Serbian times

Sorry to not have updated in so long, but access to a omputer isnt as readily available as one would have thought. I do post pictures more frequently on my flickr page though. These last two weeks have gone by very quickly and we've been doing so much. We went to the national bank, which for the time being is functioning as the government sort of, since there currently is no president and all that. The reason for that is Kosovo, since negotiations are going on now regarding Kosovo and its independece and since no serb wants to be responsible for signing Kosovo over to Albanians...you're left with no one wanting to be president. but for a country with no real goernement, its a great placce with wonderful kind, albeit passionte people. i've made many friends both young and old, alot of whom happen to be security guards (not sure why that is, but their police force especially riot police is huge...mostly for soccer games) and i've heard some interesting things, mostly ho much everyone hates croatians an gay people are not tolerated at all. someone in our group made the faux pas of trying to explain how we see gays in america..and it escaated into something big...so we dont talk about that anymore.
A few days ago we went to Croatia to the town of Vukovar which still hasnt really been rebuilt from the bombing and shelling by serbs in '91 i believe. I have pictures on my flikr page of that. its so hard to be constantly bombarded with awful things people have done to eah other and to themselves. i was talking to my security guard friend in my dorm building Oorash (or yrac) and he was telling me how he was shot trying to defend someone and stabbed in the back at a soccer game and all that and it just broke me down and i got all weepy. The whole day i was with my other friends who are from 15-18 and they were telling me about what they did during the Nato bombings of 1999 and all that and its just rough and hard to understand how all this could happen. no one side is to blame totally though there were militant groups and atrocities commited on all sides of the conflict, and Serbs are no worse or better than the Croatian side.
On a more positive yet still cultural note, I went to my second soccer game here but this time it was Red Star versus Partizan (both serbian teams, rivals) and it was INTENSE. there were like dry ice bombs going off and smoke bombs and lighting flags and seats on fire and hardcore chanting and singing and like 2500 riot police in riot gear all aound the stadium and the city. after the game there were riots because red star won (to give a little background, Partizan team was originally recruited from the Yugoslav peoples army fter the war, so pretty much they're way hardcore.) i wasnt in a riot thank goodness but i was walking with my friends down the streets of Belgrade which they shut down because all the thousands of people in the stadium pretty much take over the streets. and the riot police marched with us (when they walk they sound like wheat blowing in the wind..its eerie) All in all i think the lesson learned here is that good people can sometimes do bad things and no one group of people is any better than any other really. Its terrible to think what humans are capable of, and i was searching my brain trying to think of something good humans had done and i couldnt think of anything. Someone said our capacity to love was a good thing, but theres a fine line with that as well. Extreme love for ones country and ones own kind led to this kind of outbreak of ethnic warfare and whatnot as well. so its hard to say. I may go down to Kosovo for a day to check things out and then head on down to Macedonia. right now things in Kosovo are pretty safe, and the albanians are big fans of america, they even have a street named after Bill Clinton. so its good times. on Sunday we head of to Dubrovnik on the coast of croatia which promises to be awesome amaing sunny times. Thanks for reading, and let me know if ou have any questions!