"Is it safe?" That is the question everyone asked me when I told them I was going to Bosnia to visit Karen. I told them, "Of course it is. Karen wouldn't invite me if it wasn't safe."
But all around us are reminders of a time when it really wasn't safe. Bullet holes in the buildings downtown. Cemeteries all over the city. As we walked around downtown today, we saw so many people. All survivors. They lived through it. Now it is safe to walk around the streets.
Karen lives in a nice apartment provided by the American government. She works for the State Department. We have to unlock about five gates or doors to get in. There is a security alarm and if it goes off, a guard from the embassy will show up. The windows are shatterproof. I noticed the door to the bedrooms was very heavy. I asked Karen about it and she told me it was so she could shut herself up in a "safe haven." Lock herself in to a secure place.
As we walked around Sarajevo today, I felt perfectly safe. I don't know exactly what I was expecting, but the people look just like regular people. Karen said we would see people dressed all kinds of ways and that we would see Muslim women in their distinctive dress. However, the Muslim women here dress much more liberally than they do in the Middle East. We only saw two women in all black. The rest were much more colorful. They had their heads wrapped in scarves, but the scarves were brown or bright orange. They wore pants or skirts. Then there were people in jeans and T-shirts and flipflops.
Downtown in strictly pedestrian traffic. No cars. The Turkish part has cobblestone streets. All kinds of shops--bakeries, barbershops, meat markets, restaurants--line the narrow streets. There were lots of people walking around today. We passed a mosque. It was prayer time. The people had their prayer rugs laid out and were kneeling down on them. Men on one side and women on the other. There was a fountain in the middle of the courtyard and people washed their feet in it. They get called to prayer five times a day. Today is the first day of Ramadan. There were a lot of people at prayer.
We took a bus tour. We rode around the city (in the part that allows cars). We saw a mosque that was built in 1537. That was the oldest mosque. There are mosques all over the city. We also saw buildings that were built for the Olympics that were held in Sarajevo in 1984.
After the bus tour, we walked across the Latin Bridge. In 1914, the heir to the Austria-Hungarian throne, Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophia, were crossing this bridge and were assassinated. This set of World War I.
In 1992, the Serbs set siege on this city. They sat up in the hills with big guns and shot at anything that moved. This went on until 1995. Over 1,000 days. The longest siege in recorded history. People were dying every day---12,000 in all. They couldn't get out of the city to bury their dead, so they had to bury them wherever they could. Rows and rows of headstones are right in the middle of the city. I think it was a soccer field before--now it is a cemetery.
This is what people know about Bosnia. It happened in our lifetime. Recent history. That is why everyone asked, "Is it safe?"
But all around us are reminders of a time when it really wasn't safe. Bullet holes in the buildings downtown. Cemeteries all over the city. As we walked around downtown today, we saw so many people. All survivors. They lived through it. Now it is safe to walk around the streets.
Karen lives in a nice apartment provided by the American government. She works for the State Department. We have to unlock about five gates or doors to get in. There is a security alarm and if it goes off, a guard from the embassy will show up. The windows are shatterproof. I noticed the door to the bedrooms was very heavy. I asked Karen about it and she told me it was so she could shut herself up in a "safe haven." Lock herself in to a secure place.
As we walked around Sarajevo today, I felt perfectly safe. I don't know exactly what I was expecting, but the people look just like regular people. Karen said we would see people dressed all kinds of ways and that we would see Muslim women in their distinctive dress. However, the Muslim women here dress much more liberally than they do in the Middle East. We only saw two women in all black. The rest were much more colorful. They had their heads wrapped in scarves, but the scarves were brown or bright orange. They wore pants or skirts. Then there were people in jeans and T-shirts and flipflops.
Downtown in strictly pedestrian traffic. No cars. The Turkish part has cobblestone streets. All kinds of shops--bakeries, barbershops, meat markets, restaurants--line the narrow streets. There were lots of people walking around today. We passed a mosque. It was prayer time. The people had their prayer rugs laid out and were kneeling down on them. Men on one side and women on the other. There was a fountain in the middle of the courtyard and people washed their feet in it. They get called to prayer five times a day. Today is the first day of Ramadan. There were a lot of people at prayer.
We took a bus tour. We rode around the city (in the part that allows cars). We saw a mosque that was built in 1537. That was the oldest mosque. There are mosques all over the city. We also saw buildings that were built for the Olympics that were held in Sarajevo in 1984.
After the bus tour, we walked across the Latin Bridge. In 1914, the heir to the Austria-Hungarian throne, Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophia, were crossing this bridge and were assassinated. This set of World War I.
In 1992, the Serbs set siege on this city. They sat up in the hills with big guns and shot at anything that moved. This went on until 1995. Over 1,000 days. The longest siege in recorded history. People were dying every day---12,000 in all. They couldn't get out of the city to bury their dead, so they had to bury them wherever they could. Rows and rows of headstones are right in the middle of the city. I think it was a soccer field before--now it is a cemetery.
This is what people know about Bosnia. It happened in our lifetime. Recent history. That is why everyone asked, "Is it safe?"
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