Remanents of War

When I stepped off the bus in Bosnia, I knew something felt different than the previous week in Croatia.  All drama with the bus aside, which in the end was the fault of a stupid tourist trying to transport weed across a border and an ill timed flat with not enough equipment to change the tire; Bosnia could not be blamed for the delay in our arrival. 

But this morning as I headed out on my morning run, I stepped out into the courtyard of the hostel where I had rented a room with my new friend I made on the bus, and took in my surroundings. Sure it’s true that the Adriatic sea was not in sight, since I was inland and hadn’t chosen a hostel on the river (if those even existed). Nevertheless, it wasn’t the lack of the water view I noticed. 

The patio reminded me of a large cinder block. A small plastic table was up against the terrace of a house adjoining the main hostel building. A few piles of wood lay to the left of the door. A plastic chair lay lounging on its side. A huge yellow metal door rose up in front of me. I could hear the sounds of children behind the door singing, and sure enough when I pushed it open, the industrial looking building to my right with the brightly painted metal slats in the gate was labeled “Kindergarten.” 

I set off on my run down a pedestrian only walkway, which quickly turned into a rock or cobblestone like pavement that wove its way through the old town. Shops lined either side of the street offering Turkish hats, small ceramic bowls, lamps made of shiny colored glass, copper jewelry etched with small scenes of the towns and tea sets galore. Tourists were everywhere. 

Up ahead in the distance a thin tower jutted up against the blue sky – the minaret of the mosque, quite possibly the one that had called me to prayer at 5 am that morning (Don’t worry - I ignored the call being as it was almost Yom Kippur and all), jutted out against the blue sky. The river snaked through the valley, a blue-ish green water cutting into steep cliffs that ran under the famous old bridge of Mostar. The one that had been destroyed in the war and then rebuilt again from the same stones fished from river bottom by the Hungarian and Spanish armies in 2004. 

Two men stood on what appeared to be the wrong side of the railing in bathing suits. In Mostar it is tradition for a few local men to jump the 28 meters down into the cold waters below after accumulating 50 euros from the tourist milling about. I snapped a quick picture and turned around, realizing this was not the place to get in a good jog. I sidestepped two groups of Japanese, one group of French and made my way back to the paved main street we had come in on the night before too late to really take in the scenery.

A few small cafes sat on either side of the street, men sitting together drinking their morning tea and coffee. Cars lined the sidewalk, and I alternately jumped to the right to squeeze between them and the building or to the left down on the street as I ran by them. I passed by a cemetery that seemed endless, crosses and hearts and other shapes of head stones marking those that had moved on. Had they been victims of the war? I wondered.

As I began to exit the old town, I noticed a series of what can only be described as ruins. Large structures jutting up – previously windows and doors of large buildings, now a shell of a house that had once been. Large gaping holes in the sides of old buildings, juxtaposed next to new constructions, cranes in the sky and signs that read “Wifi here.” 

As I ran down the street, the houses and cafes became more sparsely placed. Teenaged kids walked across the street toward an industrial building,  “skuola” written on the road to alert the cars driving in both directions down a road made for a one way only. The sidewalk turned to dirt. Now I could see more ruined buildings on both sides of the road, a car dealership, men in hardhats digging a ditch by hand to repair the sidewalk. 

As had been in Croatia, older houses with red roofs or at times gray tiles placed in an upside down v on either side of the house dotted the hillside. Oddly shaped windows opened with heavy brown shutters that looked to dense to bother to push open. Nestled among these old houses, some still intact, others shells of their former selves were these large rectangle boxes, gray on every side, was clearly new construction. Square windows placed on the sides. The roofs, though still in an upside down v, were now made of something synthetic. 

I came back from my run and found Almir, the owner of the hostel with his brother. He looked about 35 years old and I tried to put myself in his shoes. He must have been about 12 when the ward started in 1992 and about 15  when it ended. I wondered what his experience had been. 

Almir asked me if I had ever tried Bosnian coffee and when he found out I hadn’t, he said, “I will prepare it to you. You must to try. It is not about the coffee. Bosnian coffee is similar Turkish coffee, but different. But it’s not about coffee. It’s social. You must to try.” He went into the kitchen to prepare the coffee. My mind was full of questions I hoped he would be open to talking about with me. 

As it turns out, Almir was more than happy to share his version of the events of the Bosnian war, “We like to tell our side of the story,” he assured as he scooped out the foam off the top of the coffee into two small tea cups on china tray. “You must first dip the sugar cube’s corner into the coffee like so,” he showed me with his, “then you eat it and then slurp the coffee while the sugar is still in your mouth. If you don’t slurp, you are doing it wrong.”

I dipped, I bit, I slurped. He nodded and began the story. 

“Imagine having no food, no water, no electricity for one day.”

I nodded trying to imagine, but knowing I couldn’t come close to actually imagining what that must have been like.

“Now imagine it for 3 years. School ended. Life ended. We hid in the basements. The shelters. We went to sleep every night. And we thought tomorrow we will probably be killed. There was no food. We saw a pigeon and we caught and ate the pigeon. In 1993, United nations dropped food for us – flavored rice, but it was never enough.”

I shook my head in disbelief. I remembered my life in 1992. My freshman year at Penn State. There was nothing I could say and so I nodded for him to continue.

He continued as if telling a story that had happened to someone else, “At the beginning it was the Croats and us against the Serbs. They were on the left of the river. We was on the right. But then the Croats. They stuck a knife in our back and made a deal to divide up Bosnia into two parts with Mostar being the capital for Croats. And then we were being bombarded and bombarded from both sides. All the bridges were collapsed. Except the old bridge. We knew they were trying to crash that one too. But it was 500 years old. We cover it with wood and tires.” He takes out a small book to show me some photos. 

“You know there is a tradition for boys in Mostar. When they become men – at 16 or 17 or 18 – they must to jump the 28 meters to the water from the old bridge. But when the war start in 1992, I was only 12. I still had many years to go. But I thought to myself, well if I die before I jump I will never be man. So in June 1993, when I am 13, I jump. That November they crash down the bridge. It is the saddest day in the history of Mostar. I remember it. I had finished studying in the shelter. I had come out and people were laying in the street, crying. I asked them, ‘what happened?’ When they told me, I didn’t believe it, I had to see it with my own eyes. When I did, I cried too.” 

I felt the lump in my throat growing. Here in front of me was my contemporary. A man only 5 years younger than I, having experienced a different sort of entry into adulthood. The more he talked, the less I could imagine and yet with each passing moment, the vivid picture he painted, would never be erased from my mind’s eye again. 

“Now we try not to think of those days. You should have seen when the bridge ceremony happened!” He sits back and smiles – every president in Europe was here – even Prince Charles! It was something else.” 

I am sure it was. Later Ahmir shows me on the roof deck where he will finish building the bar for future patrons, the bathroom so they won’t have to do downstairs and the shared grill space. He is excited by the prospects. “There is much to do! Especially since hostelbooking rated us number one last year in Eastern Europe.”

I asked him how he coped post the end of the war with all that he experience and all that he saw. 




He looked at me confused and said, “The war is over. We moved on. We try not to think of those days and what was lost. People are human. They are not Bosnian or Serbian or Croatian. That is not what makes a human. People are good no matter where they are from. You must judge them on who they are not where they are from.” 

Truer words have not been spoken and yet, war rages on all over the world.