Teens, the same only different

When I was teaching classes in Young Adult Library Services in Croatia, I hammered home the twin mantras: "work with not for" and "listen to the teens." In both Zadar and Osijek, we invited local teens to talk with us about their lives; the photos show a panel of students in Zadar and two teens from Osijek. The library school students were surprised at the candor with which the teens shared details about their lives. This last weekend I read 30 papers from my library school students in Osijek, Croatia, and it was evident that they wanted to learn more. All but two of them chose the option of interviewing five teenagers, asking them the classic questions that Elaine Meyers and I posed in our book TEENS AND LIBRARIES: GETTING IT RIGHT.

1. How do you know when an adult cares about you?
2. What are the three things teens need to succeed at home, in school, and in the community?
3. What is the hardest thing about being a teenager?

Judging from the responses, there are some universal aspects to adolescence in Western society. Almost all teens talked about the ambiguity of being neither child nor adult. They realize that they are not grown but don't wanted to be treated as children either. They desperately want to be listened to and taken seriously. Like teens everywhere, Croatian teens complained that their parents make unreasonable (or unpleasant) demands on them and that they don't understand their lives because their own teen years were so long ago when life was so different. Drugs and alcohol are easily obtainable. Sex is definitely part of their lives.

What was different about the Croatian teens was the lack of caring adults other than their parents in their lives. There were some grandparents, but nobody else. No teacher, no athletic coach, no piano teacher, no neighbor, no priest, and certainly no librarian was there to care for them. Every single teen interpreted the adult in the first question as their mother and/or father, as though no other adult might care for them. In spite of their evident chafing under their parents' rules, they also saw the rule-setting as evidence of caring.

Croatian teens were unanimous in their dissatisfaction with school, a stressful place where teachers are cold and boring, where their own interests are ignored, where they must shut up and pay attention.

Like so many American teens, the Croatian teens read very little except when they must as a school requirement. They see the public library as an unfriendly, forbidding place (and all too often, it is -- for teens at least.) They are unaware of the one teen club in the central library in Osijek. The staff in the library's teen club see this as a problem of public relations and marketing.

Croatian teens are not optimistic about their future prospects. They are cynical about their government's ability or will to improve the quality of life in their country. They are gloomy about the economy and what it means for their own future employment. And most importantly, they have little sense of their own ability to improve things.

Social supports for teens are almost nonexistent in Croatia, but young people fill their spare time with all kinds of hobbies. They draw and build models. They write poetry. They sing and play musical instruments. And yes, they play computer games -- a lot. "World of Warcraft" is very big. A few, a very few, read.

The library school students rightly saw that the library might be a positive force in teens' lives by providing young people with a safe place to be with their peers and to develop a positive relationship with at least one other adult, the young adult librarian. However, like the teens, they were also pessimistic about their ability to change libraries enough to create the nurturing places that were needed. I can only hope that these students who have seen the need and crafted a vision to mitigate it will be empowered to do the small things that will begin to transform public libraries into significant suupports for teens.

Home sweet home

There is nothing quite like the comforts of home. Note the flip flop resting on the ottoman. The comfortable chair. The books. Out of the picture but definitely on hand: the TV showing my beloved "Law and Order" reruns, "House", and the network news. Other pleasures that I missed while I was away: cheeseburgers, hanging out with my grandkids, playing the piano, the LA and NY Times, celebrating Obama's sweet victory with friends and family.

Spending a month in Croatia was a memorable experience though. In some ways, it was like being a child again, in that state of simultaneously knowing and not knowing. Most of my familiar frames of reference were missing, making it difficult to read the environment. Some of this was language-related. I could walk through busy streets without knowing what was behind the closed doors unless there were really obvious clues in shop windows. Then there were the unfamiliar cultural phenoma. The first week in Zadar, there was strange and beautiful music drifting up to my second floor room from the banquet hall below. Men were singing in multi-part harmony, without accompaniment, for hours. It sounded live, not recorded. It happened again the next night. I did a little investigating and discovered that these were bachelor parties, attended by men and boys. There is the usual drinking and celebrating at these events, but the singing is also traditional in Dalmatia. It is called klapa. Most men seem to know the songs and seem to be able to sing them in all of their complex five- to ten-part harmony. I now have a CD of this music, and it brings back that strange sense of wonderment as well as pleasure in the sound.

I will also be thinking about the memorial in Vukovar to the more than 200 victims of a Serbian massacre there during the war in the early 1990s, after Croatia declared its independence and Serbia disputed its claims to its borders. The town itself was almost completely destroyed and has been only partially rebuilt. They have left the damaged water tower standing as a monument to the suffering of the town. The memorial to the massacre, however, is at a distance from the town. It stands on the site where the Serbs had taken men and medical personnel from the hospital in town, shot them, and buried them in a mass grave. There is also a kind of museum nearby on which the names and faces of the victims who have been identified are illuminated on the round walls of an otherwise darkened room. While I was there, a busload of Croatians arrived. One of the group spoke in Croatian; it felt like a prayer, but I can't be sure. Then a woman began to sing a hymn which I remembered from my childhood church-going days: "Nearer My God to Thee." Everyone joined in, and the sound was heart-breaking in its simplicity and beauty. Tears ran down my cheeks.

Of course, as a pacifist, I cannot help but be moved by the many destructive faces of war. And like many war stories, this is a complex one. There is some suggestion that the Croatian President Tudgman may have deliberately sacrified Vukovar, withholding the limited Croatian troops as a way of strengthening his portrayal of brutal Serb aggression.

I will also be thinking about the relatively large space given in Croatian public libraries to playrooms for preschool children. Preschool education is seriously lacking in the country, and children don't start school until they are six and a half. So the public libraries have filled the gap with these bright, spacious rooms filled with educational toys. Many libraries hire people with both early childhood education and library degrees to plan and run activities in these centers, as many as three or four hours a day for different ages. I observed toddlers playing with foam blocks in Zagreb and five-year-olds acting out "Sleeping Beauty" in Karlovac. Our Family Place libraries are a step in this direction, but Croatia has outpaced us in this matter.

People often asked me what I thought of Croatia, its libraries, and its people. I had to say that it was a land of great unspoiled natural beauty and a long and complex history. Its libraries have great promise as institutions that can help to promote the skills and values needed in a new democracy. Its people are often cynical as they contemplate their place in the world, but they are also generous, kind -- and great singers.

Eating in Croatian

In an earlier post, I wondered what my frame of reference would be for understanding Croatia. I have now been here for nearly four weeks, and I think I can say that I am looking at this country through its libraries and its food. Today we will talk about food.

The University of Zadar has made my hotel accommodations for me, and they have been arranged on the pension plan, meaning that I eat breakfast and dinner in the hotel. In Zadar and Osijek the breakfasts have been the typical European self-serve buffets: eggs, sausage, fabulous pastries, cold meats and sliced cheese, yoghurt, tomatoes, cereal, and much, much more. In Zadar, there was always fresh cantaloupe. In both Osijek and Zadar, there are locally grown mandarin oranges. It's all good.

My first day in Zadar I strode confidently out to find lunch. I first tried the little cafe near the hotel. No food there -- just coffee and gelato. I walked farther along the beach and found another cafe. Again, just coffee and other drinks -- no food at all. It took awhile before I figured out that the all of these appealing little cafes that said Cafe Bar or just Coffee Bar only served drinks. They are everywhere, filled with Croatians drinking and smoking (but only until March, 2009 when smoking will be banned in restaurants). No Starbucks but lots and lots of other places to drink good strong coffee.

Lunch remained a little elusive in Zadar. I could walk about 15 minutes into the Old City and find restaurants serving food or I could buy a burek ( rich cheese-filled pastry that everyone said is not Croatian at all, but Servian) at the local supermarket. Or I could sneak bread, cheese, and ham and a mandarin from the breakfast buffet. I was not going to starve.

Dinner in the Hotel Kolovare in Zadar was always filling and certainly edible but hardly representative of the best cooking in Dalmatia. For that, you need a good seafood restaurant or a konoba for truly authentic Dalmatian food.

My students and I ate at a konoba on the island of Sali. They tell me that it was typical of its kind. The stone walls, green shutters, white net curtains, wood benches are the standard decor. Food was served family style: black risotto made with squid ink, a cabbage salad, and fried calamari. All washed down with a local white wine.

Here are some other foods that are unique to Croatia that I relished: palacinkes (crepes filled with chocolate or in Zadar with marascino cherries -- incredible), cevapceci (spicy meatballs served with a pepper and tomato relish and onions), krafna (donuts!), calamari salad, amazingly fresh salads with simple lettuce and tomatoes, burek (flaky cheese-filled pastry), velvety prosciutto, and sheep's milk cheese from Pag Island. And drinks: honey grappa as an ice cold aperitif, slivovics (plum brandy), and a home made cherry liqueur.

I was told that the food would be completely different in Osijek -- more meat and potatoes. I've been here for four days, and you couldn't prove it by me. Again, I am eating in the hotel restaurant which is a much more elegant place than the dining room at the Hotel Kalovare. (I heartily recommend the Waldinger if you find yourself here.) On my first day, I had unwisely ordered the "chicken tortilla" at the Gallija Mexican and Steak Restaurant. Well, how could I not? Wouldn't you be curious? OK. It was a mistake. So to compensate I tried to order something called "Slavonian plate" for supper. It seemed to be an assortment of local dishes. "You don't want that," said the waiter. "It's too heavy." "Oh," I said. "What do I want?" "Fish," said the waiter. And he was right. It was a lovely river fish -- perch, I think -- perfectly prepared with a mound of roasted vegetable. And they have insisted I eat fish for the past two nights as well. Very tasty but not the meat and potatoes I was prepared for.

This would not be an easy place for a vegetarian, but for me, it's been good eats.