(no subject)
I'm re-posting this by request. A long-time LJ friend remembered this particular entry and asked me to re-post to accompany my recent photo entry. It is from March 14th, 2004.
"Sniper's Alley"
I'm writing this from a guest house in Mostar, Bosnia.
I'm never going to be the same again. Bosnia is the most wonderful, exciting, and truly fucking dangerous place that I've ever been. As soon as I crossed the border, a customs guard repeated "asphault!" meaning "stay on the..."
Goddammit, did he mean it. Villages shelled into bits from mortar fire, cars and buses wrecked into shredded ribbons, and not a patch of woods that wasn't burned black by fire and explosions. Skulls and crossbones on sign posts indicated live mines dotted the road sides. I crossed the northern mountains unscathed, but worried and nauseated by the narrow passes and the snow.
Sarajevo is hauntingly beautiful. The people are resilient and bright, and they are doing their best to rebuild their city and sweep away the carnage. Sometimes it's hard to ignore the blackened debris and the pocked marked bullet holes that literally dot every surface. The former 1982 Olympic stadium is now a mass grave. That's the most disturbing sight I've ever seen in my short life -- entire hills covered by fresh grave stones. A veritable mountain of death. Parks, yards, and sometimes pedestrian islands are now makeshift graveyards.
A wrong turn brought me into the ravaged suburbs. People stuck their heads out of doorsways, windows, and stood on balconies to watch me. I thought they were curious about a stranger, but soon I realized that they merely thought I was insane for traveling into their neighborhood. Sixty percent of the suburbs are still mine fields. Abandoned homes proliferate the area, and people stay very much on concrete surfaces.
A team of UN staff pulled a live mine out of the ground only meters from where I passed. I've never been so frightened. And this is five years after the war concluded. I snapped a photograph of a British fighter jet that was shot down by the Serbs, and its wreckage is prominently displayed in the ruins of the history museum.
I stood on the bridge where World War I began, where Archduke Ferninand was shot by a 19 year old Serbian. I clasped my hand over my mouth, in horror, at the charred remains of the national library, one of the most beautiful buildings I've seen yet. I strolled down the infamous "Sniper's Alley" and imagined the people who cowered in fear and risked their lives, just to buy a moldy of loaf of bread for their children.
Sarajevo is the most "Oriental" city of Europe. Mosques dominate the countryside, and I shopped for prayer rugs, brass ware, and Islamic curios in the Turkish bazaar. I prayed alongside Europeans, and for the first time ever I was not stared at or questioned about my faith or ethnicity. I felt at home. People welcomed me. I wore my new crescent necklace with pride, and my murmurings in the Bosnian tongue were greeted with elation.
I cried a lot too. Bosnia is strangely appealing to me. I'm drawn to it, like I've never been drawn to any other land. But it's a land of cruel fate, poverty, and murder.
I am changed. Forty-eight hours has changed my life forever. I'm thinking about the tragedies, joys, dramas, and heartaches of my life. None of it means anything. How could it? I could have been blown to pieces by a land mine yesterday.
Something, somehow, has changed, and I'm never going to be the same. Tomorrow I move on to Croatia, but I think a piece of my heart remains in Bosnia.
"Sniper's Alley"
I'm writing this from a guest house in Mostar, Bosnia.
I'm never going to be the same again. Bosnia is the most wonderful, exciting, and truly fucking dangerous place that I've ever been. As soon as I crossed the border, a customs guard repeated "asphault!" meaning "stay on the..."
Goddammit, did he mean it. Villages shelled into bits from mortar fire, cars and buses wrecked into shredded ribbons, and not a patch of woods that wasn't burned black by fire and explosions. Skulls and crossbones on sign posts indicated live mines dotted the road sides. I crossed the northern mountains unscathed, but worried and nauseated by the narrow passes and the snow.
Sarajevo is hauntingly beautiful. The people are resilient and bright, and they are doing their best to rebuild their city and sweep away the carnage. Sometimes it's hard to ignore the blackened debris and the pocked marked bullet holes that literally dot every surface. The former 1982 Olympic stadium is now a mass grave. That's the most disturbing sight I've ever seen in my short life -- entire hills covered by fresh grave stones. A veritable mountain of death. Parks, yards, and sometimes pedestrian islands are now makeshift graveyards.
A wrong turn brought me into the ravaged suburbs. People stuck their heads out of doorsways, windows, and stood on balconies to watch me. I thought they were curious about a stranger, but soon I realized that they merely thought I was insane for traveling into their neighborhood. Sixty percent of the suburbs are still mine fields. Abandoned homes proliferate the area, and people stay very much on concrete surfaces.
A team of UN staff pulled a live mine out of the ground only meters from where I passed. I've never been so frightened. And this is five years after the war concluded. I snapped a photograph of a British fighter jet that was shot down by the Serbs, and its wreckage is prominently displayed in the ruins of the history museum.
I stood on the bridge where World War I began, where Archduke Ferninand was shot by a 19 year old Serbian. I clasped my hand over my mouth, in horror, at the charred remains of the national library, one of the most beautiful buildings I've seen yet. I strolled down the infamous "Sniper's Alley" and imagined the people who cowered in fear and risked their lives, just to buy a moldy of loaf of bread for their children.
Sarajevo is the most "Oriental" city of Europe. Mosques dominate the countryside, and I shopped for prayer rugs, brass ware, and Islamic curios in the Turkish bazaar. I prayed alongside Europeans, and for the first time ever I was not stared at or questioned about my faith or ethnicity. I felt at home. People welcomed me. I wore my new crescent necklace with pride, and my murmurings in the Bosnian tongue were greeted with elation.
I cried a lot too. Bosnia is strangely appealing to me. I'm drawn to it, like I've never been drawn to any other land. But it's a land of cruel fate, poverty, and murder.
I am changed. Forty-eight hours has changed my life forever. I'm thinking about the tragedies, joys, dramas, and heartaches of my life. None of it means anything. How could it? I could have been blown to pieces by a land mine yesterday.
Something, somehow, has changed, and I'm never going to be the same. Tomorrow I move on to Croatia, but I think a piece of my heart remains in Bosnia.