Shelby Grant '97, an anthropology major, chose to study abroad in Bulgaria last fall because it sounded interesting. But he's a little embarrassed to admit that when he signed up, he wasn't exactly sure where Bulgaria was.
“I thought it was farther north,” he says.
Grant is the first Union student on a newly-created program in Bulgaria. He and seven other American students studied at
the five-year-old American University in Blagoevgrad in western Bulgaria, 120 kilometers south of Sofia.
He also is one of a handful of Americans who have visited Sarajevo since the end of the war. And, just to make the trip complete, he also visited Turkey, Greece, Romania, Denmark, and Germany.
Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria, is a former hiking resort where wealthy Russians vacationed before the dissolution of the USSR, Grant says. Today, few vacation there and, as a result, three of the four local hotels have been turned into dormitories for the new university. Thus, Grant and his Bulgarian roommate wound up in a former two-star Communist hotel.
At the university, located in the former headquarters of the Communist government, Grant studied anthropology, archaeology, and journalism with Bulgarian and Serbian students working toward graduate school.
He was amazed at how different-and sometimes similar Bulgaria was to the United States. Many of the businesses had not yet privatized for fear that a large percentage of the population would face unemployment, but at the same time “Coca-Cola is everywhere,” he says.
Given such a weak economy, Grant was able to “live like a king” on five dollars a day. Sometimes, he felt resentment from the people of the town. “They expected Americans to behave in a certain way and to fulfill their expectations,” he says. It surprised and sometimes disturbed them to see him behaving differently and living so frugally.
Assured by the Bosnian embassy that Bosnia was open to Americans, Grant and three friends ignored the advice of the American embassy in Bulgaria and obtained transit visas. Despite the assurances, Grant and his friends encountered a border guard who demanded money for their entry.
“Eventually we figured that since it was 3 a.m., we were all freezing, and we couldn't communicate with the guard, it would be better to pay,” he says, and they went onward to Sarajevo.
As Grant's bus made its way down a mountain, the city spread out beneath them in a valley. “It was beautiful. It looked like a normal city,” he says. Then he began to see houses that were uninhabited. As they entered the inner part of the city, the houses became increasingly dilapidated. “There would be whole apartment buildings that were just shells,” he says. “We started seeing apartment buildings where eighty percent would be burnt out, and two or three scattered apartments would have glass in the windows and laundry hanging out to dry.”
On every corner he saw tanks manned by Italian, Belgian,
Turkish, and American soldiers. As he walked along the front line, he was amazed by the bullet holes and depressed by the devastation.
But meeting the people of Sarajevo changed his attitude. In the center of the city, people walked dogs, chatted with neighbors, and smiled wherever they went, he says.
“It started becoming a very positive experience because the people were so happy,” he says.
“I was almost jealous of them, not of what they'd been through, but of their happiness. After four years of oppressive circumstances, they were enjoying life more than most people have the chance to.”
The people of Sarajevo welcomed Grant and his friends as a signal that tourism was returning. When the Americans went out for breakfast, they weren't
allowed to pay for their food-it was all given as a gift.
It was not only the people of Sarajevo that enchanted Grant. “It was amazing how beautiful the city was,” he says. “You see 100,000 bullet holes and then you stop seeing them and you start seeing the buildings and the minarets.”
The reminders of the war followed Grant's every footstep. Careful to walk only on pave
ment for fear that mines might still be planted beneath the grass, Grant and his friends were delighted to tumble and roll in the grass when they returned to Bulgaria. “It's very strange to not be able to touch the ground, and very unnatural to be afraid of it,” he says.
Grant loved being in Eastern Europe. “Bulgaria is beautiful,” he says, reminiscing about looking up at the snow-covered peaks while wearing just a T-shirt.
Beyond the landscape, Grant loved the fact that it was so different from America. “I liked being on my own and not being able to speak the language. I especially liked the people I met.”
Grant is considering working for the Peace Corps or State Department after graduation. He is also applying to graduate schools and may continue
his education before going abroad again.