Sretan Božić

Merry christmas, feliz navidad, sretan božić, joyeux noël, buon natal, i Cpetaн Бoжић! This morning I woke up to the sounds of the cathedral ringing its bells and the call to prayer. I love the fact that from my house I am less than a 10 min walk to the catholic cathedral, two orthodox churches, several mosques and the oldest (and only??) synagogue in Sarajevo. It being Christmas, I headed over to the cathedral to see their goings on but it was still closed (it’s being repaired) but I heard that at midnight Christmas eve they did have a little gathering to sing and pray. Of course I was too lazy to leave the house, already having settled into my pjs, but I’m considering going to mass tomorrow there at noon. I can’t remember the last time I went to an actual service (hmmm probably because I'm agnostic!). 

I decided to spend the day wandering. This is a fantastic city to just wander. Everyone was out, walking along the main pedestrian street and Christmas carts were outselling fireworks, toys, lights and general festivity. The street where the catholic cathedral is located has Christmas lights hanging, with big snowflake shaped ornaments and such and Christmas trees flanking the cathedral doors. The other streets, like marshala tita have lights that have been hanging there since Bajram/Eid al-Adha and I hope they keep them up during the whole winter. I did spot a couple of santas and snowmen along the streets, usually with saxes (???).  I can’t find any figure for the current demographics of Sarajevo, but in 1991 Croats made up only 7.5% of the population, and I’m guessing its less than that now, so I’m not sure who is actually celebrating Christmas today since the orthodox calendar celebrates it on Jan 7^th. I wandered in Bascarsija, ate some cevapi for lunch/dinner and then spent an hour reading the New York Times on my ipod in one of my favorite coffee houses, in Morica Han. This used to be a Turkish caravanserai and now has a café in part of it, along with several other shops. It was almost empty, except for a group of young guys behind me who were hilarious. Then I wandered over to the carpet shop across the courtyard and quite unintentionally spent about an hour talking carpets with the owner who is an Iranian who has lived in Sarajevo for 20 years. It was so interesting; he explained certain motifs, their meaning, where they come from, tribes, traditions and such. And because I always have to explain why I don’t look like a “typical American” (sigh…I should write a whole post on that) we talked about Colombia and traditions there. He wanted to know if we had carpets like here, what the economy is based on, etc. Very interesting man and I enjoyed talking to him. He may actually talk me into a carpet one day (when I’m not on a student budget)! 

Since it’s the Christmas season, all the major shops are having their big post-xmas sale (even though today is actually xmas day), so I also picked up some cheap summer dresses and tees from Mango. Then I wandered through the leather streets, looking for a simple leather bag for my laptop since my backpack is prone to pick pocketing (I caught a women and her daughter opening up my backpack, so time for something a little more finger proof).  One fantastic thing about shopping in Sarajevo is that this is a craft town. Can’t find what you need? No problem, talk to the cobbler, jeweler, dressmaker and they will make it for you. I’m going to have a shop owner make me a simple leather messenger bag just big enough for my laptop and water bottle. The rest of the day I just walked. I walked along both sides of the river, window shopped and enjoyed the outdoor culture here. I’m certainly going to miss that when I leave.

Other than that, I’m finishing up a grant application for UNDEF for a TPO project that I designed and getting ready for a short vacation to Berlin for New Years Eve with friends. Very much looking forward to it! Hope everyone had a great Christmas!


Also: tried to upload photos and its not working! Help! trying to upload jpegs from my folder...

Sarajevo 101

Wow I’m bad at keeping this blog up. I have no real excuses, except that I’m lazy about it, and my goal of posting at least every Sunday is somehow too much for me to manage.  Maybe I’ll make this a New Year’s Resolution. 

Well I’ve found a place to live, it took 6 weeks, but I found a place! I’m renting a room in an apartment with a widow (who is super sweet and makes me food!!) in the center. For those of you who know Sarajevo, I’m right next to the national theatre, and only 5 min from Bascarsija, the Turkish old town. For those of you who don’t know Sarajevo, here is a quick 101. 

Sarajevo runs east-west along the Miljacka river, with the older parts of town beginning in the east and then moving along towards the newer commie-condos in New Sarajevo and the immediate suburbs. The city is small, you can pretty much walk anywhere within 30min. The oldest section is the old Turkish section, Bascarsija, where you can find the oldest mosques, cobbled streets that are divided by craft (silver, gold, leather, copper and others) and caravanseri that are now coffee shops.  At the far eastern end you’ll also find the amazing national library that was mortared and burned down during the last war (http://i47.tinypic.com/2qldhg9.jpg  ) . They are finally restoring it, it seems, as last year when I was here is was open like usual but now scaffolding surrounds it. Along the river on this side is also where you’ll find the corner where WWI began, and there is a museum on the corner where Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife were assassinated. I live about 2 blocks from there, on the same side of the river.  Moving west, you see more Austro-Hungarian architecture, the main catholic and orthodox cathedrals and the pastel ornate buildings of the late 19^th and early 20^th century.  Keep going and eventually you’ll run into the rebuilt parliament building and the UNITIC towers where various international agencies, major banks and corporation are located. If you keep going from there it becomes commie condo residential areas. Overall Sarajevo is very small, at least it feels  very small, the metro area has 400K people compared with Seattle’s 3.4 million (but Seattle’s metro area is considerably larger).  While the main artery of the city is along the river, the residential areas are above in the steep hills which basically go straight up from the river. You’ll see white patches at the corners of the streets, cemeteries that if you walk through them, will for the majority have their last years between 1992-1996. I was first here 5 years ago in 2005 and there has been a lot more rebuilding. Along Marsala Tita street the facades have been repaired, the bullet holes not as noticeable as I remember from 2005. Sarajevo roses haven’t been refilled as the red cement has gone away (Sarajevo roses are the red stained cement poured into where mortar shells fell, the look like big red ink spots).  So the center looks better, but keep walking and you notice how it’s only a few parts of town that have been rebuilt with new facades. Near to where I work, you walk by ruined out building full of bullet and mortar holes, building with barbed wire around them because they are destroyed and the signs out in front making sure that everyone knows what government/agency is financing their rebuilding process. I’ll try to get some photos up soon, low fog and dreary skies make for bad lighting. 

So I walk about 20 min from my place in the center to the office, and my language tutor is right there, so really everything is very centrally located. I’ve been reading a lot, finding articles online (thankyouverymuch UW library off campus access system) and reading the book that Zilka (head of TPO) wrote based on her PHD research. I’m planning to start organizing interviews and focus groups for Jan so I’m still figuring out how I want to do things. I’ll have a lot of materials to work through once I’m done as well, so I’m trying to figure out how to arrange data and all of that. I’ve brought all of my field research books from classes with me so I’m reviewing those as well. While I expect to get most of my information from these sessions, I’m getting a lot of information from my experiences with people in daily life as well. Scratch the surface here and everyone has a story. Go out for drinks and find out how someone’s family had its members burned alive for being X or X. Sit down to eat some food, talk to the owner and they’ll spill out their frustrations, how many family members they lost, how many of the youth Bosnia is losing. This isn’t the first time I’ve experienced this of course, the last couple of years floating in and out of the region actually gave me great info for my thesis precisely through this way. But this reiterates that this is a society of trauma, everyone here has some sort of trauma, whether related to the war or just the difficult economic situation that keeps 40% of its population unemployed. It gets depressing. And it becomes disheartening. Through the seminars I’ve been to with TPO, it’s clear that women in particular face immense challenges but this is an economic and political system that is only going to keep the status quo, and these women will continue to face hardships and to try to deal with their trauma on their own with limited guidance and assistance.

This is a ton of information I’m still wading through, and I’ll have a lot more come this spring. Together hopefully I’ll be able to address the questions I came here with.