spring break
Banja Luka
Ana is the female version of my brother. My love for her, however, is not identical to my love for my brother. But there is love. And there is disagreement, and more than that, some of her opinions terrify me. And irreconcilable differences reconciled only by a sort of contrived tie of common blood, but her and I don’t share blood (as much as I’d love to share her sanguinities. Now you see?), so if she knew how I was and how I felt, she might not want to call my name ever again.
We share the same knowledge of art in this world. She shares with me some things, I introduce her to others. She has an opinion on everything. When I ask her about Bosnians, she corrects me. “We are in the Republik of Srpska*, we quite resent having to be called Bosnia and Hercegovina. I am Serbian and my family is Serbian, and,” she pulls out another one of the hundreds of photographs she has of her beautiful sister, the blonde dating a Kennedy in New York, “this is Kim with the Yugoslavian prince.” “Wait, that’s like Tito’s son or something?” I ask. I sort of love Tito, love to learn about him, love that he didn’t have a propaganda cult like Stalin or Hitler, love that his flavor of communism was unique and that no one killed their neighbors under him. “No, before Tito. This is the grand grand son of the last king,” she sighs, “I can’t wait for the day when the Kingdom of Serbia will reign again.”
She has never been to Mostar*, renowned for the bridge which connects the Croats to the Bosniaks, who’s Muslims survived a bit of cleansing, who’s citizens who took part of the mass exodus to Australia and Chicago are now starting to come home. “Too many Muslims there.” She warns me about Sarajevo, tells me to memorize the location of the US embassy in relation to my hostel (which isn’t such a bad idea because I’ve already lost one passport, don’t want to loose another, but then "pick-pocketers jump all over you in Bosnia, not like clean little civilized Belgrade. Peasents. All over Banja Luka. Bringing their spit for the streets, bringing their poor fashion, their laziness. All Bosnians do all day is sit in cafes and talk about politics and never work." Ana tells me about a politician from Slovakia who came before the wars who had never been further east than Zagreb. She asked the president of the Republik of Srpska if they had sprayed perfume in the streets for her, that’s how wonderful it smells in the spring. Just think of how it looks. Like a ‘green watercolor’. In the snow it’s still beautiful, the snow perched on the branches so thin, blooming at the tips of the twigs in little bundles which plop off with a shoulder nudge. No mosques have been rebuilt in Banja Luka. I didn’t bring up the 2001 issue with the stoning and the riots.
But we stay up at least until 2 talking every night in her parents home eating sausages and petting the snoring pug, Jivoli (which also means ‘cheers’ in Serbian/Bosnian/Croatian), who I drawl when Ana goes to bed, and then I drawl Ana and I wonder at how she can be so opened minded and so oppressingly conservative at the same time. Nicotiene snaged me into addiction, I'm sure. So iritable with my mom and sister the week after, probably because I wasn't smoking any. Gross.
Orthodox Christians stand during service.
Her family makes veal soup, fat stew, peas, meat so tender and fresh you can cut it with a fork, apple pie, mushroom pie, salad with vinegar, chebap, goat feta like I had in Bulgaria you spread with a knife on a fresh warm roll, her mom, a journalist (who hated the Americans for showing only Muslim victims in Sarajevo [no, it’s true. Bosniak war lords were killing Serb families and even Serb officers fighting for their city, it was terrible, it was war, media showed a little and then Monica happened and then the Europeans were the only ones left with their attention spans waning, let the siege go on for five years gave aide, wouldn’t let women-children-wounded through the tunnel below the Sarajevo air port into free zone, just gave “aide”]), she pats me on the butt and looks me in the eye very severely and says in Serbian, which Ana translates, “I am your mother now and you cannot leave for Mostar today, the roads are too snowy and the bus will slip!” She shows me on the map the route to Mostar, through some mountains along a river called Nertva. It is snowing hard. And I do love Ana and her family, so I don’t mind staying.
I kept gasping the whole way to Mostar. Getting away from abandoned bombed out villages and from Ana who hates Sarajevo, I was finally able to forget about the war to see just how amazing Bosnia is. I want to come back in the summer and go hiking. I will need a guide to warn me away from mines and I’ll have to suppress that urge to yodel while spinning and rolling down hills (aw, Mira...). Come back and live here, work here, write here.
***http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7a/Bk-map.png
Ana is the female version of my brother. My love for her, however, is not identical to my love for my brother. But there is love. And there is disagreement, and more than that, some of her opinions terrify me. And irreconcilable differences reconciled only by a sort of contrived tie of common blood, but her and I don’t share blood (as much as I’d love to share her sanguinities. Now you see?), so if she knew how I was and how I felt, she might not want to call my name ever again.
We share the same knowledge of art in this world. She shares with me some things, I introduce her to others. She has an opinion on everything. When I ask her about Bosnians, she corrects me. “We are in the Republik of Srpska*, we quite resent having to be called Bosnia and Hercegovina. I am Serbian and my family is Serbian, and,” she pulls out another one of the hundreds of photographs she has of her beautiful sister, the blonde dating a Kennedy in New York, “this is Kim with the Yugoslavian prince.” “Wait, that’s like Tito’s son or something?” I ask. I sort of love Tito, love to learn about him, love that he didn’t have a propaganda cult like Stalin or Hitler, love that his flavor of communism was unique and that no one killed their neighbors under him. “No, before Tito. This is the grand grand son of the last king,” she sighs, “I can’t wait for the day when the Kingdom of Serbia will reign again.”
She has never been to Mostar*, renowned for the bridge which connects the Croats to the Bosniaks, who’s Muslims survived a bit of cleansing, who’s citizens who took part of the mass exodus to Australia and Chicago are now starting to come home. “Too many Muslims there.” She warns me about Sarajevo, tells me to memorize the location of the US embassy in relation to my hostel (which isn’t such a bad idea because I’ve already lost one passport, don’t want to loose another, but then "pick-pocketers jump all over you in Bosnia, not like clean little civilized Belgrade. Peasents. All over Banja Luka. Bringing their spit for the streets, bringing their poor fashion, their laziness. All Bosnians do all day is sit in cafes and talk about politics and never work." Ana tells me about a politician from Slovakia who came before the wars who had never been further east than Zagreb. She asked the president of the Republik of Srpska if they had sprayed perfume in the streets for her, that’s how wonderful it smells in the spring. Just think of how it looks. Like a ‘green watercolor’. In the snow it’s still beautiful, the snow perched on the branches so thin, blooming at the tips of the twigs in little bundles which plop off with a shoulder nudge. No mosques have been rebuilt in Banja Luka. I didn’t bring up the 2001 issue with the stoning and the riots.
But we stay up at least until 2 talking every night in her parents home eating sausages and petting the snoring pug, Jivoli (which also means ‘cheers’ in Serbian/Bosnian/Croatian), who I drawl when Ana goes to bed, and then I drawl Ana and I wonder at how she can be so opened minded and so oppressingly conservative at the same time. Nicotiene snaged me into addiction, I'm sure. So iritable with my mom and sister the week after, probably because I wasn't smoking any. Gross.
Orthodox Christians stand during service.
Her family makes veal soup, fat stew, peas, meat so tender and fresh you can cut it with a fork, apple pie, mushroom pie, salad with vinegar, chebap, goat feta like I had in Bulgaria you spread with a knife on a fresh warm roll, her mom, a journalist (who hated the Americans for showing only Muslim victims in Sarajevo [no, it’s true. Bosniak war lords were killing Serb families and even Serb officers fighting for their city, it was terrible, it was war, media showed a little and then Monica happened and then the Europeans were the only ones left with their attention spans waning, let the siege go on for five years gave aide, wouldn’t let women-children-wounded through the tunnel below the Sarajevo air port into free zone, just gave “aide”]), she pats me on the butt and looks me in the eye very severely and says in Serbian, which Ana translates, “I am your mother now and you cannot leave for Mostar today, the roads are too snowy and the bus will slip!” She shows me on the map the route to Mostar, through some mountains along a river called Nertva. It is snowing hard. And I do love Ana and her family, so I don’t mind staying.
I kept gasping the whole way to Mostar. Getting away from abandoned bombed out villages and from Ana who hates Sarajevo, I was finally able to forget about the war to see just how amazing Bosnia is. I want to come back in the summer and go hiking. I will need a guide to warn me away from mines and I’ll have to suppress that urge to yodel while spinning and rolling down hills (aw, Mira...). Come back and live here, work here, write here.
***http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7a/Bk-map.png
