Music makes you lose control, literally

First of all, I feel as though it is my duty to report on the music in the Western Balkans. It is terrible, and I am not kidding. Between the classy mix of Celine Dion and 50-cent that was common in Sarajevo to Frank Sinatra in Mostar to the Beach Boys in Budva, the music has at least been interesting and a great topic for conversation. Its not so much that the music is terrible, but all entirely out of place. In Sarajevo for example, the City Pub, which we often frequented, loved playing Celine Dion. The Viennese Café across the street played movie soundtracks (including Titanic). A restaurant where we ate for lunch enjoyed instrumental versions of many classic rock songs. In Banja Luka, I don’t actually remember hearing any music, but that’s because I have blocked out most of those rainy two days. Mostar was full of Frank Sinatra, house music, and Bob Marley. Budva was all BGs, Beach Boys and Lou Bega. The Balkans has produced a number of singers (I have a few examples now) that have decent music, why these establishments insist on broadcasting old American hits is beyond me.

Next, I have endured two more long bus rides since you last heard from me – from Mostar to Budva, Montenegro and from Budva to Pristina, Kosovo (with a pit-stop of sorts in the Montenegran Parliament in Podorica). While the bus rides have been fair, the views have been stunning. Most of the roads on which we travel parallel a river, so there is almost always a beautiful view of white stone mountains, bright green shrubbery and forestry and bright blue/turquoise water. Unfortunately, it has been raining for most of the rides, but at least the weather erases all desire to be outside while we are “safely” in the hands of our bus driver. I say “safely” because they have all (we have had 3) been pretty risky drivers and usually enjoy speeding down mountain roads and have no problem passing cars on said mountain roads. We have spent a lot of time touring around the Western Balkans.

If Mostar was the most beautiful city so far, Budva was certainly the most tourist-driven and fat. At the Bellevue Hotel of the Iberostar Hotel Group, we were treated to all-inclusive buffet-style meals (and drinks) with two pools and a beach section. Even though it cost two euro when the pool chairs were free, I quickly made my way onto the pebbly beach of the Adriatic Sea. Becici Beach, although a very beautiful beach, does not hold a rock to the serenity at Serifos. The multiple beach-front hotels try to cram as many bodies onto beach chairs as possible. While the result on the sand was less than desirable, the view was a breathtaking mix of sea and mountains and the water was cool and refreshing. At night, after full stomachs and free entertainment (including America’s disappointing football loss to Brasil), a small group would take a taxi into Budva. Both nights we sat at the “Garden Caffe,” which boasted live music the first night we were there. The bar café also had special visitors from hedgehog-porcupines, the first time I believe that I have ever seen such an animal in the “wild.”

While Becici beach was fun while it lasted, I was glad to leave the plastic-Disney-world resort even if it meant the beginning of the nine-hour ride to Pristina. We stopped in Podorica for a briefing with the OSCE mission in Montenegro for Parliamentary Development, and after a tour of the Parliamentary building and chambers we got back on the bus. After we missed the border control into Serbia (the route we were taking required a more indirect path) we took a quick U-Turn to hopefully right our wrong, it was more difficult than it seemed it should be.

My first view of Kosovo was a KFOR (Kosovo Force) military base at the border line between Serbia and Kosovo (Serbia has not recognized Kosovo as an independent state) followed by road blockades. After a mix of beautiful lakes, bombed buildings, obscene amounts of garbage, industrial agriculture, factories, stray dogs, UNHCR tents, Portugal’s military base, cemeteries, and a giant poster of Bill Clinton we finally made it into Pristina.

I don’t have much of a feel for the city yet because we’ve only been here for five hours, but I have already realized that while the country does use the Euro, prices are not EU prices. A cappuccino was only one euro, for example, cheaper than most places in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Also, the music scene is a little more up to date – I have already heard some Flo Rida and Beyonce, not to say that it is more tolerable, but at least not thirty years old!

That’s all I have for now, Tuesday starts the next round of meetings and hopefully less confusion!

 

In love,

Lauren 

Baby Steps for Change

The past week has been a whirlwind of cities, bus rides and people. We arrived after the five-hour bus ride in a rainy Banja Luka. Over the next day and a half we met with the OSCE mission branch, a local NGO that works with identifying missing persons and providing witness assistance in war crimes cases, and the OHR branch and were exposed to an entirely different perspective. Banja Luka is the capitol (and one of the main cities) of Republica Srpska, the Serb-majority entity of BiH. In the RS it is a lot easier to privatize and overall make decisions because the political parties do not need to work off of fear mongering with ethnic roots. There is a lot more development and progression in terms of centralized government, however this is not all as benevolent as it seems. After our meetings we got back on the big white bus and took the six-hour drive from Banja Luka to Mostar. The drive was more beautiful than I remembered the drive only two days before. We stopped at a waterfall, the top of a mountain that looked like the end of the world, and the source of the best mineral water as of the 1998 mineral water competition – all of which were absolutely stunning. Academically, however, I left the RS on Wednesday more confused with the situation in BiH, and only to become increasingly confused after our meetings in Mostar. 

Once known as the most beautiful city in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Mostar’s broken buildings and exposed stonework exist as open reminders of the ethnic conflict that existed here only fifteen years ago. The hillsides, which are all stone and green shrubbery, mirror the greenery that has grown within the buildings since the time that someone lived in the houses and now. On the other hand, the hotel we are staying in is a model of modernity with air conditioning in every room, streamlined furniture and showers with seven showerheads (that manage to spout only absolutely frigid water, but it’s the thought that counts). Mostar is stuck between its wounds from war, continuing conflict amongst Croats and Bosniaks and slow advances towards modernity.

Every few buildings throughout town is still in shambles, and the boulevard that served as the frontline of the gunfire in this city from 1992-1994 is still entirely in ruins (except for the trees that have sprouted amongst the stonework). The religious symbols and houses of worship, which were all desecrated during the conflict, exist on extreme scales. Overlooking the city from the Croat (catholic) part of town is a giant cross, reminiscent of the HOLLYWOOD sign in Los Angeles. The bell tower of the Catholic Church stands almost twice as tall as any other building in the town. But the many minarets, which mark the mosques of the city, are equally prominent. The tourism agency is the most active of any of the other cities we have been to and the “old-town” market accepts euros and not convertible marks.  The few buildings that have been rebuilt have been done so with the traditional style and also the modern flair that we also saw in Sarajevo and Banja Luka. Perhaps the most stunning part of the city is the Old Bridge, a replica of the Turkish bridge from the sixteenth century that was blown up in 1993 and rebuilt in 2004. The highest point of the bridge is 21 meters above the river, and it was built out of stone from the same quarry as the original and in the same style. The bridge is one sign of the combined present and past of Mostar.

Mostar is by far my favorite city. It has the beauty and old-world feel of Sarajevo and the honesty of the field offices in Banja Luka. Today we met with the OSCE mission branch and the OHR branch in Mostar. Mostar is a unique city because it is under special jurisdiction. Essentially a battlefield during the early 1990s, Mostar was divided into six municipalities in 1994 as a part of a temporary statute to stop the violence between Croats and Bosniaks. In 2004, as a condition to become a candidate for EU accession, Mostar was united as one city under a new statute that was imposed with the Bonn powers by the High Representative. While this statute worked and kept peace for four years, Mostar has not had a major since November 2008 when the council could not come to a conclusion on who the major should be (the major is not directly elected in Mostar). This is an exasperation of the ongoing political conflict in BiH, which is very clear in Mostar because of its importance to Croats as the center of Croat constituent peoples in BiH and a clear link to Zagreb.

It is increasingly difficult to wrap my head around what peace will mean in this country. Each field office is extremely honest with us, which is wonderful, but it is also difficult to reconcile three differing opinions at the same time. There really is a three-sided story in BiH, to be entirely honest. No one group is in the right, and no one group (as easy as it may be to point fingers) is to blame for the conflict. What is necessary now is to find a viable way to find sustainable peace and return in this region in every sector. Unfortunately, the International Community, which in addition to all of the good it has done in this region also created and perpetuated a lot of bad practices, is planning to fully withdraw from BiH. I cannot imagine the state that this country will find itself in, when and if that does happen.

In any case, my time in BiH has been an even mix of eye opening, depressing and inspiring. I have hope for this region, but my hopes are becoming more realistic. Change in this region can happen, but it will take a lot of time. For change to occur baby steps need to happen, and as of now, there have been baby steps there just need to be a lot more.

In other news, I would love to hear from all of you, so please send me emails!

 

With love,
            Lauren

Never Never Land in the heart of BiH

            As I stretched from my nap and looked out the bus window, I could have sworn that I was in a different country, Neverland perhaps? I had managed to drift off to sleep for a few hours of the six-hour bus ride from Sarajevo to Banja Luka, the capitol of Republica Srpska, one of the two entities of BiH. The bus was hugged on either side by rich green foliage with intermittent tunnels and exposed rock. A couple hundred feet below us (in a huge white charter bus) was a beautiful turquoise river. The view was one of the most majestic that I have ever had the pleasure of seeing, the gorge that the bus wove through was covered in mist from the rainy day and it actually illuminated the countryside. It was almost impossible to imagine that war had devastated these areas less than twenty years ago.

            And at the same time, every turn offered a new view of a burned or bombed out building that had not been repaired. In some places the buildings stood alone as remnants of the entire community that was ethnically cleansed, a prevalent action in the northern part of the state. In other areas the bombed houses were a functioning part of a larger settlement, either as an inadequate form of housing, a storage facility, or an empty shell of someone’s former life. The same applied to religious structures – we passed more than one burnt out Orthodox Church or Mosque. While refugees and displaced persons, an estimated 2 million from the war, are entitled to the right of return and property in Annex 7 of the Dayton Accord, in many respects property was returned to individuals, but they did not return to their own lives. The results are what we saw from the bus window, the exoskeleton of the former lives of two million individuals (most of whom have not physically returned to their former lives) in the middle of breathtaking countryside. (Side note, for those with access to Facebook, my attempts at capturing the view will be up shortly.)

            Each house we passed had its own garden, and some areas boasted small farms, complete with livestock. Not much, in fact, was different from Appalachia or areas of Western Virginia, such as the landscape surrounding the New River. With a thirty-minute stop, to divide up the trip, at a small restaurant reminiscent of a ski-lodge (with good food at an excellent price), the six-hour trip was not long. Banja Luka approached quickly between reading for pleasure (Three Cups of Tea), for class (about Montenegro and Kosovo), car games (Geography) and sleeping. So far Banja Luka seems like a wonderful town. There is, however, gorgeous architecture, especially in the Orthodox Church. There is also a bell tower that announces the time, reminiscent of Carolina and the Sound of Music, not surprisingly. We left the hotel soon after arriving in order to explore some of the city, which was unfortunately pretty much asleep at nine pm on a rainy Monday night. Banja Luka is, however, the capitol of the RS and a college town, so Tuesday and Tuesday night should provide a better understanding of the real life of the city.

            Over the next two days we will have a variety of meetings with different field offices of the major organizations with which we met in Sarajevo including the OSCE and the EU Police Mission. I am really looking forward to hearing another opinion of all that we have learned about.

            With Love,

            Lauren

Sunshine and Rain

In Sarajevo, the majority-population of Bosniaks (or Muslims) are called to prayer five times a day from the innumerable mosques around the city. The hills that create the valley tower over the tallest towers and communist housing blocks are a rich forest green. The roofs of the houses along the hillsides are all red. The roads are a mix of cobblestones and pavement. There are roses everywhere and fruit stands are abundant. Everything about this city is fantastic, people are friendly, their personal histories are heartbreaking and the beer and food is delicious.

Saturday was spent exploring the city. We saw some of the local religious buildings, the bridge where Franz Ferdinand was assassinated to start WWI, refurbished buildings, and bombed out buildings. In Sarajevo the buildings have plaques on them that commemorate the individuals who died when the building was shelled. We took taxis up to a restaurant on the top of one of the ridges and ate delicious chevapi and salata overlooking the absolute sprawl of the city. A few of us walked back down the hill towards the center of town and the river (don’t worry mom, we stayed on the roads). Back at the Motel, a few girls did a workout DVD and the granddaughter of the motel’s owners joined us! I had more fun dancing with the six year old than doing the actual squats. The day was glorious and the barbeque that night was also fun. Saturday night it started raining around eleven and it is still raining almost 30 hours later!

Sunday was a rainy day, full of sleeping, and reading and writing. A fog has taken over the city and covers the tops of the hills (I know, I’m getting poetic). We took a group dinner to the brewery just up the river from our motel. Afterwards we had yummy Socher cake (chocolate and raspberry) and espresso at the Viennese Café of the Hotel Europe. The café had recently reopened after an extensive rehabilitation (the building was shelled during the war) and was gorgeous on the inside (brown and blue), perfect for a rainy day. After a quick run across the street, we had a beer at the City Pub. Went back to the Hotel Europe for an espresso and then returned to the City Pub with a supposed CNN correspondent.

Tomorrow marks the end of our stay in Sarajevo. After meetings in the morning we will get on the bus for the six-hour drive to Banja Luka. I plan to sleep and to read. It will be very interesting to go to not only another city in BiH but also a primarily Serb city (Sarajevo is close to 90% Bosniak). The time here has been fantastic and I look forward to the new adventures of the up-coming week! I love getting emails from you all so please keep them coming!

 

With love and best wishes,

Lauren

Bonn Powers

For those of you who are confused about the current situation and standing of Bosnia-Herzegovina, this article might help to ease some of the confusion. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/20/world/europe/20bosnia.html?_r=2&hp

More to come soon!

With love,

Lauren

Thursday and Friday

The past two days have been full of briefings, events and meals that I have yet to fully explain. So I guess now I will try! Also, this is probably the most boring thing I have ever written, so I do understand if you are not interested!

            Thursday was dedicated to learning about the justice process of war crimes. In the morning we visited the International Criminal Tribunal to the Former Yugoslavia and were briefed there. After a lunch in the building’s cafeteria we took a European Union Police Union truck to the state Court of Bosnia-Herzegovina that deals with War Crimes, Organized Crime and general crime on the state level. After a taxi ride back to the hotel we regrouped and head up the hill to the Phoenix pub where we met informally with some individuals involved in the international political scene in Sarajevo for dinner and drinks. The pub offered Pimms, which promptly sent me back to my summer in England during High School. After watching youtube videos (as mentioned below) and testing the local brandy, called rjakja, a group of the group went out to a dance club called Sloga. When we first arrived there was a band playing covers of American and Bosnian songs. After a few hours the music switched over to a more common “house” or techno music including some songs that I happened to know from Zumba. For my fellow dancers one of the songs was the one that Tara teaches when the step goes forward, back, walk around. I recognized it almost immediately and had to forcibly stop myself from teaching the packed club the dance that minute. The walk home included a late-night food stop at one of the local bakeries (although not as good as the secret bakery in Florence).

            Friday’s briefings did not start until 1:30 PM, which was a welcomed change from waking up at 8 AM every day. After a lazy morning, some delicious nectarines (all of the produce here is fantastic) we hoped on the tram to the USAID building. There we met with US Ambassador English to Bosnia-Herzegovina and other members of the US Foreign Service. After a walk down the river we went to the Office of the High Representative and met with the Deputy Officer. He was a very aware man but also equally hopeful, which was a refreshing change.

            The weekend is free of briefings but will be full of adventures, and as such more interesting information from my end of the world. Happy weekend to everyone!

 

With love,

Lauren

Just another day in Sarajevo

            On Thursday I learned a lot in terms of Bosnia-Herzegovina as a country and the current situation that exists in Sarajevo at the moment. Bosnia-Herzegovina was established as a new country in 1995 with the Dayton Agreements, as a peace agreement Dayton has worked wonders because there has not been any serious violence since 1995 in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The constitution that Dayton created for Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH) was far from a simple arrangement. Those who have taken George Rabinowitz’ POLI 100 know that he emphasizes the inefficiency of the American system of government. Bosnia-Herzegovina makes America look like the most-efficient well-oiled machine in the world. In 1995 BiH was divided into two entities – the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina (FBiH) and the Republica Srpska (RS). Because Dayton was a peace agreement – it made a lot of concessions based on accommodation. The Federation is further divided into ten cantons, and also into municipalities. The Republica Srpska is further divided into municipalities. What makes BiH very complicated is that many state competencies are decentralized to the entity or even cantonal level. In education, for example, each of the ten cantons in FBiH has a minister of education, as does each entity, as does the state of BiH. The minister of education and the various committees do not have serious power over any of the other twelve ministers and the other twelve are not at all accountable to the main minister of education or even the state of BiH. This means that framework agreements and laws that are enacted on the state level are not implemented on the cantonal level because they don’t have to be.

            Additionally, Dayton set up an office of the High Representative which had executive powers called the Bonn powers in 1997. Up until 2005 reforms in this country were going really well and there was a good chance that the international community (that had had a strong presence for ten years) would be able to remove its influence. Unfortunately, while the international community has decreased in the last four years, the positive reforms that were made have been replaced with downfall after downfall. While the Bonn powers were still in existence (to ensure that reforms were passed in BiH and in each entity) the high representatives opted to not use them, which leads us to today. On May 14 the national assembly in Republica Srpska made a conclusion that the state of BiH had taken away too many of the entities capacities over the last fourteen years and as such determined that they would take them back. In the national assembly any conclusion is binding, and thus this conclusion could be effectively seen as a declaration of war. The current high representative opted to not use his Bonn powers immediately but instead wrote a letter to the national assembly requesting that they change the decision by June 11. Today is June 19 and not only has the RS not revoked its conclusion but the Bonn powers have not been used. This morning was a meeting of one of the High Representative’s Steering Boards with members of the international community. There are currently no updates on what he will decide to do.

            In addition, the International Monetary Fund announced this week that it would give BiH 1.2 million euros if they did a 10% cut in spending across the Board. Yesterday was the first day of demonstrations that are scheduled for the rest of the month. While there was some violence, business as normal exists in the rest of the city and we have not been threatened at all.

            It is a fascinating time to be in Sarajevo because we are right in the middle of this change and because we are talking to the organizations that will be effected by any change in OHR policy or in demonstrations by nationals. I also did a lot of YouTube watching yesterday. If you’re interested you should look at Joe Biden’s 2003 speech to the Western Balkins, Sarajevo under siege, or Miss Sarajevo by U2 Official Video. The last two were hard to watch because it showed the city that I am in now, fifteen years ago, under constant attack. It looks nothing like that presently, but it was still shocking to see a road that I walk down every day (that is not yet even in perfect condition) in complete shambles.

I am off for three briefings today, but I hope to update you all more on the daily life in Sarajevo (and my day yesterday and today shortly)

 

With love,

Lauren

Sarajevska Adventures

            The more time that I spend in Sarajevo, the more I come to appreciate and love the city and also begin to understand the war – both its causes and effects. Today we had a long day full of briefings from the Organization for Security and Cooperation and Europe mission to Bosnia-Herzegovina (OSCE).  In the morning we were briefed by each of the four branches of the organization’s mission to Bosnia-Herzegovina – Human Rights, Education, Democratization, and Security. The meeting was about two hours long, and while there was a lot of information I feel as though I left the meeting more confused than when I entered the meeting.

            For lunch we went to a restaurant in the main level of a nearby housing block – the architecture of this city is very fascinating. But we were able to eat with five of the younger interns at the organization, to get a real feel for the situation. I spent most of my time talking with Panos, a man from Cyprus who grew up in Greece who works in the education department, and Stephanie, a woman from Ireland who works in the Human Rights Department as a Legal Advisor. They both told fascinating life stories and it was very nice to get a frank opinion on the condition in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

            After lunch we went to the building where the UN was headquartered until the 2000s, but is now occupied by a number of organizations including the European Union’s Police Mission. There we had a briefing by the head Political Advisor who was also extremely honest and clear with his understandings of the situation and his aspirations for the country as a whole.

            On the tram (a bus connected to a cable) ride back towards the center of town we saw the landscape shift from the communist housing blocks, to the brand new car dealerships, and then seamlessly into the Austrian-Hapsburg style buildings. I stopped with a few other students and our professor and teaching assistant to have coffee with the Head and Deputy Head of the Education department at the OSCE mission.  That was probably my favorite meeting of the day and the most informative – this was due to the topics of conversation, the addition of coffee, and the small/intimate setting. I hope to write my research project on the process of education reform in Bosnia-Herzegovina, it was important for me to have the last meeting today to really get a more complete and honest understanding of the situation as it currently stands. I would try to recreate all that I heard for you here, but I honestly haven’t fully processed the information myself.

            After walking back from our informal session, the whole group of sixteen students decided to get dinner together. Of all places in Sarajevo we chose to eat at a Mexican restaurant! It was quite an experience reading the English translation of a Spanish menu in the middle of Serbo-Croatian Sarajevo! Regardless, the food was good and the company was great, we really had a chance to talk all together and to bond on a more informal level. On our way back towards the motel, we ran into some of the interns who we had lunch with and decided to stay out for a little longer to talk to them more. We ended up at the “City Pub” which had an English feel to it, but was filled with nationals and internationals alike. The local beer is called Sarajevska, which is the feminine possessive form of “Sarajevo,” the name of the city in which we are currently staying. At first I thought that it was the name of the production company and while this remains true, the product is called (translated) Sarajevska Piva (Sarajevan Beer) and one of the local bottled waters is called Sarajevska Voda (Sarajevan Water).

            Tomorrow is another day that will be full of briefings and more things to see and to learn. This weekend I hope to go into the hills to see a full view of the city and to get a different perspective on life in Sarajevo (don’t worry Mom, I’ll be safe!). Everyone who I have talked to has said that their favorite thing to do is Sarajevo is just to walk around. Even after being here for four short days, I can see why. The city is bustling with life, there are always children and families around, as well as teenage groups and grandparents. There is an abundance of outdoor cafes with umbrellas that create a shade that is approximately fifteen degrees cooler than being in the sun. It has truly been an experience being here, and I am looking forward to exploring more of the city in the next five days. 

With Love,

Lauren

Meat for every meal

Tuesday in Sarajevo was one of the most beautiful days, the sun was a bright blue and essentially cloudless. That being said it was very very warm today, especially in our formal gear. Today started the briefings; we arrived at the European Commission at ten o’clock in the morning after a quick ride across town on the tram (and a breakfast of hotdogs and mustard). We talked with one of the directors of the E.U.’s mission to Bosnia-Herzegovina. He works for the enlargement process of the E.U. and thus specializes in getting Bosnia-Herzegovina ready to apply for candidacy to be a European Union member state.

After, we took a walk back towards the hotel along the river. Looking across the river, most of the buildings had bullet holes. During the war, there was a siege on Sarajevo during which rebel forces took control of the surrounding hillsides. Since Sarajevo lies in a valley, it was a clear target from the surrounding mountains. A walk through the Turkish town led us to a small garden where men were playing chess with pieces that came to mid-thigh and where there were two Native Americans playing tribal music (that was the most interesting part).

For lunch we ate at one of Sarajevo’s “fast food” places – small cafes where they serve chevapi, “baby” beef sausages (because they are very short) served in a pita with onions and “cheese” (which is a very buttery sauce that almost tastes like garlic). I spent the afternoon reading and staying cool. At four we had class back at the pub, which lasted until “music night” started. The Phoenix Pub turns into a watering hole for ex-pats living in Sarajevo. There were at least ten children running around the gardens and playhouses, which I loved and as such was able to befriend three children ages eight, seven and six. Their laughter was a nice addition to the music coming from inside the bar – a varied assortment from blue grass to old Irish hymns.

After a nice vegetable lasagna, it was a pub after all, we walked back down the hill to the motel. A group of us went over to the local Sarajevan brewery, which brews Sarajevska beer and has a dining room attached. The restaurant was a combination of what I imagine fancy restaurants were like in the 1920s in America and Rick’s Café in the film “Casablanca.” The food was delicious and we tasted an assortment of Balkan delicacies including goulash (a soup from Hungary), ajvar (a Macedonian dish pronounced eye-var that is a red-pepper and eggplant paste that is delicious on bread), and Tulubar (a sugary donut-like desert that is entirely sugar). Our food was accompanied with beer from the brewery – right next door!

I already feel like I have learned so much, and that I have been here for more than three days! It’s interesting how much the remnants of the war still exist. For instance, the hills surrounding Sarajevo are beautiful, and it would be a gorgeous hike, but we are prevented from doing so because there is a good chance that unexploded land mines are lodged in the hillside. I have put an extra filter on choices that I make, even though war technically left the area about fifteen years ago. As the briefings have started, however, I have been able to narrow down my project a little more. I will still be researching the influence of international organizations on education, as a state institution, in Bosnia-Herzegovina, but now I have a lot more leads on people who I can talk to so that I can get specific information.

So far everything has been a breeze, my stomach has held up well to the intensive inclusion of meat. Wednesday will bring a lot more briefings and a few meetings and the rest of the week will follow the same pattern. I am really looking forward to getting more information about my research settled and exploring more of Sarajevo in my last five days here!

 

With love and best wishes,

Lauren

Don’t Stir the Turkish Coffee!

Hello all!

Initially when I started this public journal, I assumed that I would update about once a week. But after today, I realize that that will not be possible unless each entry is an epic saga – there are so many “new” things everyday! So here is my account of Monday….and the first few hours of Tuesday.

            Monday started off after a wonderful and welcomed night of rest with the complimentary breakfast at the motel. In my mind I was expecting the lavish buffet that I associate with not only American hotels but also with the hotels that Hollister, Savannah, Liz and Veronica and I stayed in while we were in Spain together. Breakfast in Sarajevo is a hardboiled egg, bread with jam and butter, and coffee/tea/milk depending on preference (to my own surprise I chose milk). After a quick meeting, going over the essentials of the readings, and a rough sketch of our meetings for the week, I spent the rest of the gorgeous morning sitting in the Motel’s garden (surrounded by a LOT of plaster garden accessories) underneath a nice umbrella. I was able to journal for myself, read for pleasure, finish the readings for today, and get to know more about the other students. Speaking of which, everyone is really great. The group is very open and welcoming and everyone seems to get along, then again it is only day two. But really, I can only imagine that the next forty days with these folk are going to be an absolute whirlwind.

            At midday the group reconvened and we walked up to the pub where we will be holding our classes while we are in Sarajevo. Now, I recognize that a lot of the previous sentence is confusing; but when I say “up” I mean we walked UP. Sarajevo is in a valley surrounded by stunning mountains, so the city itself is rather hilly. Today we walked right up one of the hills. Now yes, our class will be held in a pub, it is called Phoenix and it is absolutely gorgeous. It reminds me of Hogwarts mixed with the Shire because the doors are so small. Everything is hardwood and there is a beautiful covered seating area at the entrance (look for pictures soon!). Plus, the walls of the room where we hold our class are absolutely covered in books, an absolute dream for me. To my surprise a few books that I know and have read were included on the shelves. We had class for five hours today, and it was very interesting but very long five hours. The second portion we sat outside under an umbrella, which made the situation much better.  From the outside view of the pub, we overlooked Sarajevo from a height advantage, which made it easy to see the third main type of architecture in the downtown area – communism style apartment blocks. Our professor said that you can tell which buildings are remnants from Communist Yugoslavia because they look like Hamilton Hall on Chapel Hill’s campus but uglier (if that’s even possible!).

            After class, it was dinnertime so I broke off with a smaller group to grab some food. On our way down the hill we had time to look closely at a cemetery that was by the side of the road. Every headstone that we saw said that the men who had died, died between 1900 and 2000, with a large amount in 1995. It is hard to believe that war was present here just over a decade ago. The cemetery we passed was a military cemetery, which is a good explanation of the dates, but still very sad. The entire area surrounding the cemetery was becoming a cultural center and memorial to honor the soldier’s lives.

            Dinner consisted of meat stuffed peppers and onions, so my vegetarian days have quickly left. The good news is that I am pretty sure that the meat was not fed on ConAgra feed, so I feel better about it. There is a clear Turkish influence in the city, not only was my meal highly reminiscent of Greek (so I assume also Turkish) cuisine, but many shops sell Turkish coffee, it’s fascinating. After dinner we had “the best ice cream in the world” at a little shop called Egypita. Their vanilla ice cream was more a combination of French vanilla and caramel than plain “vanilla” but it was certainly delicious.

            We stopped across the road from the Motel for a few drinks of Sarajevo’s locally brewed beer and by nine pm we decided to investigate “The Cave Club,” which was just a few paces away. The club was a lot of fun, underground with comfortable space, lighting and great dancing music. I am not sure what the club scene is really like in Sarajevo yet because so far we have just created our own party wherever we go. Luckily, we came in early since we have to wake up early tomorrow. I am still awake at 2 am because I am hyped up on adrenaline.

            What is slowly becoming evident as I spend more time here is truly how deep the wounds of the war are. It is hard to remember this when Mazeratis, BMWs, Mercedes and Audis pass you by on the street, but one only has to look up to see the remaining bullet holes in the buildings to remember that war was here not long ago. The late-night concierge at the motel and a few students got into a conversation that ended up talking about the war. He had some fantastic insights, given that he was alive then. He told us that before the war everyone was friends (you would lend your Serbian neighbor a hammer if you were a Bosniak, and vice versa) but that after the war you do not have friends in other ethnic groups (you would not lend a hammer and neither would your neighbor). He does not like war, however. He said, “When I hate you and you hate me back, that is when you have war.” So while the ethnic groups don’t necessarily “hate” each other, they just choose to not associate with each other.

            So really it’s only been day one and I already feel like I know a lot more than when I arrived on Sunday evening. I wish you all wonderful Tuesdays and I hope to hear from you all as well!

With Love,

Lauren

NB - For the record, I have yet to have a cup of coffee since leaving Charlotte on Saturday.

NB 2 – Kudos to Barge on the title, it was an alternative title to the Blog, but I didn’t know if there was Turkish coffee here.

And So It Begins!

Today at 2:50 pm local time I stepped off of my fourth plane and onto the soil of Bosnia-Herzegovina. I had left Charlotte soil at noon the previous day, Saturday. I took my four flights from Charlotte to New York, New York to London, London to Budapest, Budapest to Sarajevo with relative ease and only hand luggage (for those of you who have ever traveled with me, you will recognize that this in itself was a feat). The biggest events in my twenty-hour trip were a dead fly in a salad, a cut on my ankle, and a four-inch tear in one of my two bags (and my day bag at that). Other than that, we are functioning at full capacity. Sarjevo is six hours ahead of life on the East Coast, so there is a bit of jet lag going on in my system; a lot of it related to the twenty hours that I spent traveling.

            What I have seen of Sarajevo is both beautiful and depressing. There is clear foreign influence in the architecture – both Ottoman and Hapsburg – which truly represents the divided origin that this country had. In the most beautiful Austrian-inspired building there are bullet holes that remain as evidence of the war that was here just over a decade ago. My group members and I realized quickly that anyone we saw who was our age or older (and even some who were younger) had lived through the war. Speaking of my group, I am here with fourteen other students from UNC who are all very amiable and energetic. There is one teaching assistant who can speak pretty much every language and the professor who knows the city very well. Unfortunately, there are a lot of beggars within the city and as soon as they hear English they are fast on our heels (we are also pretty conspicuous as a group of twelve, as we were tonight). They range from middle-aged women to a five-year-old boy who was particularly feisty; while I would love to give each individual 10 marks (the local currency) I am pretty sure that I would quickly lose all of my money.

            While the trip will certainly be a lot of work inside the classroom, there is a lot I need to learn about living in Sarajevo as a city. Because the country is divided ethnically, the capital has a lot of cultures intermixing. I personally find this to be a positive thing but it also means that mores and cultural norms are different in different parts of the city. For instance, many of the restaurants near the mosques do not sell alcohol, but only a few paces down a cobblestone street one can find plenty of restaurants willing to serve it. I find it fascinating. It is also not surprising to turn the corner to see an absolutely stunning building, like a cathedral, or a building entirely in ruins. The national Library is not but two blocks away from our “Motel” and it is still in shambles. It was bombed during the wars of the 1990s and has yet to be refinished because of funding issues, including reparations.

            I am more than aware that I still have a lot to learn about this city, this country, this part of the world, and the issue of international organizations. Lucky for me class starts tomorrow at one pm. We will hold class in a local pub, the owner of which the professor is a friend. While we will not be drinking during class, the option still exists for later in the evening. I would love to hear from each of you so please do not hesitate to email me.

 

Much love and best wishes,

Lauren

Pre-Departure Tutorial

Friends and Family,

Starting June 13, I will be abroad for the rest of 2009 save one month from August 19-September 18. Due to the extensive nature of my travels, I figured a Blog would be a good way to mark my travels, so that you can keep up with me when you want to and, of course, ignore me when necessary. I hope to update this Blog at least once a week; but don’t hold me to it. To those of you (Read: Taylor Williams) who have read any of my other Blog attempts, don’t be afraid, this one should be a little bit better. For those of you who can’t see this Blog as it’s posted (Read: people in China) I hope you get a chance to read it one day!

First things first, the title of this Blog has come from a couple of places. “Spontaneous Diversions” came from the Lonely Planet guidebook about the Western Balkans (I’m attempting to prepare myself). The sentence reads, “We suggest you aim to experience the best of the region but allow for some spontaneous diversions.” The Western Balkans is an area that is rich with history, much of it very recent. I hope to explore as much of it as possible during my three weeks in the area. The next part of the title actually came from Transportation Security Authorities. When one goes through airport security there are three options, one of which is “Casual Traveler.” This I like because it sounds so nonchalant about the adventures that take place after the initial travel. I also like it since I will take ten airplane flights this summer alone.

My itinerary for the rest of the summer will take me throughout the Western Balkans for the remainder of June and the very beginning of July. I will spend most of July (including my twentieth birthday) in Vienna, Austria. August will take me to Greece to spend some time with my extended family. I’m not exactly sure what will happen between Vienna and Athens, but it currently looks like I’m heading to France (the other mother land) for a week.

 

My exact dates are as follows:

            June 14 – June 27, various cities in Bosnia-Herzegovina           

June 27 – June 29, a weekend in Montenegro

June 29 – July 5, Pristina, Kosovo (and other cities)

July 5 – July 25, Vienna, Austria

July 26 – August 4, Paris, France

August 4 – August 19, Seriphos, Greece

The first six weeks of my summer trip are a part of a research study abroad program hosted by UNC that includes fifteen students, a faculty advisor and a TA. Everyone will be researching different ways that international organizations interact with the Western Balkans. I will be researching the influence of international organizations in the restructuring of the education system in Bosnia-Herzegovina to promote tolerance. After the wars of the 1990s, Bosnia-Herzegovina was divided into ten cantons based on ethnicity. Today, each canton makes its own rules for education, including curriculum. Being the nerd that I am, I am really looking forward to new research and new experiences!

September 18 I will head off to London to spend a semester studying American Studies at King’s College in London. I will return from those adventures just in time to celebrate Christmas Eve 2009 with my extended family (read: Shorentals). As far as details, there aren’t many yet, I have nine weeks of diversions to get

Anyways, that’s as far as my adventures go so far! I wish you all a very happy summer and hope to hear from all of you with frequency.

 

With love, Lauren