I’m on my way back from Bulgaria. Exhausted, mentally drained, and completely unprepared to begin the coming week. Not that I did not enjoy myself, or that there were no moments of relaxation. But for the most part I embroiled myself in my work over the weekend to the determent of my ‘time off’ as it were.
The previous day began in calm fashion. I took a walk around the countryside, looking much I assume, like a homeless person who just happens to have an expensive looking camera by his side. The skies were cloudy and grey, and there could be felt the spittings of rain protruding from it. This prompted talk amongst the dance company that, should the rain persist, the performance would have to be cancelled. My reaction to this news was surprisingly nonplussed, despite the fact that the cancellation of their performance would mean the nullification of my journeys purpose. However, the rain eventually let up, the stage was dried, and the performance began in orderly fashion. While I filmed their performance of ‘Juliet, No Romeo’, I was struck by not only the beautiful and captivating movements presented on stage, but also the political nature of the piece which was I felt, intrinsically Kosovar. It seemed almost brazen to take such a message of personal and national pain, and perform it in front of the elites of another country. But it was for this, for the sake of this inclination, that I had wanted to accompany the group to Bulgaria in the first place, to witness and record the spread of a burgeoning nations culture. In returning to my hotel, I shared a taxi with a Japanese man named Hideki. A reserved, shy man who revealed to me that he is an IT engineer working in Kosovo of all places. (On a humerus note, he also told me that he had been chased by a wild dog the day before, the same one which had chased me.) He is sharing the bus back to Pristina with us, the bus I am sitting on while writing this entry. In the end, what this weekend has shown is that while I still have much learning to do, and a lot of technical knowledge to gain, it has reconfirmed to me that this is what I want to do in my life, it is all I ever want to do. So while I am drained, physically and mentally, I am also vindicated in myself, I feel that I am doing the right thing.