It’s starting to finally set in.  I have four days left in Bosnia.  Not only will I board a plane on Saturday and head to Munich and eventually land in San Francisco, but I also will leave behind my current home.  It is three months after I left California and I find myself at home and comfortable with life, as I know it here.  Bosnia has been wonderful to me and I don’t know if I am truly ready to leave.  Of course, I am ready to see my family, my boyfriend, and my friends, finish grad school, and return to my life.  But I know I will be leaving behind memories and experiences unlike any I have known before.

This summer has been exceptional.  I have learned more than I thought possible.  I learned how to get my point across with my limited Bosnian vocabulary and how to tailor my words to fit any situation.  I went from talking about whether or not I am tired or hungry to having full-blown conversations about the simplicity and beauty of life despite cultural barriers (one of my favorites was about the proportionality of a little person).  I learned how to discuss a carpet, the wool that one uses to make such a carpet, and the draft that Bosnians deeply fear.  I learned that I must never go outside with wet hair.  I made friends.  I connected with an ex-pat community and made great friends with the women working at BOSFAM.  I traveled to Eastern Bosnia, Sarajevo, Srebrenica, Croatia, and Montenegro.  Most importantly, I learned the stories of the women who I have come to love.  I learned about their pain, their humility, and their strength.

I wonder if I can fully explain how I am feeling right now.  I will not miss hand washing my clothes or the daily mental drain of understanding the language.  I will miss drinking coffee twice a day and knowing how my presence affects these women.  There is something about the Balkans that has grabbed onto me and has not let go.  In my fourth trip to this region, I am definitely not finished.  From the food to the people to the language, I have fallen in love.  The Balkans will be in my heart permanently.

Who knows what the future will hold?  Thus far I continue to be surprised with the passing of each year.  Four years ago I never thought I would study abroad in Croatia, Serbia, and Bosnia.  Two years ago I never thought that I would spend my summer in Pittsburgh studying Croatian.  I certainly did not foresee coming back to Bosnia this summer for this peace fellowship.  As I pack my bags, I can’t help but wonder when I will pack them again.  All I know is that I have not said goodbye to Bosnia forever.

Srebrenica is not only a town, but also a reminder of the worst atrocity during the Bosnian war.  It is the town that suffered losses unimaginable to anyone who did not go through it.  While it once was rich in natural resources, it has now become a struggling and mediocre façade of what it once was.  The population was halved and only a handful of the bravest people returned to their hometown.

For the past few days, Julia and I have been interviewing women about their needs and wants for the new BOSFAM center in Srebrenica about what services they use, what they would use, what they need, etc.  One question that I look forward to hearing the response to is: why did you come back to Srebrenica?  With the everlasting memory of your closest relatives buried deep in a cemetery in Potocari, the past is haunting.  Houses are overtaken by trees and stray dogs.  Graves litter the hillside.  Buildings lie empty.  Almost without exception, each woman, no matter her age, always answers the question in the same way.  Srebrenica is my home.  It is my town and I will not let someone else’s stupidity ruin the place where my best memories are.  Each time, I am stunned by the deep connection that this now small town has instilled in so many.  What makes it so special?

Last week I spent the night at an international peace camp in the Bosnian wilderness. I had expressed interest in seeing the camp and soon thereafter I was promptly gathered and placed into an old jalopy with two strangers and was racing up a dirt road in the middle of nowhere.  On one side of us was a vertical wall of a mountain and below us I could see the biggest canyon in Europe with a green river that snaked through the lush green mountains.  The view was breathtaking.

The camp was a collection of 10 UNHCR tents and a few wooden structures and no one around for miles.  I was in awe of the pure natural beauty and simplicity of what stretched out around me for as far as I could see.  At night as we sat around a fire of freshly chopped wood, I was stunned and humbled by the sheer number of visible stars above me.

I started a conversation with the camp’s owner and my chauffeur, Hakija.  He told me that he started the camp for two reasons: to initiate a dialogue between the Serbs and Bosnian Muslims and to reinstate Srebrenica’s fame as a tourist destination in the Balkans and beyond.  He explained that because this was the first year of its operation, dialogue was not something to be pushed, but rather a latent, secondary goal for now.  Drinking homemade milk and sitting on the edge of the Drina River, I finally understood the point that Hakija was trying to prove.  Srebrenica is beautiful.  The land is home to some of the best berries I have ever tasted, the dirt houses minerals such as zinc and silver, and there is even a spring with waters that are famed to have healing powers – a few decades ago, this potent and mineral-rich water was bottled and sold in stores throughout the former Yugoslavia.  Most importantly, the local people I have met have been extremely kind and warmhearted.

As I start the last ten days of my summer in Bosnia, I wonder why I haven’t spent more time in this town.  The first time I visited, I came for a few hours to meet the women who work here and then went back to Tuzla.  The second time, I was here to remember the 8,000 lives that were taken from Srebrenica.  After my hike up to the Crni Guber to partake in the power of the magical waters and the rest of my experiences here, I understand.  I can see what drew people to this town.  While there isn’t the hustle and bustle of the silver mining town from the past, there is a semblance of the vibrant community beneath the surface but suffocated by a bloody reputation.  Beneath the pain of families who endured rape and genocide, the soul of Srebrenica is struggling to stay alive and fights to not become a defunct ghost town.  I hope that for Hakija’s sake and for Srebrenica’s sake people will see the town of Srebrenica for what it is and not for what it was.

As I sit here rotating my meals between boiled hot dogs and cabbage filled pita (a flaky phyllo dough disc of heaven), it is time that I write about my successes, failures, and comedic attempts at cooking in Bosnia.

From burek to grah to cevapi, Bosnian dishes are not easily replicated without an iron fisted Bosnian grandmother directing your every move.  There are certain things that I use in my cooking that Bosnia does not offer or even carry in the supermarkets.  Rather than complain, I enjoy each meal because I never know if my creation will be edible or not.

Last time I lived in the Balkans I had the luxury of living with a family.  I had a host-mother who would make delicious meals every single day for a family of eight.  Back home in California, I cook weekly Sunday night dinners for my boyfriend.  It has been an exercise in trying new meals and techniques, but has also helped to develop a more creative side in me.  To be sure, I’m no Chef Ramsey, but I can get busy provided that I have a few key ingredients and appliances.  That’s where the problem arises for me in Bosnia.

That being said, however, Julia and I are experts in choosing interesting food items at the supermarket.  These can range from simply selecting an item based on its appearance to having heard about something and buying it for its reputation to buying it simply because there is an entire shelf full of it (the more there is of something, the better it must be… right?).  I have a fairly decent grasp of the language, but this grasp is considerably looser when food is thrown into the mix.  Ham, in a Muslim society, is not pork; it is made from chicken.  Cheese types include Travnik, pizza, and homemade.  And, to add more “creativity” into the mix, we cook with two hot plates.  One simply has an on-off switch and the other has adjustable settings, thank goodness.

Surprisingly enough, we have discovered a few things that we can cook: pasta with pizza cheese, powdered soup mix, pasta with red sauce and vegetables, and granola.  This success is further amplified by the fact that we both have very different tastes in food.  She hardly eats meat, and I hate tomatoes, peas, tuna, and beans (everything she loves).  We have managed to work around these facts of life and have yet to make something the other refuses to eat.

Over the past two months I have made some dishes that I will never eat again (the most recent of which being a strange, viscous soup with hot sauce and egg noodles) and others that I look forward to making (like our adapted mac and cheese).  Food is a very important element in every society and extremely so in the Balkans.  While I may not be the best Bosnian housewife or chef on any level, I pride myself in the fact that I trudge on, making mistakes and slowly finding out what works and what absolutely does not.

Last weekend was one I will never forget.  Even a week later I’m not sure that I am fully recovered.  I was exhausted to the point of collapse and it was unlike anything I had ever experienced.  I had been pushed to my limit both physically and emotionally.

Sunday, July 10, I joined former BOSFAM peace fellow Alison Sluiter and a group of international students on the last day of the Mars Mira (March of Peace) through the Bosnian countryside.  The march is the same route that the Bosnian Muslims took when they escaped Srebrenica and tried to make it to the free territory of Tuzla.  Thousands were killed along the way.  Each year thousands of people hike from Nezuk to Potocari to remember the people who died.  I did not participate in the full three days, but even after one day on this strenuous hike, my respect for those who traversed it 16 years ago swelled.

We hiked in 100º F weather for over 17 miles (some are saying it is closer to 20 miles).  While most of the time I struggled to put one foot in front of the other, I surprised myself.  I was not the last one to complete the march.  I arrived almost unable to walk and with blisters covering the soles of my feet.  Only today am I able to walk without a bit of a limp.

However, I was able to see a side of Bosnia that is invisible to many.  I met great people and spent a night with strangers who were not only willing but also honored that so many international people had decided to remember the genocide in such an active and exhausting way.  Even though I may never participate in Mars Mira again, I am so happy that I did it this year.

July 11, 1995 has been inescapable since I arrived in Tuzla.  I knew that it would be difficult to empathize but to also understand the trauma of so many without attending the memorial in Potocari.  This year, 60,000 people crowded around over 5,000 graves as 613 new coffins were interred.  I had never before seen so many emotions in one place.  Sadness, anger, and grief poured out from absolutely everyone.  As four men carried a coffin to its final resting place, several women came toward me.  One was about to faint from the stress and the heat.  In that moment, I was truly able to see the pain that still exists 16 years later.

Even with learning and reading about the Bosnian war, I was unable to receive such a provoking and emotional understanding of the grief and trauma of this state.  Seeing thousands of families burying their loved ones together paints a faint picture of the suffering Bosnia has gone through since the war started.  As I sit here trying to write this blog, I feel as if my words cannot give this country, this weekend, and my emotions the weight and respect that they need.  I am still trying to sort out my feelings and how it affected me.

In six days I will join my fellow BOSFAM women at the Potocari memorial to commemorate the genocide.  For the past week there has been a palpable shift in attitudes around here.  The news is also gearing up for the anniversary and I cannot help but notice how freely the word victim is tossed around.

The word victim connotes one who has not only suffered but has also been damaged and destroyed.  This so-called victim is usually helpless and weak.  A victim has been wronged, but a victim has also accepted the pain and suffering.  It is almost something comfortable and a feeling of safety by those who know nothing besides abuse and hardship.

What attracted me to BOSFAM, however, was the simple fact that these women are not victims.  They don’t sit around wallowing in their pain or in their past.  Tima and Zifa are anything but victims.  Their strength is more than many of us will ever know – the pure strength to not give up and to not live in the past, which is so easy to do.

To pigeonhole someone because of her past has proven detrimental for a country like Bosnia where so many have suffered so intensely.  The victim is someone to be coddled and protected.  This does not allow said person to stand and walk, let alone to grow.  BBC and Balkan Insight discuss the survivors of the Srebrenica massacre with the same pity that is reserved for the victims themselves.  But the survivors are just that.  They have survived and they have overcome their losses.  Their past is something hideous that is remembered and honored, but it is not something that defines them.

The country as a whole could stand to recognize this and learn from Tima and Zifa.  They have overcome the deaths of husbands, brothers, and sons.  Their houses were destroyed, and they were forced to move away from the only town they ever called home.  They started from nothing and rebuilt their lives one day at a time.  If they have been able to do all this, and to do all this without hate, why are they still victims?  They have not succumbed to anything nor have they let the past define them.

Genocide. It is something that the women of BOSFAM deal with on a daily basis. No one in Bosnia was left unaffected from the war. And these women lost their closest family members: sons, brothers, husbands.

One woman, Tima, wears a hijab. When you first meet her, she seems reserved and almost harsh. She stands tall and proud and I recently found out why. She is a simple woman with not much education behind her. However, she raised all her children to be highly educated and successful individuals. They are her ultimate accomplishment amplified only by the loss of her husband in July of 1995 when Srebrenica fell to the Bosnian Serbs. That was when she put on the hijab and has not taken it off since.

Last week I visited Potocari for the first time. It is the place in which 8,000 Muslim men and boys were murdered, shot point blank, in warehouses and thrown into mass graves around the country. On the way to the new BOSFAM center in Srebrenica, we stopped at the memorial cemetery in Potocari. It was almost completely deserted, much different than what I will encounter on July 11 when tens of thousands of mourners come to bury their loved ones.

Thousands of simple white graves stretched out before me. They seemed to go on for miles. I could sense a definite shift in Beba’s attitude. She lost two nephews and a brother-in-law and they were buried somewhere in the expanse before us. In less than a month we will be back to Potocari with many others. I have been trying to mentally prepare myself since the day I received confirmation of this fellowship, but I know that nothing I can possibly conceive of will compare to this experience in two and a half weeks. I have coffee every morning with women like Tima who were personally affected by the brutality of the war. I cannot imagine the pain through which they have gone and that they have surpassed.

I cannot help but be completely inspired by Beba and her drive to help and encourage women of all ages and, more importantly, of all ethnicities. While sitting in the Srebrenica center with a blond woman, Beba turned to me and asked: “What is the difference between Milica and myself?” I looked at her like it was a trick question. I had been attempting to understand bits of their conversation, usually with no luck, so the question caught me completely off guard. Beba looked at my surprise and said, “Exactly. Nothing! She is a Serb and I am a Bosniak. There is no difference.”

Beba lost almost everything she had during the war. Her house in Srebrenica was destroyed. Twice. Instead of letting hate for the enemy control the rest of her life, she sought to help her country and found a way in which to do so. She has opened two centers for women in Bosnia – one in the Federation and the other in the Serbian Republic (which is based out of her parents’ house). Not only have these places provided all women with income generation, but she has vowed to never close her doors on those in need. Even when most of the members of the Tuzla center will attend the memorial in Potocari, BOSFAM will remain open for those wishing to seek comfort.

Many talk about “helping people” and doing something for “the greater good”. Beba is one of those people who has done something. And she hasn’t just done something. She has given countless women forms of expression and a new, open, and inviting community. But it can’t come from nothing. The women who lost their sons, brothers, and husbands saw an opportunity and embraced the chance to heal and move forward.

Yesterday was a day of many emotions.  In the morning, I embarked upon an adventure with one of the young women of BOSFAM, Biljana.  She took us up to Slana Banja (literally meaning “Salty Spa”, but it’s more of a park area) and over to see the two salt lakes that Tuzla has.

I have learned in my week here that when Biljana and I set out on a walk somewhere, I should never expect it to be short and sweet.  She is very exact in making sure that I understand and see everything that Tuzla has to offer.  It is also mentally draining in that the only thing she knows how to say in English is “no speak English”.  On Thursday, we were supposed to go to the post office.  This turned into a two hour-long trek around the city visiting two mosques and an orthodox cathedral.  Moral of the story is that I should have known what was in store.

I was completely stunned with the lakes. It was a little slice of the tropics in the middle of Bosnia. Biljana finagled our way into the park for free so “the foreigners” could see how pretty Tuzla is.

Then things got physical.  She had us hiking and climbing steps up to the top of a small mountain (I should remind readers that while I am from California, I do not take kindly to humidity even when it is only technically 70 degrees Fahrenheit outside).  It was so worth it.  We had a front row view of the nicest vista in town.  I could see all of Tuzla stretched before me like a perfect postcard.

On our walk back, we stopped to eat some sour cherries and take more pictures.  Biljana had worn me out.  And it was only 11am.  We returned to BOSFAM and had our ritual Bosnian coffee (some would attempt to call this mud, but I assure you, it is delicious).  Then, one of the weavers approached me.  Zifa speaks less English than Biljana but told me that there was an event in the city in an hour.  It was in remembrance of Srebrenica.  I had previously garnered that Zifa had lost a son and two brothers in the genocide in 1995, so I knew this was important to her.  I gathered my things to get ready to leave.

When I first met Zifa, I immediately knew that I would like her.  She has a very warm and inviting personality and is constantly smiling.  The more I find out about her, the more I am impressed with her strength.

The event in the city happens every month on the eleventh as a constant reminder of Srebrenica and a plea that it never happens again.  Mostly women attend and carry colorful cushions of the names of those killed and still left unaccounted for.  They stand in silence at the main square for a few minutes, pray, and then it is over.

As we walked back to BOSFAM, I thanked Zifa for bringing us with her and sharing this experience with us.  She smiled at me and said, “Vi ste moje ljepotice.”  You are my beauties.

We returned and Zifa got back to work on her loom and I went upstairs to visit with a few of the other women.  That was when I heard something that would really solidify my love for Zifa.  She never goes to the square for this protest because she sees the picture of her son’s face whom she lost 16 years ago.  It is too difficult.  She only went because we were here.  I wanted to hug her, I wanted to cry, and I wanted to just say “thank you” a million times over.  I wanted to show her how much it meant to me that she showed me her past in such an intimate way.  All I could do was to barely articulate, “Hvala.” Thank you.

Below is my youtube video about the protest in the main square.

Remembering Srebrenica

Walking through Tuzla, I am struck by how colorful and beautiful this place is. It’s situated in a valley and surrounded by green hills. The buildings are pink, yellow, and blue and decorate the main square like flowers. However, the past is inescapable here. Some, not all, buildings are riddled with bullet holes and I can see two large cemeteries from my bedroom window. I briefly visited a park up in the woods that is home to over five different memorials from World War II to the most recent pain that the Balkans felt in the 1990s. It all looms in the background, as a reminder that there was a time when this small, beautiful town saw horrors that no one ever thought would ever surface.

Yesterday consisted of a visit to the International Commission on Missing Persons and a tour by their forensic anthropologist and my newfound friend, Laura Yazedjian. Seeing the 3,500 plastic and paper bags holding the bones of those massacred in this beautiful country 16 years before brought a new perspective. Maybe it was just in my mind, but I could smell a faint presence of death in the refrigerated room as I tried to put myself in the place of the victims and those affected.

As I left the facility with my colleague, there was a strange silence between the two of us. We tried to make small talk, but in light of what we had actually witnessed, it was difficult. While Laura spoke, the leg, hip, and skull bones of a 19-year-old boy lay stretched before us on the examination table. During the war, the mass graves were dug up and reburied in other places to conceal the remains and to make it much more difficult to find and to identify in the future. This pivotal visit turned what was a myopic and detached perception of the war into a much more personal and informed understanding of the traumas I will be facing with the strong women of BOSFAM.

I have gained neither the trust nor the language capacity to be comfortable to approach the women about the unspoken past. However, in light of the upcoming preparations for the annual visit to Srebrenica, I know that it will only be a matter of time until I am called to upon to simply be a warm and open force available to listen and learn from these incredible people.

Arriving on the East Coast at the end of May, I was excited to be embarking upon my journey for the summer.  However, excited is a vast understatement.  I am thrilled to be returning to the Balkans and yet I am anxious and nervous to see what this new opportunity will bring me in terms of education, emotions, and experience.  As a student for the past 18 years, I now wrestle with the ever-approach reality of “growing up” and becoming an “adult” as I enter the last year of my graduate studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies.  This is my first practical step toward a meaningful and passionate career in conflict resolution and with the Balkans.

After having studied abroad in Croatia, Serbia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina in 2008 during my undergraduate career, I found myself drawn to this region both academically and personally.  This summer brings an opportunity to work with remarkable women in Tuzla, Bosnia-Herzegovina at BOSFAM as they continue to strive to reconcile the horrors of the past and the trauma of the war in the 1990s with the present and the future.  Many of these women lost brothers, fathers, sons, uncles, and many members of their families in the brutal massacre outside of Srebrenica.  They weave carpets and make quilts in order to tell their stories and be heard.  Dealing with the past is an issue many from war-torn countries face and struggle to overcome.  It is difficult for me, as a student of conflict resolution, to try to put myself in these shoes and be empathetic to their past, however, it is a critical step to delving deeper into the lives of others.

The further and deeper I get into my studies, the more overwhelmed and interested I become.  How can I be accepted when I come from such a different past and can be so easily seen as an outsider?  How can I understand these women and what they have gone through?  How can I even help?  My questions continue to grow and multiply and my answers only lead to more and more questions.  But yet, somehow, I am fine with this (thankfully so, since I have a feeling this will be the first of many times I wrangle with my questions and hesitations).  I walk into my training and fellowship with an open and energetic mind, willing and accepting of the experiences and people that await me.