Back Thin

I am excited, in exactly one week I leave for Serbia. I have traveled to Europe twice before, the first time during the summer of 2008 and the second time during the late autumn of 2009.

My first trip was to visit my ancestral villages in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina during August of 2008. It was then I made the shocking discovery that I only had a mild resemblance to my relatives. They looked fabulous, and I looked fat. Weight 200 pounds (90 Kilograms), waist circumference 36 inches. I noticed the biggest difference was that I was obsessed with nutrition and my relatives that looked fabulous didn't obsess over what they ate.

My second trip during the late autumn of 2009 was different. I was a physical work in process that weighed 165 pounds (75 Kilograms) that visited Holland. The people didn't look near as good as the people from Croatia & Bosnia and Herzegovina. A combination of flat topography and processed foods made the Dutch look like middle-class North Americans. The Dutch are obsessed with nutrition like I used to be. I noticed most Dutch children were overweight.

My third trip to Serbia will be interesting. I will have a chance to witness first hand the effects of years of economic sanctions on a people. I suspect that in Serbia proper that I will see very few overweight people. In Croatia I noticed that the children in the villages were of a healthy weight whereas in the larger cities one would see obese Croatian children. In North America over 50% of the children are obese. I wonder what the children in Belgrade will look like. If they are of a healthy weight, I can reasonably conclude that the sanctions are actually benefiting Serbia, as Zagreb is full of obese children.

I am thin now, and I have an all black wardrobe for this trip. It will be the most exciting adventure playing Jane Goodall I have ever embarked on. Alone, single and anonymous in Serbia. I will be studying Serbs in their native habitat, then I will study Croatians in their native habitat, and finally re-examine Serbs and refine my initial set of observations. I wonder how similar or how dissimilar these two peoples are?

How can I examine Serbs & Croats like Professor Jane? I can do so because I am neither, I am West Herzegovian.