My brain hurts from trying to understand so many languages over the past 24 hours! It all began with a ride to a meeting yesterday with some Albanian friends, who speak a mixture of Albanian, English, Italian, and Bosnian, and who, in the car, like to listen to pop music in Portuguese and French!
The meeting was about what to expect during the upcoming week. This week we are rehearsing an avant-garde theatrical piece for Sarajevo’s annual MESS festival. I can’t exactly understand everything that is going on, but I think that the piece is a commentary/parody of a conductor’s relationship to the audience and the symphony orchestra. The piece is in Italian, and involves an Italian singer/actor pretending to lead the orchestra while a real conductor, hidden from the audience, actually directs us.
At least that’s what I think is going on. At the meeting yesterday, the actor explained the piece and what we’re supposed to do. However, he spoke in Italian, and then a translator repeated what he said in Bosnian. So I had to figure out what was being said by trying to piece together the little bit that I understood from each language. Sadly, even though I have been studying Bosnian very hard since arriving here, I still understood a lot more of the Italian. (Between knowing a bit from musical scores, and hearing a lot of words that are similar to Spanish/French, Italian isn’t too hard to figure out.) After the meeting, some of our friends helped us Americans confirm that we at least understood the basics (e.g. what time to show up for rehearsal today.)
Getting to rehearsal this morning was yet another confusing adventure, since the Sarajevo public transit system was shut down due to a strike. Blech. Apparently the strike is expected to be over soon, maybe even tomorrow. I sure hope so. Fortunately, we had a very nice and honest cab driver get us to rehearsal on time. We misunderstood the price of the ride to be $40 marks instead of $14, and the cab driver very sweetly shook his head, repeated “chetnaest” (meaning 14) and handed us our money back! It makes me feel much less annoyed by some of the nuisances of living in Bosnia when I constantly encounter welcoming and considerate people here.
The rehearsal this morning was utter chaos. The conductor (the real one, not the pretend one) led the rehearsal in English, (thank God!) but the actor kept directing us in Italian, with and without a Bosnian translation. I have an Albanian violist friend, Flobens, sitting in front of me who speaks fluent Italian and English, so he helped me figure some stuff out during the breaks. In the mean time, my colleagues, who are prone to chatting during rehearsal in the first place, were constantly talking to each other in Bosnian, trying to figure out what was going on. According to Sara, the timpanist kept babbling in German for no apparent reason. I think he was hoping the conductor might understand him in German since he doesn’t really speak Italian or English.
Fortunately, we were able to get a ride home, rather than having to take a cab. Flobens saves the day yet again! Then Sara wanted to watch her German TV shows. We are getting pumped for a possible trip to Munich for Octoberfest during our time off next week. However, I couldn’t handle the German TV just then, so I told Sara I was on language overload and took a nap, haha. I have this afternoon and this evening to recover and get ready for another hectic day tomorrow. I really hope that the trams are running.
And to add one more language to the mix, by the time this gets posted and read, it’ll be about time to wish everyone a Chag Sameach! (Happy holidays in Hebrew in honor of the Jewish New Year.)
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