Perhaps not surprisingly, my learning did not follow the trajectory which I laid out for it at the beginning of the semester. I accomplished both more and less than I had hoped to in various areas. One of my goals was to learn 300-500 new vocabulary words. I think I fell just short of this. Part of the reason is that I spent far more time than expected on questions of experiencing and thinking about a new culture, as I discussed my cultural presentation. I’ll go into this more in the second part of this reflection, but in short, much of my time was spent reading texts about others’ experiences in Bosnia, what informed those experiences, and how and why they told their stories as so. Or, in some cases, I read about various histories of Bosnia written for different audiences (academic, public, or policymakers). Thinking about these questions was important to me not just for my future experience in Bosnia, but in any space in which the people hold a very different reality from which I live.
There are some major differences when an American enters the Bosnian realm, or generally when someone enters a foreign culture. There are some similar major differences when an American basketball player for instance, attempts to step into the world of a world class American chef. These people in some vastly different realities. Might as well be speaking a different language. In both cases, I think the approach of the learner is the same: get in there, try it, and pay very close attention to anything and everything you can from the master, not necessarily the objects of fascination, of that universe. In other words, it’s not necessarily all about the food or monuments, but the ways in which people experience the food and monuments, trying to get as close as you can to experiencing the thing in the same way. This I found is the most personally challenging and perhaps even risky, is adopting and abandoning, if only temporary, the cultural assumptions/truths of the foreign land. This I’ve realized can be frightening, and with good reason. As we learned in SDLAP 105, students who come from abroad fear “losing themselves” or culture if they really immerse themselves and do things as the natives due. Truth is, I think, when you really delve into a culture, you do. You experience the world differently, and therefore, will act/think differently. Some people are not willing to do this, and for fine reason. But for those who are, risk aside, I think the transformative rewards are enticing. The value of this experience/realization is immeasurable.
What does this mean for my experience in Bosnia or any country? Well, as I learned more about areas of Bosnia, famous monuments, the stories behind them, descriptions, etc… I felt a kind of outsider experience. I even felt this, thinking back, when Milica and I went to the Balkan restaurant and she was giving me a briefing about what was what and why. I’m not dismissing this as an important part of acculturation. Though I will say that being/doing as if you were one of the Bosnians is a very different cultural experience than being explained to, reading, etc… In any case, the various books I read on the topic I think have prepared me well for a close encounter with most any “foreign” culture.
Another goal was to improve conversational fluency on familiar topics and vocabulary. To some extent, I succeeded. When I ran into older Bosnian folks on campus (ie the custodial and book store staff) or off campus (field trip with Milica to the Bosnian markets), I was able to talk a bit about my family, where I was from, how I got to Richmond, etc… This was different from last semester, because I mostly spoke with individuals that I knew well, who I knew would be somewhat receptive or predictable in the matter in which they received the conversation. So in some senses, I tested my abilities further outside my comfort zone than last semester. At the same time, I came a bit short due to the frequency of conversation I had with familiar people. Apart from Milica and I, wasn’t able to converse as frequently with other Bosnians mainly for logistical issues (ie seeing each other as frequently and that really time consuming honors thesis). Also, mostly for the latter reason, I wasn’t able to delve into the Croatian workbook or other Serbo-Croatian media sources as much as I wanted to this semester, or as I intended to semester. In this sense, my conversational fluency fell short of expectations.
In any case, I am very pleased with my SDLAP experience, primarily for the self-directed skills I’ve been able to practice, as well as the sort of thinking and reflection I’ve been able to do thanks to the flexibility and freedom the program provides its students.
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