Before moving to Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, I took language classes with an online tutor once a week learning Bosnian, the local language. I learned how to count (jedan, dva, tri) and how to say my name (Ja sam Julia). I did my language homework and practiced every day. I could understand my teacher and have easy conversations after a few months!
The first workshops I attended with the organization I worked at were going to be all in Bosnian. I thought with my beginner language skills, I could follow along and understand some things.
How wrong I was! Everyone seemed to talk so fast and I couldn’t understand anything. It was hard to keep paying attention and not let my mind wander. But the hardest part was feeling left out. Sometimes people would laugh or cry and I had no idea why. But I was determined to keep coming back every week.
In the third week, one of the teachers, Orhan, led the workshop “Mainstream and Margin.” To understand this, I like to think of a river. Some parts of the river flow faster than others.
