We Do Adventure

Rowan was in Sarajevo yesterday. She was, amongst other things, trying to track down a poster of the Cellist of Sarajevo. This proved a little tougher than she anticipated. One shop after another said, no, they didn’t have any. One artist kindly offered to paint her one, for a price! Finally she stumbled upon a small store displaying a postcard of said poster in their window. Inside the owner was busy framing a picture. She asked about the poster and he flipped the frame over to reveal exactly what she was looking for. Unfortunately he wasn’t in the mood for haggling so Rowan had to settle for being knowingly ripped off. If that was a disappointment then there was also some encouragement. One shopkeeper asked if she was Slovenian! This is a testament to her impressive improvements in the local language.

One of the perils of language learning is the inevitable mistakes. After lunch on Sunday the waiter seemed in no hurry to present us with a bill so Rowan tracked him down, only to inform him: I need to cry...before correcting herself! Today I was explaining to some of the local people we work with how I might use ‘interesting’ somewhat euphemistically, when referring to something I didn’t particularly enjoy. Words have meanings and then there are the implied meanings. We’ve found many an English turn of phrase cannot be translated, so we’re busy learning new ways of expressing things as well as a new language in which to communicate. The clock is ticking and I sense we need to be making better progress than we are but the key is not to panic. I specialise in the deer-in-the-headlight moments, all too often falling into a panicked silence in which not even English comes to my rescue. And if something does float, nonchalantly, to mind it has every chance of being the dregs of my French G...