Tuesday, April 22nd, was, for me in Podgorica, a fairly significant day.
The Morning
A couple of weeks ago I sort-of made friends with another American here — Jerry, a retired Professor of Rhetoric and English at UMass Dartmouth, who is also killing time until he can return to his desired EU destination of choice — in his case, Maribor, in Slovenia. In fact, he lived at the very same airbnb I'm currently at before me — he was essentially kicked out by my reservation — and he had left a note in the apartment declaring his availability for a beer or to provide assistance. I had never contacted that person, but he saw me working at my favorite cafe one day, recognized me as another American, said hello, and that's how we eventually discovered our similar circumstances.
During that initial conversation I had mentioned my interest in helping out a local school here in some capacity, and he mentioned that he was going to be making a presentation at a local private high school soon, and he'd be happy to put me in touch with the two young American teachers there who had asked him to speak. A couple days later I was getting an evening coffee with Cat (an American from Atlanta) and Mina (dual-citizen from Podgorica and Philadelphia, I think?), and explaining a bit about my background.
They expressed their eagerness in having me speak to their kids about my experience as a business-owner and entrepreneur, and I, with some trepidation, agreed.
So, Tuesday morning I took a taxi out to the United Kids International — Montenegro school, where I was met by Mina, who — after a short coffee in the super-small teacher's lounge — took me to her super-small classroom, where, soon, the 10-12 11th- and 12th-graders filtered in.
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| UKIM, to those of us in the know |
Not a whole lot to report, honestly. It was fine — I have some experience in speaking in front of classes of kids, after all, and after a few seconds I got my footing and started to rock.
I don't, of course, have a whole lot of entrepreneurial experience — starting (and failing?) CEE Legal Matters is the majority of it, plus the two current start-ups in Prague. So I focused a bit more on my story, and how my fairly eclectic and indirect life of adventure and travel has, in various ways, led me to where I am today.
The kids were engaged — much more by my bizarre and humorous life story (moving to Hungary for a woman only to break up with her three days later, for example) than by CEE Legal Matters, but expressed enough curiosity and interest in the dinosaur cards and daily planners to suggest they got some value out of it all.
I figured, as it wrapped up, that I had at least kept them more-or-less entertained and interested — they asked a number of questions, laughed at the right places, etc. — which, for me, was enough.
Happily, as they filtered out of the classroom, I noticed one of them, at the doorway, speaking to someone outside it — a classmate, another teacher, I couldn't tell — and heard him say, "that was the first guest speaker we've had all year I thought was really interesting." And he absolutely didn't say it for my benefit!
Do I think I changed his life in any significant way, or even "taught" him anything important? Nah. But we remember being students — a class that isn't boring is already a win. I'll take it.
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| Who could be bored? |
After a bite to eat in the school cafeteria — pasta with cream sauce and for some reason fresh cabbage and corn — I got back in taxi, pleased with myself not only for surviving it, but actually perhaps being a little bit useful.
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The Afternoon
That afternoon — after a nap, of course — I put on some shorts and tennis shoes and resolved to find the American Corner that Jerry and a few others had mentioned to me. The American Corner here is apparently a creation of local host institutions and the U.S. Department of State (RIP), and is a large library of both books and DVDs and has some computers, and also hosts various classes, workshops, and guest speakers.
I felt a little under-dressed — my slipping-down-over-my-hips shorts and tennis shoes contrasted with the office-appropriate dresses and slacks of the three women working there — but they greeted me warmly, showed me around, and encouraged me to check out several books (which I happily did). After a bit, one of them told me there was going to be some kind of ... acting or role-playing workshop there that evening, and invited me to come and participate.
That Evening
So, after dinner, I got in slightly more appropriate clothes and went back. I had been assuming that it would be a sort of class for non-native speakers, perhaps using plays as a way to help them practice their English.
Nope!
Instead it was a full-on acting class, and I was just one of the 12-or-so students instructed first to stand up and "shake it out," then to spend five minutes or so walking around the room in one mood after another — one a person who's just gotten been told by a person he/she loves that that person loves him/her back, another someone who's just gotten terrible news and doesn't know what to do about it, etc. etc.
Then we were instructed to pair up and told to assume a character and interview each other, then summarize those interviews for the class. I decided to assume the character of a 75-year old Vietnam vet who insisted he did the right thing, felt no guilt, and had been representing "freedom" and "Democracy." The nice Russian woman (in the jean shorts in the photo) who was interviewing me was a bit taken aback and impressed by my aggression and militaristic confidence — I spread my legs aggressively to reflect my hyper-confidence. (I made a point of telling her, once we finished, that that was absolutely not me, and she reassured me she knew).
Then, for the next assignment, we were told to find a different partner, and I teamed up with Alexander (Sasha), also from Russia (on the far right in the back in the photo). We were instructed to prepare a dialog where "we are trying to reassure ourselves that something is ok, despite our real fear that it's very much not all right."
I asked for clarification from the (American) instructor (jeans and olive-green shirt in front of the group in the photo) whether it was something that was "not ok" between us, or a problem we were facing together, and he said it was up to us. So I suggested to Sasha that we imagine a press conference of sorts where we had tried an experiment of some kind that had gone spectacularly badly — he could be the scientist trying to explain, I would be the PR guy trying to spin it — and we were trying to convince our investors and other observers that the problem wasn't as bad as it seemed.
I won't in any way say our dialog was the best, but I was pleased that while the others pretty much all went for melodrama — lots of angst and personal/family trauma — ours was significantly different, as it didn't involve conflict or ... I don't know. Resentment. It was also shorter — I noticed that the others kind-of didn't know how to bring theirs to an end, so I suggested that when one or the other of us said "fuck" that would be the end.
It was interesting. It was so intense that I don't really have a sense of how much time passed — one minute, five, or ten — but probably around five minutes. I tried fake bravado, insisting that it wasn't a "failure," but that processes like this take time, and we could learn a lot from the results of this test, stammering and trailing off now and then — but then, while he spoke, tried to express anxiety and unhappiness and real fear for our financial future. Finally, as he was trailing off, I said, "fuuuuuuuck" quietly, and that was it.
Kind of fun! And while some of the other, more traditional ones, were quite good — the final one of the day starred a Brit named "Rodney" (more on him later) being the director of a museum who was forced to fire his long-time colleague — I'm a little proud that we did something different and avoided cliche.
That was about it, and I headed out, honestly more than a little glad it was over — more on that later — but also glad I had done it. About 100 meters down the sidewalk Rodney yelled at me to wait up, and told me he hoped I'd come again next week. We walked a ways on, talking briefly, before parting ways, but we also exchanged contact details (his WhatsApp name, somewhat alarmingly, is "Rodsta," because of course it is). Yesterday morning I walked back to my cafe to get some work done only, when I got online, to discover a message from Rodsta to meet him and a friend at that very same cafe, for a drink. I had in fact walked right past them when I got here! So I got up, walked over to him, said hi, and then later we talked for 15-20 minutes.
Tomorrow night I'm going to a free play of sorts at the American Corner — purely as an audience-member, not a performer, thank God — and I'll see Rodsta there, and maybe some others from the class.
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| Rod is in back, wielding the chair, because of course he is |
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I don't know if I'll be going back next week, though. For one thing, I'll be leaving the following Monday, so it would be the last time anyway — even Rodney's enthusiasm for having me come again dimmed somewhat, when he heard I was going to be leaving so soon after.
More importantly, I'm not quite sure how much I "enjoyed" the class. It wasn't what I expected — I sort of thought I would be going to help an instructor of some kind with some kind of language class, perhaps, using plays and role-playing, with us all sitting in chairs. I did not expect to be told to walk around the room and imagine/explore deep emotional moments in front of other people.
And I'm not really sure how much I liked doing that. Part of me felt awkward and uncomfortable dealing with strong emotions in front of strangers — but I assume that's fairly common. But, problematically, I quickly realized that some long-bottled-up emotions were stirring uncomfortably, like Godzilla awakening in the depths of the ocean. I felt it quite possible that they would come out weirdly, and strongly, in tears, in front of all these people I didn't know.
I don't really trust pop psychology, and I'm not at all convinced that that kind of display would be good for me. I remember in high school once my mother and sister were in family counseling, and the therapist asked her to bring her son — me — to a session. I went, and before I knew it I was absolutely sobbing in front of her, with all kinds of unhappiness coming out of me. At the end of the session we walked out, and i whirled on my mother and said, "I am never doing that again." I never did.
I'm not claiming it wasn't a productive experience for me. I'm just saying it certainly wasn't a pleasant one, and I didn't feel significantly better when it was over.
And I got indications that this acting class could trigger a similar emotional release, which is certainly fascinating and instructive — really interesting to learn how these seemingly innocent role-playing exercises can tap into such powerful emotions — but I'm not really sure that's something I would feel good about if it happened. I need to consider.
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