Travels: Slovenia, Bosnia & Herzegovina (for about 30 mins), Croatia
LOCAL IS LEKKER
- I read Dubravka Ugresic’s The Ministry of Pain about a Croatian exiled to Amsterdam after the “Homeland War.” It reads weirdly breezily - and in part I suspect that’s the point: that tragedy can pass so breezily, with matter-of-fact observation. But there’s plenty of dark humor underlying everything (she gets a job as a professor teaching “Yugoslavian literature”; she notes that the farther her countrymen travel West, the farther East — ie in Asian/Middle Eastern enclaves— they end up), and a little bit of nonchalant violence too. In general, I liked but didn’t love the book. Here’s The Guardian ’s review, which is pretty glowing.
- Werner read Girl at War from Croatian-American author Sara Novic. He rates it as “good not great.” He would still recommend it to someone traveling in Croatia, as it was a fast read that whets your appetite to read more about the conflict. From the book, you only see one perspective, framed as “us vs them.”
THE WORLD IS FLAT
- Some of my favorite parts of traveling are learning how ideas or symbols get transplanted across the world, and imputed with different meaning. In Croatia, we started seeing. American Confederate flags everywhere — only to learn that the symbol of the American South (and slavery) has come to be the flag for the Souhern Croatian football team. Seriously.
- Bit late, but for the Saffers: in Egypt, we learned that Zamalek is a football team. In South Africa, Zamalek refers to a Black Label beer. But according to Urban Dictionary, it’s because Zamalek once beat South Africa so badly that the name began to equate to meaning “strong” and “able to give an ass kicking.” How great is that?! Also, what PR company decides that a great way to market their beer is to emphasize what a failure the national football team is?! ❤️🇿🇦
- Did you know that mainland Croatia consists of two land masses that don’t connect? To get from the capital Zagreb to Dubrovnik (of Game or Thrones fame), you have to go through Bosnia? This got me looking into whether there are spots in the US (apart from Alaska) where you have to travel through Canada to get to, and there are! They are known as “exclaves” - here’s an amusing blog post on one near Vermont and info on another more sizable one by Washington.
OTHER RECOMMENDATIONS
- For Spanish speakers: Radio Ambulante’s episode on “Narco Tours,” hosted by a paisa (someone from Medellín) was really well done. I didn’t learn anything new, and it didn’t surprise me, but it was just so well told and produced, and raises good questions around the ethics of shows like Narcos. That moment when the tour guide asks the German guy if they do similar tours following in the footsteps of Hitler? Audio gold.
- Hidden Brain episode: “Romeo and Juliet in Kigali” looks at interventions designed by a Holocaust survivor (turned prof), that tries to change sectarian norms or beliefs in Rwanda. It also raises questions around what it means if mass behavior can be “easily” changed by media. (It doesn’t go so far as to link back to media conglomeration in the US, or growth team work at social media companies, but you can extrapolate).