Bosnia

Bosnia:

How can every house and building in an entire country be either completely or partially destroyed?  I've never seen such damage.  The destruction is juxtaposed by all the brand new buildings, which have been built since the end of the war, to replace buildings that must have been irreparable.  Shock and awe.

If you don't know anything about the history of the area, here are 2 books I have read which take me as close as I'll ever get to the terror, devastation and sadism that characterized the war.  I felt sick after reading both of them.  I read Safe Area Gorazde: The War In Eastern Bosnia 1992-1995 by Joe Sacco in a Narratives of War class at UCSB.  I read the other one last night.  It only takes a half hour or so to read, but it is impossible to forget.  I can't find where I wrote down the name of the second book but it was mostly images. If you want to feel sick here are some images.

If I am ever to find myself in similar circumstances, I would choose death over life after torture any day.  It fascinates me that others would not.  And it fascinates me in an awful way that people are capable of torture.

But, enough of that, Sarajevo is a wonderful city.  The people are incredibly friendly and the old town feels and looks like Medieval Times.  

In Croatia I forgot to mention the lack of homelessness.  I literally saw 2 people begging and many people were giving them money.  We met a hilarious actor our night out who explained to us that this is because everyone is on the same level here.  Communism.  So, yes everyone is poorer, but not one is impoverished.  Which sounds a lot less stressful, but it really limits your possibilites.  For example they have to save for years to travel anywhere. 

We spent a funny/relaxing night at our couchsurfers place that night in Sarajevo.  Did I mention it was Snowing!!  And we were dressed for the beach.  He cooked up some pasta and we drank some beer while watching comedians on youtube.  Our host was originally from Italy, but is now a lawyer that works on war crimes in Sarajevo.  2 days after we met him he won a huge case against some high up Croatian commanders.  I was back in Croatia when the news came out and they were Not happy about the news.  My couchsurfer there believes that since it was war and people were doing bad things on both sides, they should not be punished.  I don't really agree...
It's interesting the Croatian perspective on the war...there are no memorials and people don't really talk about it.  It's like it never happened.  Not so in Bosnia and Serbia.

Anyways, our host loves the city.  And we could see why, it was So Cool.  I could see myself being very happy here.  His friend is Bosnian and works as a translator.  He was in Sarajevo for the first two years of the war and then moved to Germany.  I'm not sure when he came back but the war officially ended in 1996.  It was such a complicated war with all the different nationalities, religions and ethnicities.  Fucking humans.

The mayor of Sarajevo made a plea to the UN during the war begging the UN to bomb the people of Sarajevo because they could hold out no longer.  Can you imagine?

Here are some photos I took from the bus on the way to Sarajevo:

Ajouter une légende

Day 7:  We were Not dressed for this!  Which is why we stayed in that night with our host.  The next day we wandered around the adorable old town.  I bought a delightful sweater, and we stopped for tea every 20 minutes to let our toes thaw.  Summer shoes.  

Our favorite tea shop

Photos from the bus to Belgrade: