The past two weeks have been the focus of an independent study project (ISP) with SIT. This entails setting out to manage your own time, setting up interviews, and experience what the culture has to provide. This has proved to be an interesting task, and quite a handful at points.
Being in a city such as Sarajevo, you become enchanted with every little nook, and cranny. The society is an infinite forbidden fruit because with every step you take deeper, you are that much more intoxicated by the sights and the smells. This can be troublesome at points especially when trying to go forward and do research; however, as implausible as it may seem I have managed to make progress.
This sort of experiential learning is hard to truly understand because at a certain point you stop feeling like a tourist, but as a resident. A person that changes the city just as much as the city has an impact on that person. In the end, while this experience is far from over, I begin realizing the value of it all. Putting it in perspective, quite a number of people go on vacations for weeks at a time. While this is reasonable, it only scratches the surface of the history, culture, people a place has to offer.
I now have to look forward to the time I have left, and hope to dig a little deeper into the culture; at the same time trying to complete the ISP portion of SIT. Here’s to the weeks ahead!