Eye Opening

 

The really high hill out our hotel window was the answer to our prayers.  We needed some exercise.  Some real exertion.  Our hearts were asking to be pumped faster, our skin wanted to feel sweat, and our souls needed nature.  We were in Mostar, Bosnia & Herzegovina, our first time in country that is primarily Muslim.  And the first time to hear the wailing, brooding call to prayer.  Curiously, the hill we were planning to climb had a huge cross on top of it.  A cross?  In a mostly Muslim country?  Oh well, we didn’t care what was on top, we were going to climb it.  Initially we wanted to just wing it and find the way to the top on our own, but at the last minute we decided it would be better to ask for some directions.  The receptionist said, “you want to do what?  You can’t climb that hill.  It’s full of landmines and is extremely dangerous.”   Our mouths fell open. 

We knew that Mostar was a battleground in the recent 1991-1995 war, but who would’ve guessed that unexploded landmines were still in the ground 15 years later.  Seeing all the bullet riddled homes, bombed out buildings, and hearing that our hill was still extremely unsafe completely shifted our mood from surf and sun to war and peace.

 

The Balkans war or, more accurately, the breakup of the former Yugoslavia, was a bloody ugly mess.  Scars from this conflict are still very much present in many of the cities and towns we visited. 

We watched video footage in Mostar’s City Museum on how the Croatian Army was able to blowup it’s beloved bridge, Stari Most.  The bridge was built by the Turks 500 years ago connecting two communities, each believing differently in the way to heaven.  To the Bosnians it has long been the symbol that Muslims, Jews and Christians could live peacefully as neighbors.  It was rebuilt in 2004 and is beautiful architecturally but is more important for it’s symbolism.  To this day, they are proud of their religious tolerance.  Which, we commend.  Many of the Orthodox Christians and Jews that left during the war are slowly finding their way home again.

           

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was really sad to see Sarajevo, the sight of the 1984 Winter Olympic games, still rebuilding after a crippling war.  The lush valley it’s in, made it vulnerable to attack and the Serbs took advantage.  During the four year siege of Sarajevo, their forces rained an average of 300 plus bombs a day onto the city.  Serbia didn’t want to loose another piece of what it thought was it’s territory.  The bobsled run used for the Olympics has all but been destroyed.  The stadium that was used for the festive opening and closing ceremonies was used to collect dead bodies and is now surrounded by cemeteries.  Parks and High School soccer fields were converted to graveyards.  Every one of the tombstones indicating the year of death as 1993 or 1994.

We toured “sniper alley” where the Serb forces stationed on the hills of the area, randomly killed civilians daily.  We saw the city’s fabulous library under a shroud of scaffolding.  It’s being rebuilt after it and thousands of priceless, irreplaceble books were systematically destroyed.  (Sarajevans risked their lives to save as many books as they could.)  We visited a tunnel that was the only means by which the city was able to get fresh food, medicine and weapons to protect itself.  Without the tunnel (and a massive bombing by NATO on the Serbs that surrounded Sarajevo) this former Olympic host would’ve fallen to it’s opponent.  We think it’s a good thing it didn’t. 

Being temporary locals in the cities of B&H was eye opening.  Seeing the result of the multiyear siege and the damage caused by the bullets and mortar made us uncomfortable.  Learning from a few of it’s people that they never questioned that they would stay and fight for their city; made us wonder, would we put our lives on the line for our city, our country, for religious freedom? 

On a positive note….the coffee was really really really good….Bosnian Coffee, our new favorite….until Turkish Coffee!