Travel Stories >> Bosnia >> Dobro Dosli u Tuzlu... (Welcome to Tuzla)

Dobro Dosli u Tuzlu... (Welcome to Tuzla)

You know, after you've been immersed in a culture other than your own for any length of time, the little observations and tidbits about the differences betwixt the two become cloudier. You take for granted the things you first wondered about and you start to stop seeing the things that stuck out early on. I realized this was beginning to happen to me because as I walked into the PX (US Armed Forces Post Exchange) at the US SFOR base here in Tuzla (get your atlas out, Alan) a wave of US-ness engulfed me like a cloud. After a convoluted, dusty, graveled, maze of a trip into the woods outside of Tuzla, I was suddenly thrust into a little piece of America tucked far, far away - where anyone with the right connections could (and did!) buy peanut butter, CDs, Crest toothpaste, Old El Paso salsa, Doritos, and T-shirts sporting, "Co-ed Naked Peacekeeping" and "Hard Rock Cafe Sarajevo." A mini mind-blow. I have a new appreciation for the circumstances our own forces are in here. There are 8000 Americans in BiH, spread out all over, although the largest contingents appear to be in Sarajevo and Tuzla. While here they are not permitted to wear anything except their camouflage - at all times. They are also not permitted to drink alcohol - at all - anywhere - including the barracks. Hell, in Sarajevo at least they are permitted to spend free time walking around town - in Tuzla they are not permitted off the barracks unless they are accompanied - and I'm told that no fewer than 4 hum-vees are permitted to leave at a time. No FEWER. They are imprisoned, literally.

In Sarajevo, the sight of camouflaged bodies all over the place is, the first week you are here, a little jolting. Their presence, like everything, however, quickly becomes commonplace and you suddenly don't notice them all over town with the M-16 strapped on their backs. The Bosnian army floats around, too, and the way you distinguish them from the out-of-town forces is by the fact that they are the only people in camouflage WITHOUT any weapons - bizarre, no? What you do begin to notice is what all the forces look like "beyond" the camouflage, and especially what they all wear on their heads. The premise you must start with is that they ALL wear camouflage. Period. No dress "anything".

The Malaysians and the Egyptians are not much to comment on except that they are here. The French forces all look like they're about 14, sweet clear skin, no evident body hair, and pretty eyes. They're topped with simple black berets with a small red or black ribbon hanging down an inch or two. The Italians are drop-dead gorgeous - right out of magazine ads. Just like the Spanish forces are concentrated in Mostar, the Italians are in Sarajevo (with lots of Egyptians and Americans) so we've had a considerable amount of time to check them out. They have a variety of toppers - depending on their unit: some look like Peter Pan hats, feather included, or fedora-like hats with what looks like a stack of colored pom-poms climbing vertically out the side of the hat, or, sometimes simply, red berets. The British all look like they've been plucked right out of their "libraries" in the midst of taking tea, and they have a slightly bewildered look about them. Their headcoverings are rather simple, except for the division of "fusiliers"; these chaps sport the Peter Pan-like style with large turquoise and white plumes shooting up out of them like fireworks. These are silly as hell (shades of Monty Python), and in fact, one of the Bosnians commented, "how could you shoot at something like that? I'd be crying with laughter!". The Americans are a rather boring lot, some black, some white, all ages, although 40ish WASPs seem to dominate, and their headgear is a simple camouflage cap (much the design of the baseball cap). Yawn.

Tuzla is a small more industrial city NNE of Sarajevo. The drive up here was beautiful - some deciduous forests, some old fir forests, and many dramatic banks of ancient fir trees like live, textured carpets dancing in lines all over the hills. The region seems to provide quite a bit of industry, and our program has lent money to sawmills, construction companies, and a variety of manufacturing enterprises in the area. Tuzla is nothing beautiful to look at, although like Sarajevo it is "vallied" by hills on both sides. There is also a river running through town which, by the end of July, is more like a dribble trickling through the large, high banked concrete containment basin. Tuzla's lesser known claim to fame? The big bowling alley in the middle of town - part of the sports complex! Actually the Hotel Tuzla is a rather nice place (if you can get beyond the Eastern European décor – black and brown everything), and the old town here is a delightful little collection of cobblestoned streets.

There was considerably less war damage done to this part of the world, although on occasion, on the drive up from Sarajevo, I noticed small clusters of farm homes along the roads had been razed. Not shell-pocked like some of the buildings on the Mostar route, but just razed; a large pile of rubble. Tuzla is Bosnia's Venice. How's that? You ask. Venice? Yes, Tuzla is sinking. It would seem that the vast salt reserves in the earth beneath and throughout the surrounding hills have been tapped for so long that the town is sinking slowly into their voids. Older buildings begin to look like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, some avenues are little roller coasters of asphalt. Gaping holes in the low hills around the town's perimeter are all that remain of homes which were sucked into the ground by Mother Nature's movements (with the usual assistance from mankind).

It is a pleasant town, it is a quiet town, they make flat weave rugs in women's co-ops, no one has figured out how to make a decent cappuccino, and the first night we were here we ate at a prison. The prison is located in the center of town, and some enterprising folks have built an adjoining restaurant. The waiters are all inmates, making only what is left them in tips, and the food is amazing! Jeez, who thought up the licence plate gigs in the US? Forget the stupid license plates - let's start feeding our towns!

The Tuzlans drive as badly as the rest of their countrymen. I should qualify this statement by noting that the men who drive for this project: Boris, Ajdin (say: Ay-deen), Moose, Sasa (say: Sasha), Nedim, and Tomo are all exceptional drivers: careful, safe, yet appropriately efficient at reaching the given destination in record times. Almira, our receptionist here, tells me that there are a lot of refugees in this area, and that when they come back into town to establish themselves, many are no longer carrying their papers (forcibly taken off them during the war). To regain their papers they need only find two witnesses with papers to swear for them at the townhall, and they can thusly obtain identification and a driver's license (having lied and claimed to have had one before the war). Almira estimates that over 20% of the drivers in this country have never taken a roadtest. Scary. One of the small saving graces of general traffic patterns - pedestrian traffic patterns in particular, is that the traffic lights don't only flash amber before the green goes to red, but - to protect those of you considering a road crossing, they also flash amber before red turns back to green, usually allowing you enough time to hustle out of the line of fire.

Leaving Tuzla for a moment, I return to some of the curious idiosyncrasies about this culture. Every single phone in the Balkans is programmed so that once you have been put on hold, you must sit and listen to the theme song from the movie, "The Sting" played on what sounds like Linus' piano (of "Peanuts" fame). Sometimes it is maddening. People wander around the office humming this damn thing to themselves. The Paranoid among us believe this is some sort of cult controlled mechanism for driving the general population INSANE. They answer the phone by saying, "Please" (molim). I'm always tempted to say, "you're welcome". The phone lines are pretty good though, and email is a godsend and has fast become the more acceptable means for communication in country as well.

The general office culture is, in general, nothing like IBM as we might know it. There are at least two ex-pats here who are probably here because their behavior in the States would land them in court for sexual harassment without even trying. They take the accepted practice of an air kiss on each cheek as a greeting, to mean they can grab and plant one on the assistant or secretary as they wish. And they do. The delivery of inappropriate comments about dress are so commonplace (by expats towards female local employees) that they aren't even worth examining. Both of these men respond to my quizzical statements ("Are you sure she was comfortable with that comment?" or "Wow! I can't believe you just grabbed her like that.") with, "That's what I like about this culture, they aren't all hung up on this sexual harassment shit." And if you think US women are conflicted about potentially losing a job they need to feed their families - can you imagine how valuable these jobs are to these women? The whole issue is mind-boggling. God Bless 'merica, we don't just export Coca Cola, McDonald's, and Baywatch, we send out the haute couture as well. Jesus Christ. How long did it take Rome to fall?

Oh yes, the "office environment"....as we are sitting at our desks here in the middle of the day, we are also learning how to contend with the cleaning staffs. These (mostly) women all sport "the" cleaning uniform which is a violet colored tunic worn over their street clothes. They work the same hours we do. We spend our days at our computers and in meetings, and they spend their days emptying the ashtrays and trashcans right out from under us. They pick the papers one is working on right off one's desk to wipe down the desk top, and, best of all, they usually wait until you are on an international conference call to fire up the vacuum cleaners (which are only slightly quieter than a jackhammer). It would be amusing if it weren't so absurd. Most of the local staff can mutter to them about coming back later, but the ex-pats are more easily jarred. Our bank operations specialist, George, is an sweet-tempered, easy going gentlemen by all accounts. Until the vacuuming begins. Then the bi-focals are jammed precariously up on his forehead and he is in the halls looking for the nearest local staff available to explain to her that she MAY NOT vacuum while he's in the room or on the phone. This little exercise in futility goes on two or three times a day.

Some of the "overseas" inconveniences I've found are, I believe, a result of a genetic flaw in the common sense strand of the Balkan DNA. In no building, old, new, rebuilt, or renovated, is there an electrical outlet in an accessible location. You must use extension cords for hairdryers (most bathrooms are completely void of outlets), kitchen appliances, any audio or video equipment, and most lamps. This is not a big deal once you get used to it, except when you are travelling and are forced to dry your hair in the darkest corner of your bedroom, usually crouched on the floor. The fact that you are drying your hair without a mirror handy is completely irrelevant since they only seem to utilize one 15 watt bulb per room in most places anyway. The lovely private home I'm staying in this weekend in Tuzla has three floors. I am in the "baby" room at the very top of the stairs - it is a delightful little room, and I must descend a flight to use the bathroom. Most mornings the bathroom is actually darker with the light switch ON.

Ok, I suppose I should not be complaining, although it brings me such amusement that it isn't really complaining. I think if this were to become my home for a longer period of time than just a few months - I might consider making drastic changes to my surroundings. I did buy 100 watt bulbs for the fixture in the kitchen (in my apartment in Sarajevo), and borrowed a ladder and changed the bulb. The fact that the fixture was located on the ceiling - almost 15 feet off the ground meant that the difference between the 40 watt that had been in there and my new 100 watt was somewhat less pronounced than I'd hoped. But enough about electricity. We have it most of the time, and we manage to manage!

As I have mentioned before, I spend a lot of time with the local staff. I love to ask and they love to talk. There must be fascinating sociology and psychology texts and theses written about post-war mentalities because I am regularly flabbergasted by what has happened to these folks, how they project themselves externally, and what can only be damage internally. They are incredibly good humored, and once they have decided you are worth their efforts they are dramatically loyal. How does it happen that after four years of experiencing such death, destruction, uncertainty, and pain (and being forced to blindly trust and be trusted, which is exhausting) they are all so high-spirited? It seems so incongruous.

One of our drivers, Almir (Moose) was the former Yugoslav champion weight-lifter. He is enormous, he has a mouth full of rotting teeth (making him look like a cable-tv wrestler) and he is a teddy bear. He is a terrible tease and is an expert at pushing the envelope just enough. He told me that if he wasn't doing this, he'd love to make a living giving massages. For real! He is the self-appointed staff babysitter. You know that if there is something you need, and there is anyway possible to find that something, Moose will deliver it - quickly, and with a smile. He is married to one of the most strikingly beautiful women I've ever seen. Lord help him if he ever has a daughter. He is the funniest, sweetest, most gentle person I've met. One day in 1993, he stepped outside his house in Sarajevo to smoke a cigarette and the place was shelled - instantly killing both his parents. He was in the Army here, and one of his colleagues in the office tells a story about one afternoon when the shelling and snipers were relentless, and the Sarajevan army contingent had been out of ammo for weeks (they carried empty weapons). Moose was so sick of the waiting and the noise and the danger, that he grabbed his empty arm - jumped out of the foxhole he was in and ran screaming at the line from which the firing was coming. An empty arm. Not only was he not hit, but they say that the firing stopped for an entire day. Of course it's at this point that Ajdin grabs Moose's chin, shakes it a little and says, "can you imagine how terrifying it must have been for those Serbs to see this screaming up the hill at them?" And laughter ensues.

For someone who thrives on high energy and emotion, I would never tire of meeting the "Moose"s of this world. My life in the US never seemed so precious - until I came to Sarajevo where I am suddenly appreciating every cup of coffee (even the bad coffee), every rain storm, every daisy, but especially every human being.

Copyright © 1997 – Rachel Peterson

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