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First Reflections: Streams of Consciousness from Sarajevo

Bosnia. I am here for the first time. And my first though is…what a VERY cool place this is! Well, actually it's up close to 90 degrees most days, but cool in the evenings and besides - when you're sitting at the cafes with the breeze in your hair and a cold "pivo" (beer, to you philistines) in front of you, watching the sun set over the mountains -- all the jokes about the land mines and the flak jackets just sort of sound like pesky DC mosquitoes buzzing in my memories...

I am out here on a US government funded project to help rebuild the post-war economy. This team is engaged in lending large sums of money to Bosnian businesses and in training the banks how to lend money. The US team members, many of whom have been out here for a year or so now are a great bunch - a bit wild - but being away from the States for a while makes you that way... But the best news is the local staff... The office managers, the drivers, the computer staff, the lending associates - AWESOME human beings - very bright, very funny, very capable people. There are thousands of horrible war stories and everyone, everyone was damaged in some way. The fascinating part of this, from a psychological perspective, is that the streets are teeming with happy, high spirited men and women and children. I understand that the war-weariness has worn off and that this is really the first year they are taking vacations again, and that all the old shops are open, and many of the buildings have been rebuilt, etc... but there is a lightness of spirit that is catching and almost joyful. It is a nice, nice place to be.

I am living in a (project-rented) guest apartment which is a seven flight walk (128 steps) there are NO elevators in Bosnia (near as I can tell). The air at night is cool and the streets are VERY safe.

The food is okay – a little greasier than what we might eat at home. Local wines are good, and the local beer, as well. The city is on a series of water schedules so any one apartment or office never has water 24 a day - but they are usually good about making sure that the residential areas have morning and evening water and the commercial areas water during the day. The apartment I will be moving to next week is located on the hospital water lines so I will likely have water almost all the time.

The training program I'm managing is very busy, but since they've been underway for a year now - are really on automatic pilot - I am spending a lot of time meeting and greeting the players in the Banking sector, many of whom are women. Unlike other developing countries - one of the good things to come out of the former communist systems is that there is a good deal more equality between the sexes than other places.

The morning after I arrive, I am up early and ready for a three-mile hike around the city with two friends. Sarajevo is situated in a long river valley which runs East to West. There is little distinction between the rive gauche and the rive droit, although the Serbskins are just over the mountains to the South which is sort of an ominous thought. The main roads that head out of town to the East which is the direction we travelled this morning, are a little eerie because they all lead off to a little mountain (formerly ski resort) town called Pale, and then on to Belgrade (Serb-land) so they are void of traffic. It's a little like being the very first person in the pack in a walking road race where they've closed the roads to traffic and no one else has caught up to you yet. Sarajevo is not a big place - about 300,000 inhabitants currently, down from over 600,000 five years ago. It isn't difficult to get around (walking mostly), and is so eminently manageable.

Most of the buildings are pock-marked from shells, but rebuilding and recovery is going on at a swift pace. Every day on my way to the office one more set of steps is retiled, one more floor of windows display new panes, one more business establishment has opened. One can easily see where the damage was because of what is so new. The Sarajevans have a great sense of humor collectively, and the talk is open about war damage repair in an optimistic and sometimes funny way.

There are places all over the streets and pedestrian walkways (lots of neat, wide, cobblestoned walkways, especially in the old town where my office is located) where shells hit and produced large almost flower-shaped indentations in the surfaces which look like enormous three-dimensional splatters of paint. The people have taken to filling these in with a red heavy-duty enamel of sorts so they look like huge blood stains - which they call "roses". They are a visual reminder of the damage but they are actually kind of pretty. For anyone who has travelled in Europe and has experienced that "old world" feeling in the little streets and alleys and while sitting at the cafes, that feeling is still very evident here. Even though there are some places where the damage has really eaten away some of the details, it is easy to imagine clearly how it was, and what it will be again. Sprinkled liberally all over and up the sides of the mountains that rise up and form natural walls to the North and South of the city, are beautiful, humble houses, newly white-washed under their red tiled roofs.

Back to the walk... with camera in hand (of course)... we walked along the river road out the North end of town, and watched the old, leather-faced goat-herders who responded to my, "dobro jutro" (good morning) with big toothy grins from under their caps. I have been told that the city has really been de-mined and I believe it when I see the packs of goats wandering the hillsides - and realize that these people would not likely suffer the loss of their livelihoods so easily. The wildflowers are abundant (better growing without the road pollution) and range from daisies, queen anne's lace and chickory to those without names for me with purple spires, little buttercup-like flowers, and white violet-looking flowers... I want to pick some and bring them home, but then realize that if I blew off an arm for a daisy, I'd have a hard time apologizing to my softball captains come next season.

We reach our destination, a beautiful very old stone bridge that the locals call the Goat Bridge. It is a sweet structure, simple, utilitarian, with pretty architectural lines. The kind of structure that today's architectural/urban engineers have sort of lost touch with. The river running under it is more like a creek at this time of year, and there are, instead of sand bars, pebble bars which extend out gracefully into the body of the flow at all the right places. There is absolutely no one around and it is wonderful to be a mile and a half out of the city and feel like you are tucked away into a little nook of the rural environs - miles from neon lights and CNN.

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