Family Journal: Sunday August 9, 2008

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I have been pleasantly surprised with the great amount of bicycling paths and running routes one can have here in southern part of Belgrade. There are miles of bike paths along the Sava River and acres of parks near our home. It must be watching the Olympics and seeing all those great athletes competing that inspired me yesterday. In the morning I went with Ocean for a long run through the Košutnjak Hill (Doe Hill) park. This is a huge area of forest and open areas just south of our suburb of Senjak. It gets its name to the deer that once roamed there, as it was the Royal Hunting Grounds reserve until 1903. It is very nice except for the “hill” part. Our area of Senjak is all hills and they do take it out of you.

In the afternoon I went with Ollie and Ocean over to the school’s park. Owen and I then rode our bicycles once again to Ada Ciganlija island. It should be called “sport” island as it has facilities for almost every sport imaginable. There were lots of people biking and roller blading, as well as soccer, tennis, etc. There is even a baseball field.

We spent the evening in our backyard. We have a perfect little place for the kids to run around and it was great the Calzini’s (previous occupants) left a swing set for us!

I have a week of work ahead of me, as we are gearing up for the arrival of the new teachers and the orientation program which begins next Monday.

Family Journal: Saturday August 8, 2008

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Belgrade Rail & Bus Station, originally uploaded by bill kralovec.

Yesterday morning Ollie, Owen, and I took our first trip downtown in public transport. We walked down the hill and first took a bus in to the main train and bus station in Belgrade (picture above). From there we took an electric trolley (tram) to Kalmegdan Park and the zoo. It was raining off and on quite hard so we had to wait out the rain several times. It costs 60 cents and about 20 minutes. The boys were thrilled with public transport and the zoo.

The zoo is big and has a varied selection of animals. I have mixed emotions about zoos. I think they are good in that people learn about and see the animals and perhaps this will lead to better protection of their habitat and population numbers. But on the other hand, it is still an “animal prison” and the amount of living space is limited. It was especially sad to see the chimpanzees in their cages.

 

Boys Play At Kalmegdan Park near the Belgrade Zoo
Boys Play At Kalmegdan Park near the Belgrade Zoo

 

 

In the afternoon, the rains let up and the sun was shining. Owen and I were inspired after watching the Olympic Road Race, so we went for a long bike ride. Our neighbor, Radtko, brought a bike over for me to use. We went down to the Sava River bike trail and west to the Ada Ciganlija island. We rode on the river side of the island where Belgraders have small floating houses on the banks. It reminded me of the cottages on the lakes in my native Upper Peninsula. It was peaceful on that side of the island and many Belgraders potter about on weekends in their river shacks. We stopped for a Coke on the way home at Costa Coffee, the Starbucks of Serbia.

Saturday evening Nadia prepared a wonderful dinner of roast pork and vegetables. We watched an episode of the Spiderman cartoon, read a book, and went to bed. Ocean slept most of the night! We have been letting her cry it out the past couple of evenings. She was getting up 5-10 times a night, and now it is down to 2-3 and we don’t have to walk her until she falls back to sleep.

Serbia’s Olympic Team

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Ana Ivanovic is shown above during last night’s Opening Ceremony of the 2008 Olympic Games. I love the Olympics and the whole family is following it, especially the teams of our countries. We are especially focusing on Serbia this year, and Ana, Jelena, and Novak are some of the favorites to win medals for Serbia this year.

It is a historic year for Serbia in the Olympics. It is the first time since 1912 that they have competed as Serbia. Since that time, they have either been a part of Yugoslavia or with Montenegro. They have 92 athletes participating in 11 sports. They did not win any medals in those Stockholm games of 1912, so this could be the first medal for Serbia in history!

Other medal hopes for Serbia are in the team sports. The water polo team recently won the World League championship in Germany. The men’s volleyball team placed second in the World League warm up tourney in Brazil last month. Serbia also has men’s soccer and handball teams.

I’ll hopefully have time to post a follow up during the games on Serbia’s medal tally.

ISB Administrative Retreat

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Earlier this week I attended the ISB Administrative Retreat. The admin team of the school is pictured above. From left to right are Bane (IT Coordinator), myself, Eric (Director), Tim (Elementary Principal) and Zhana (Business Manager). The goals of the retreat were to get to know one another and develop trust, give Tim and I information necessary to begin contributing to the school, and to decide what we were going to do in the 2008-2009 school year regarding the school’s strategic plan.

It was a good idea to get away from the distractions of school and home. We were able to focus our time on working and getting to know each other. ISB is a world-class international school and to manage the daily operations of a demanding community, the admin team needs to work closely together.

One of the things that I will take away from my time at ISB, is the idea of setting essential agreements of the group before we begin working together. For example, the first agreement that we made is the needs of students come first in our decision making. Others include treating each other with respect, being honest, etc.

The informational items that we went through were forms of communication at the school, the budget, the crisis response manual, calendar, etc. There is so much for me to absorb coming to a new school. I am feeling a bit overwhelmed, but every day I am a bit more comfortable in getting a grasp of the scope of my responsibilities.

The heart of our work was going through the strategic plan. This was an initiative completed during last school year. The school and Serbia are going through incredible growth and change! In response to these changes, the school set out a clear, long range (5 year) plan on the direction it wants to head. All stakeholders were heard and the Board pulled it all together and defined the school’s goals for the next five years. It is a comprehensive plan and is available for everyone to see on the school web site. It was our job to begin defining how we were going to implement some of the plan during this upcoming school year.

The venue for the retreat was the BG Sports Center located about 30 minutes outside of Belgrade in the area of Kovilova. It was a hotel with sports theme. There is a huge basketball/handball/volleyball arena on the grounds. They also hosted this past June, the world championships in the Shotgun Events of skeet, trap, and double trap, so we did hear the occasional gunshots during our work time. The Serbian under 21 national basketball team was also training there and we got to see the Serbian national coach. The hotel and grounds were very nice.

 

View of the grounds of the hotel and the view towards Belgrade.
View of the grounds of the hotel and the view towards Belgrade.

 

 

I want to give a special thanks to my wife Nadia for watching our children during our two day retreat. She put in a couple of tough days and a night with three little ones.

I look forward to a great year of working with my colleagues and the school community!

Weekend Journal: August 2-3, 2008

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We had a nice weekend, our first in Belgrade without jet lag. On Saturday we went to Ada Ciganlija which is a long, flat island in the middle of the Sava River. It is a few kilometers from our house and has an artificial 4 kilometer lake in the middle. As you can see, on a hot Saturday in August, it is quite popular with Belgraders! The island is great, with bike trails going for miles all around. 
Despite the hordes of people, we had a really good time. The boys enjoyed all of ice cream vendors and swimming. Ocean loves the water and she was laughing and playing and would have stayed in there as long as I did. Nadia and I enjoyed the people watching. Old folks doing the European sleeping under a tree in the shade and women in bikinis sauntering down the path with purses and high heels. 
We then went to the Delta City mall and Nadia and the boys watched a movie. I strolled around with Ocean and she fell asleep. 
On Sunday we relaxed around the house. I did some yard work, took the kids to the park and went for a long walk with Ocean. We had a big lunch outside and ordered pizza for dinner. I will be back at work all day today. 

 

Learning Serbian

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I am in lesson #4 of my Serbian language book and I have a few observations about the language.

  • I was surprised at many foreigners in Belgrade don’t bother to learn the language. I can see there point that many Serbs, especially younger people, speak English. Also, world wide, Serb-Croat speakers probably number 20 million, max (I just looked on wikipedia and they have the figure of 12 million.)  There are more people in California than that.
  • It is my goal to get through the book and have working vocabulary. I know I’ll never be totally fluent, but it would be nice to be able to follow a conversation. I believe it will be worth the effort to put into to study. As with any language, it offers insight into a different perspective into seeing the world. 
  • Being a slavic language, it feels like I am getting back in touch with my roots and speaking the language (or similar) of my ancestors. 
  • The dual alphabet of the Cyrillic / Latin is interesting. I don’t know of how many languages that have alternative alphabets. Of course the Latin is easier for a westerner and that is the one I am focusing on in picking up new vocabulary. But with so many signs in cyrillic, one can’t help but try to learn them. It is like a puzzle, and we are always trying to sound out the signs we see. 
  • The cyrillic differentiates Serbs from Croats and Serbs take pride in this. It is a remnant of the Byzantine Empire influence over Serbia. Serbia has always been a frontier between east and west, mostly being inside the eastern influence rather than the western side. 
  • I now understand why people who have learned one language can learn another easier than someone with only one language. 
  • Serb is similar to Spanish regarding verb conjugation. So far I have only learned the I ending -m, the you (informal “ti”) -š and the you (formal “vi”) -te The infinitive ending of the verbs is iti, for example govoriti means to speak. 
  • Nouns have three genders (Spanish only has two). Masculine nouns end in consonants, feminine is “a” and neutral in “o”. The is no articles in Serb so no confusion over the “el” or “la” of Spanish. The difficult part, and I am bitter about this, is that the ENDING OF NOUNS CHANGE DEPENDING UPON THEIR USAGE. For example, the word for coffee is kafa. In the nominative or basic form, one can easily see that it is a feminine noun. But when you are ordering a coffee, the ending changes to kafu because it is the direct object of the sentence. For example, Ja bih jednu kafu. (I would like a coffee.) Jednu is the number one, and this also changes depending on the noun it describes. 
  • Serbs get a big kick out of a foreigner speaking Serb. They have been very patient with me and my accent must sound funny to them. My Serb always illicit a smile and a laugh.
  • I am at the point in my learning that I am memorizing and using short phrases for common things. Below is a list of the phrases I have mastered:

Kako se zovete?  (What is your name?)

Zovem se Bill. (My name is Bill)

Molim bac (please and welcome)

Hvala (thank you)

Drago mi je. (nice to meet you)

Ya sam (I am) / ti si (you are) / vi ste (you are)

When you ask a question, throw a “Da li” in front of it. For example, Da li govorite Engleski? Do you speak English?

Ne razumen. (I don’t understand.)

New Phrases I want to learn this week

Izvolite – Can I help you?

Živolite!  – Cheers

Ja bih (kafu) molim bac?  – I would like a coffee please.

Dajte mi (kafu) molim bac? – Give me a coffee please. 

U redu – okay / all right

Sava River (Reka Sava)

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Our children are pictured above on the jogging trail that goes along the banks of the Sava River. After buying a table cloth at Home Center, we took a stroll along the river. The river is just down the hill from our home in Senjak (Belgrade). I discovered the trail on a run I went with Ocean yesterday morning. It goes north towards the city center for at least 7 kilometers and south for another 5 from our entry point. The trail is paved and perfect for biking or jogging. I am sure we’ll be cruising it a few times as it will become one of my running loops around the city.

The Sava is over 600 miles long and runs through four countries of the former Yugoslavia. It connects three capital city. The Sava originates in Slovenia and ends here in Belgrade, when it connects with the Danube. It is the second biggest tributary of the Danube.

It is one of the few rivers that still has flood plains as it is not regulated. It flooded the lower parts of Belgrade in 1981 and 2006. The name Sava is not Slavic – it has Celtic and Roman origins.

I see many people fishing on the river and lots of bikes and runners in the late afternoon. There are plenty of boats, many of the old and rusty boats that look like they are permanently anchored near the banks. There is also some algae buildup and plenty of refuse, so I question the water quality. It would be a lot better if it was better taken care of, but I am do not know the strength of environmental agencies and groups here in Serbia. It is still nice and our neighbor Radko swims in it all the time. He says there is a clean spot between the bridge supports pictured behind. I enjoy the fresh water air coming off of the river and the large number of birds along the shoreline. The bike trail is great too! The Serbian word for river is reka.

 

Refuse and Algae on the River Sava
Refuse and Algae on the River Sava

 

 

It was my last day of summer holidays as I report to work tomorrow (August 1). In the morning I took the kids with their bikes to the park. In the afternoon we organized the shelves in our house and the computer and camera equipment. I went to the airport with Eric, Goran, Jasmina, and Dominik to pick up the new elementary principal, Tim, but his flight was delayed with Lufthansa. After I came back, we went to the river. We wrapped up the night with watching Spiderman with the boys under our gazebo outside and Nadia and I had a nice glass of Macedonian white wine.

Aftermath of the Karadžic Arrest

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Riots in Belgrade, originally uploaded by bill kralovec.

Above is a screen shot from the B 92 television channel here in Belgrade. Nadia and I watched a small group of protestors clash with the riot police on Tuesday evening. The radical socialist party held a rally downtown attended by about 15,000 people. The protestors were throwing rocks and flares at police while they were responding with tear gas. There were some injuries and arrests, and the windows got smashed on the McDonald’s, but that is about it. It is funny that the center of the protests has been on Makedonska Street, the first place Nadia wanted to go to when we arrived because of the Pizza Hut being located there. On our side of the river in Senjak, all was quiet. We did see the riot police on Monday preparing near the Kalemegdan Park downtown. (photo below)

In my very unofficial poll of Serbians, most seem unconcerned about the arrest. Two said that Karadžic had ties to organized crime and they were happy he was finally arrested. A taxi driver wanted to forget about the past and have Serbia concentrate on improving its economy.

I need to read more about the break up of Yugoslavia before I can have an opinion. It was a very difficult and chaotic time for a nation to break up as well as the Communist form of government. I would like to see all sides articulate their actions. I also think the trial should take place here in the Balkans and not in the Hague. An clear documentation of what happened needs to completed so the people of the ex-Yugoslavia can reflect and learn from what happened.

Karadžic flew to the Hague yesterday, so we will surely be hearing more about his years of being a fugitive. It is very unclear as to who arrested him and who supported him during his time on the run.

The New York Times has three interviews with journalists about the arrest. All three have met the ex-Bosnian Serb president and have authored books about that breakup of Yugoslavia.

Summer Construction Underway

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This is my first post about my new school. 

I toured the high school campus yesterday with the school director and the construction project manager. The project is doubling the size of the high school building with an additional section on one side of the building and two floors added. The older part of the building is also getting a face lift, inside and out.

On the ground floor a new computer lab and storage areas were added for the IT department. The former computer lab was converted to a library, thus doubling the size of it. My office was moved from the first floor to a more spacious room on the ground floor. It will be better to be in the center of the action as a principal should be. There is also a larger reception area and the science laboratory was improved.

The first floor is the core area for student learning. New mathematics, humanities, and languages classrooms were added. The hallway and stairwell were enlarged, giving the students more space for lockers and to shuttle between classes. Below is a photo of the mathematics room. 

The second floor has a spectacular new art studio. The students will be inspired by the expansive views of the southern forests and valleys of Belgrade. The large room will also serve as a place for student assemblies and teacher meetings. 

The building is estimated to be done on the 5th of August. The changes will definitely improve student learning!

27 Улица Козјачка

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Gazebo, originally uploaded by bill kralovec.

The title of this post is the address of our home in Serb Cyrillic script. In English, is 27 Kozjаčka Street. Kozjačka is the name of a mountain range near the Serbian and Macedonian border.

I took some photos of the house and our yard so my family back home can see where we are living. The school provides our housing and we are very happy at how nice it is. The yard is nice for the kids and the gazebo above is spectacular. Pity I am not much of a griller because we have a beautiful stone BBQ.

Our house is actually and apartment. They call these old buildings here “villas” and they are usually rented out each floor or section. The ground floor is our basement and two car garage. The second floor is our home, and the third floor are two apartments. We also have exclusive access to the yard so it feels like a home. Nadia has made the house her own and worked hard at arranging the furniture and buying lamps and carpets to make it look to her taste.

For more views, just go to our flickr account to see the rest of the house. 

The neighborhood (suburb) of Senjak is located in the south part of the city, near the Sava River. It definitely has a European feel, it is similar to Mediterranean style of architecture and narrow streets of my summers in Mallorca, Spain. It is contrast with New Belgrade across the river, that feels more American with its wide streets. We are a 10-15 minute walk to school that is mostly through parks and the shops are just down the block. The river has a nice bike path and there are many parks and embassies just south us.