. Oh, and Kristian, the architecture there is great... Once again, the Norwegian musicians shocked their hosts, by staying boy and girl in one double room at the Hotel... God, we seem unable to stop making mistakes don't we... And I'm not even telling you what the others did when in town.

We got back on wednesday evening, and we worked for most of the thursday, and the whole friday, tying up all the loose ends. When I say most of thursday, it is because the Helsinki committee _forced_ us to go to a debate about the schools in Bosnia, to see what the human rights group had done. They had achieved nothing, nothing indeed. I look back on that whole debate with a bad taste in my mouth. Such a display of arrogance as the Helsinki committee made that evening, is something that will remain etched into the back of my head for the rest of my life. They held a one and a half hour sermon (and i use the word sermon with deliberately) about how good the Norwegian school was, and how bad the Bosnian school was. And what's more, what they said about the Norwegian school was a load of bulls**t. Then they opened for the debate, allready one hour late. The whole "debate" lasted for about twenty minutes, and went as following:

The leaders of the group asked some loose questions like "How can we make peace", and then, NOBODY from the human rights group answered. The only people to say anything during the entire debate was me, and the Bosnian guitarplayer, both from the culture group, both musicians...

And to think that we lost three hours of practice for THAT load of hogwash and gibberish!!!

Anyway... After the debate, we all felt kind of frustrated, so me and Aleks, and Christine went and had a two-hour jam-session back at the centre, and got back at eleven... or something like that.

We spent the whole of friday tying up the loose ends, and saturday went into making a show out of it.

So final product, musicians:
Walking on Sunshine
Tears in Heaven
Home-made Bosnian pop song
Bach with effect drums... YAY
and Aleks Impro (accompanied by a poem)

Additionally, we will be doing "Carpe Diem" (Dream Theater) in Drammen, if we can manage it.

The media group had spent the week making a short animated movie, called "Beyond", it will last for approx. ten minutes, and the only thing that was shown in Mostar was a trailer, as it wasn't completely edited (that process takes four days).

The dancers did 3 dances (I think, or maybe four). Anyway, our total product lasted for 55 minutes, which was a lot more than I had expected.

At a whole, the trip was quite memorable... We stayed for three days in Split, Croatia, spending the last of our money (I still had 60 EUR when I got home, though) before going home. The last night was spent drinking cheap wine, and analyzing a Frank Zappa record I had bought, together with some of the guys from the media group, which I hope to see more often in the future...

Phew... that took a while to write, and there is still so much more, but I haven't got the time to write more now...

So... until I have got time... this is all you'll get!

yaay! The best (and most shocking!) bit being you spent the rest of the days drinking cheap wine!lol... and here was me thinking your weren't a drinker Øyvind!lol

Claire
xxxxxx
gosh my life seems so mundane now!

oh okay sorry... just the last night drinking cheap wine... i'll let you off with that then!

Claire
xxxxxx

TWO glasses!!!

aha! yeah but it starts with 2 glasses? where does it end up...?!lol

Claire
xxxxxx

With two glasses ...

The most I've ever had was three, and I could still walk straight after that...

Øyvind

Funny thing is that it was a school-sponsored trip, and hence, any intake of alcohol during the trip was strictly illegal... But all the instructors knew that most of the guys/gels were out getting drunk (it was only me and Tina, sometimes joined by Aleks and Christine who didn't)... And they didn't really care...

Well, actually, the whole trip was fun!