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AVANTURA	An American in Bosnia

Avantura

Name: Evelyn
Location: Bosnia
Birthday: 5/24/1983
Gender: Female

Interests: "Avantura" = "adventure" in Bosnian. If you're interested in writing mail: (backslash= new line) Evelyn Hsieh/ 11 Ivana Gorana Kovacica/ 77000 - Bihac/ Bosnia Herzegovina
Expertise: Watching God do his thing in another part of the world. He's an international Savior! You go, God! =)
Industry: Nonprofit

Message: message meEmail: email me

Member Since: 9/4/2005

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Saturday, March 11, 2006

	An update from America about Bosnia: Mirseta aka crazy lady punched two of my American gal teammates in the face. So the violence is not quelled. Slobodan Milosevic, aka Butcher of Bosnians, is found dead in prison cell. Milosevic found dead I wonder what this all means.
	11:29 PM - 76 views - 2 eprops - 2 comments - email it

Thursday, February 23, 2006

	Some pics from my last month in Bosnia.... I am PAULine BUNYAN! HEAR ME ROAR!! Wintry wintry... My Chinese homies in Bosnia. For more.... So many memories, what a month!
	1:55 AM - 58 views - 4 eprops - 2 comments - email it

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

Hey kids, I am addicted to having 2 xangas, and I meant to blog this earlier. I compiled a list (I LOVE LISTS!) on the airplane from Germany to America. I've been to Europe 4 times in about 6 countries now, and have made several observations.....

YOU KNOW YOU'RE IN EUROPE WHEN....

1. You ask for water and the waiter brings something with bubbles.
2. Nobody has ever heard of a nonsmoking section before. Actually, the world is seemingly a smoking section.
3. "Downtown" has buildings older than America.
4. Cereal boxes are written in a dozen languages.
5. There are always old men wearing berets somewhere.
6. People worship football but don't give a darn about the NFL.
7. The chocolate on sale puts Hershey's to shame.
8. Rest stops on the highways are situated near some kind of castle ruins.
9. If you don't know how to drive stick shift, you don't know how to drive.
10. You use your legs for walking, not for pushing the gas pedal.
11. The city streets are narrower than Cindy Crawford's waist line.
12. The dollar doesn't go very far compared to the Euro.
13. There are always cars blasting clubby dance music from their windows.
14. 0 degrees Celsius (32 F) isn't that nippy.
15. The taxi cabs are Mercedes-Benz.
16. If you're Asian, you must be a relative of Jackie Chan or Bruce Lee. People do double takes, and it ain't because you got a nice pair o' legs.

1:54 AM - 59 views - 12 eprops - 6 comments - email it

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

I am back to America, praise God! And nothing like a dose of California sunshine, Valentine's Day balloons from my parents, and tulips on my doorstep from Mr. Yat Lun to make me feel welcome. I cried when I saw the shining San Francisco Bay....Thanks, Jesus!

This past week was very busy, with a team retreat to Sarajevo and last minute things. I shall recount a bit and maybe post pictures later.

It's a seven hour bus trip to Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia. Originally I was cranky about going, since I thought there was nothing special there and would have much rather taken a shorter and better trip to say...Vienna (6 hours away). But it was an unexpected delight. Sarajevo hosted the Winter Olympics in 1984, so one of the days I went ice skating at their Olympic Arena. Granted, there were way too many kids there and the ice was poor quality, but it brought back so many memories... I used to take notes on figure skating performances, drift off into my daydreams on ice, first date... sigh...

I also visited the Tunnel Museum, a ghetto little house that had a tunnel dug under it to channel food and people through during the war. Had it not been built, Sarajevo would have lost a great many more lives during the war. 11000 died in that city alone... including 1500 children. Pause for a second and think about that. This was 10 years ago.

I also saw the bridge where World War 1 started.

Then came back to Bihac, and frantically packed and handed out Bibles to my Chinese friends, who seemed genuinely thankful.

So here's a funny story. So we had a goodbye party on Saturday night and I made a big chocolate cake for everyone. I came downstairs to get some utensils and saw a bus driving by. Now, we live near where this bus driver lives, and every day we hear him pass by. "Hello Bus Man!" we say, though of course he can't hear us. But today I am in high spirits, and I wave as I am outside. He stops the humongous bus and motions for me to come over. Hello, I say in Bosnian. We talk a little bit about where we live and how we are neighbors. Then he says, "You and me, let's have coffee now." And I say, no, I have to pack. But he keeps asking. "Nine o clock then," he says. I say I can't but he just says, "ok then, nine o clock. See you then." He drives off and I just say... okay.

So 9pm rolls around and someone looks outside the window and tells me there's a big round man waiting out on the driveway. I bring some cake and a team member that speaks Bosnian downstairs with me. Bus Man refuses the cake, saying instead that he wants to have coffee with me. Now. My teammate tells him I can't several times and finally he gives up.

Seriously, why can't a girl just wave at a bus and leave it at that?

On Sunday, my roomie and I go to Zagreb, the capital of Croatia and we stroll around a bit and eat at a Subway's. I leave on Monday morning... and spend 9 dollars on a Newsweek and 8 bucks on half a turkey sandwich at Frankfurt Airport. How do you say "ripoff" in German?

Anyway, now I am back and it is much like a dream. There will be many reverberations I'm sure... shocks, readjustments. But now, I have an urge to hug everyone I see. Including you!

11:42 PM - 49 views - 18 eprops - 9 comments - email it

Sunday, January 29, 2006

Happy New Year!

Making another visit to the Chinese shop, yesterday Mr. Hu asks me to Chinese New Year dinner at his apartment that night. All the Chinese in Bihac are coming, he says. This means Mr. Tsou (his associate), Ms. Luan (who owns the other Chinese store in town, whom I've never seen and who has been here for 5 years), her daughter who is visiting from Beijing, and himself.

So I bring one of my American friends along (just say "Chinese food" and watch people volunteer) to the shop that night. Mr. Hu closes it down, and we walk to his apartment- a tiny little one that is pretty messy. No surprise for two Chinese males. They have a big TV with satellite cable, so we watch Chinese programs throughout the entire dinner.

I know it is always proper to bring something over when you are a guest, so what did I bring in these circumstances? A bag of fruit tied with a ribbon and a loaf of banana bread of course!

We gobbled up while Ms. Luan, Mr. Hu, and Mr. Tsou kept going in and out of the kitchen with more food. All from scratch, dumpling skins and all! Spices brought back from China. Meanwhile, I found out that Ms. Luan's daughter, who is 18, wants to be a flight attendant on Air China. I tried to speak some English with her, but she was way shy. She typed away at her QQ Messenger while we waited for more food.

We had homemade dumplings, soy sauce- brewed pork shoulder, vinegared garlic, tomato flavored prawns, and fragrant fish Chinese-style from the local river. Forgive the descriptions, I only know the Chinese names for most of these dishes. Alas, no rice, but what a meal! Now those who know me know that I am definitely not a pork lover, but never mind that most of it was pork, I ate it anyway. We didn't talk a whole lot. I told them I worked with the church, which Ms. Luan professed to know nothing about, and we all dabbled a bit in religious talk (fed by a program on Buddhist tourist spots on TV).

My friend (from Georgia and with a Southern drawl) was having the time of her life, holding those chopsticks like she was born in Asia. "This is seriously the best meal I've had in months."

Then we went outside, lit sparklers, and threw incredibly deafening fire crackers. When the neighbors complained, the adults just said it was the new year and then they understood.

Ms. Luan peeled a bunch of fruit and I whipped out toothpicks I stole from local restaurants to accompany the kiwi, mandarins, and bananas.

Highlights:

* When I said that I was not a real Chinese person, being an ABC and all, Mr. Hu said, "Nonsense, you're just like us!" For some reason, I felt so touched.

* Watching the Beijing Chinese New Year program on TV. Lots of choreographed dances, acrobatics, and singing. It was spectacular!Memories flooding back, it made me yearn to be back in Beijing.

* Ms. Luan cut up my banana bread for dessert ( nervously, I was praying hard that it would taste good), which I explained in Mandarin was "American cake with bananas." For some reason, I thought they wouldn't want to eat it, since it wasn't anything nearly Asian. Yet to my delight, everyone had some and agreed that it was delicious, even the health-conscious daughter (gotta be slim for the airlines, ya know).

Full and happy, we went on our way. They told my friend if she ever had a hankering for Chinese food, to not hesitate to call. "I'll come say goodbye next weekend, and Shing nien quai luh, aiyi, sou sou." I said.

I'd never felt so proud of being Chinese in a long time.

5:07 AM - 53 views - 12 eprops - 6 comments - email it

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