Sorry I havent written in a while, but there has been more happening than i could keep track of! I'll start with my first impressions of Sarajevo, which i'm sorry to say werent quite that great. Perhaps because everything was so shot up and it was constantly raining. But when there are sunbreaks the city looks better. It was ruled at different points in time by both the Turks (Ottoman empire) and the Austro-Hungarian empire. This leads to very interesting architecture on the main street. Every Balkan main city has a main pedestrian street and this one is no different except that the stores are more pricey for whatever reason, and the architecture is Austro-Hugarian..Austro-Hungarian and then BAM Turkish! Which makes for an interesting walk and an even better cup of coffee. There are many parks in which old men play chess with giant chess boards and I must say i too have become sucked into the chess phenomenon and our group of 20 students has now bought several boards and we play constantly, which is something to take our minds off of the fact that if we trip over something whilst walking to the club its usually a grenade hole. which is quite sobering.
But to take my mind off the constant staring and sadness that seems to envelope srajevo, some friends and I took a (looong) bus to Zagreb, Croatia! What a great city, my favorite by far of all the ones i've been too. theres just so may different people, good food, people dont stare you down as if you're an alien, and everything is just so..well european i guess. I am considereing going to grad school there as the tuition and food is craaazy cheap and there are lakes and biking to be done (see pictures)
Then two days ago we visted Srebrenica the town in which the mass genocide happened. We travelled with Bosniak (bosnian muslims) students to this town to which they had never been. Bill Clinton visited in 2003 to open up the memorial and hopefully bring people back to this town in which they have nothing left. Nearly everyone in Bosnia lost someone there in Srebrenica and its hard to understand the horrible things that people are capable of doing to each other. Even so recently. One can read about war and history all they want. but actually being there, in the building where things happened, eating lunch in the hills where 6000 men tried to escape execution and maybe 1000 survived, is quite different. Something that stays with you for the rest of your life. I suppose going into the program i knew it would be hard to see all this and to hear peoples stories, and i couldve chosen to go to greece or italy to study, but I dont think i'd trade this opportunity for anything. Its hard, but good to learn about these things that in the U.S. we really cant even begin to fathom. You learn the extent of human compassion, but also about the amazing elasticity of the human spirit. The lively music and constant singing in the streets is the sign of a people who wont be brought down by anything. It might be nationalism, it might be pride, but for now life is stable and they are happen, and the music stays with them.
