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   Current posting: March 10, 2011

       It has been a long time since I have written, and I hope that all my friends are well and
survived the holiday madness that is Christmas in the west. Here in Bosnia, we worked through
what is the traditional winter break in the USA. Our semester ended in mid-January, and I am
now back at work on our spring semester. I didn’t travel much this winter, mostly to save money,
but I did go down to Montenegro for a couple of days, and that was nice. The occasion was the
celebration of the first flowers of spring, which is, in Montenegro, the mimosa blossom. Unlike the
pink Japanese mimosas (which I knew in the deep south), the mimosas here have tiny yellow
flowers. The branches bear them in profusion, so the tress are quite pretty.
      The trip south was quite interesting. I rode in a bus chartered by the Bosnian
Mountaineering Association – a cheerful group of people almost all of whom are older than I am.
They are nice to hang out with because they are about the only people I know in Bosnia who don’t
smoke (more on that later). Mostly. A few do, but most don’t.
      Anyway, we traveled through Sarajevo and then south to Mostar, where we stopped for an
hour and took pictures of old town and of the famous bridge. The trip was fascinating because it
was snowing when we left Tuzla, and it was snowing in the mountains, but once we crossed from
Sarajevo to Jablanica, the we came out of the mountains and drove on to Mostar along a gorge that
was very much like the Colombia River Gorge along the Washington/Oregon border. The road was
winding, the water deep and a color of deep, glittering, chalkboard green I have never seen
before. And the climate changed, too, exactly as in Washington. When we came out at the end of
the gorge, in Mostar, the land looked like New Mexico, or Eastern Washington. High desert. I’m
not sure why Mostar, which is not that far from the sea, would be desert, but it is. Perhaps, I
speculated, the problem is that the area has been inhabited for a long, long time, and it was
deforested, with the resulting loss of topsoil? Who knows? Anyway, the city is beautiful, and I’ll
attach a few photos.
      Travel in Bosnia is maddeningly slow. My weekly commute to Banja Luka, a drive of 100
kilometers (60 miles) takes two-and-a-half hours on a good day. On a bad day, forget it. So the
trip to Montenegro, which in the USA might have taken four hours, took all of twelve. Fortunately
there were bathroom breaks. Unfortunately there were no lunch breaks. Fortunately I
anticipated that and brought along some nuts and dried fruit.
      By the time we reached Herceg Novi, our destination, it was short-sleeve weather. The
Adriatic is beautiful, the city was clean and nice, and Montenegro had seceded from the Yugoslav
union with a minimum of conflict, so the buildings were intact, the economy relatively strong,
and the infrastructure in good repair.
      In contrast, Mostar was torn by civil strife, almost all of it citizen vs. citizen. The war in
Mostar was not fought initially by formal armies that met on a battlefield, but rather, the citizens
themselves turned on one another and fought to annihilate one another, house by house, block by
block. Once joined by the armies, the Serbian forces overwhelmed the smaller and poorly
equipped Bosnian force. Later, Croat forces drove out the Serbs. In both instances, Bosnian
Muslims suffered. In the first, it is estimated that 1200 were killed, and perhaps 100,000 people
displaced. In the second instance, the Croats established regular concentration camps into which
10,000 men, women, and children were held, and perhaps 3,000 died. One of the most
remarkable stories to come out of Mostar was that of Zhoran Mandelbaum (http://www.c-hef.
org/2_stories_story1.htm), a Jewish survivor of WWII who stayed behind in Mostar, first helping
Serbs escape to Serbia, then helping Muslims when the Croats turned on them.
      It is a terrible thing, war, and frightening to see what machine guns do to brick walls. Much of
Mostar is still damaged. The famous bridge, built in the 1500s, was destroyed in the war. Some
say that a Croat tank fired on the bridge at point blank range to wreck it. Others say that Muslim
forces, driven across the bridge into West Mostar, were forced to destroy the bridge themselves
to keep Croat forces from advancing. Sad either way.
      The bridge was rebuilt after the war. But today, citizens of Mostar, Croat (Catholic) and
Muslim, share the streets with each other, often encountering the men and women who raped,
murdered, imprisoned, and tortured one’s friends, family, and (in some cases) one’s self.
      In Herceg Novi, the arrival of spring was celebrated with a hokey little civic get-up that
would make any small town in Oklahoma proud. There was a band, a set of self-conscious
cheerleaders, traditional dancers in traditional costume, a ceremonial civil guard who fired faux-
antique muzzle-loaders full of confetti with ear-splitting bangs, and the usual assortment of
hangers-on: beggars, pickpockets, drunks, lunatics, and a busload of Bosnian tourists. Mercifully,
the celebration was short and the parade wound along the waterfront to another venue.
      After that, we drove out to the ancient walled city of Kotor. The drive was beautiful, and it’s
worth looking at a map to see the incredible inlets and bays that make up that coast. No wonder
people settled there. The mountains come right down to the sea, but the enclosed harbor must be
one of the safest in the world. Now, I don’t speak 50 words of Bosnian, so I had no idea, the whole
trip, where we were actually headed. I knew we were going to Montenegro and I thought we were
going to climb some mountain there, but in fact, what we climbed was to the top of the old fort at
Kotor. But along the way there were signs like “Prehistoric Caves” and “Ancient Monastery” and
“Nature Preserve,” each of which brought me to the edge of my seat in anticipation.
Sorry, no “Trees of Mystery” in Montenegro. On the other hand, there certainly could have been,
because we passed one ruined city that had the two biggest (chestnut?) trees I have ever seen.
You could parked a car inside them. But I digress. I’ll have to go back to take in the sights
properly.
      Kotor is a medieval walled city, and the inscription on the cathedral reads 907. I’m pretty
sure the cathedral was rebuilt at least once since then, but who knows? Certainly the city, and
the fort, predate 907. We’re not that far from Greece, and probably the city’s history goes back
further than the Phoenicians. It’s the kind of place people settle and stay.
      My mountaineering friends are a funny lot. They are into what I call “speed tourism.” They
have a brutal itinerary and they keep to it like clockwork. You get to Mostar at 1:00 and you leave
at 2:00. I’m the kind of person who likes to travel with no real destination and no itinerary at all.
But we got to the city and then raced the 1000 feet up to the top of the fort, took a few photos, did
a traditional Bosnian celebratory dance (a club tradition), and then went back to the bus and
drove back to the hotel.
      The next day we returned to Tuzla, the highlight of the trip being a stop at a Croatian winery
where my fellow travelers filled up every 2-liter pop bottle they could scroung with cheap wine,
and most were good and drunk before lunch. At least we stopped to eat on the way home – at a
roadhouse outside of Sarajevo that specializes in whole lamb roasted on a spit. And man, was it
ever good.
      One final thing. People definitely celebrate the arrival of spring in Bosnia. And winters here,
like winters in the Pacific Northwest, are gray, wet, and dreary. So people really, really, really
look forward to spring. I went this past Friday on a “mystery trip” with yet another group of
Bosnian Mountaineers to a spring celebration to be held in “a village near Tuzla.” Ten KM (about
$7.00) for dinner and bus ride to a secret destination that promised “dinner, dancing, and fun.”
How much fun can you have for seven bucks? Answer: well, that depends.
      Turns out the “mystery village” was Zivinica. Now, Zivinica (pronounced Zhivanitsa) is one of
those towns like, say, Pasco, Washingon, or Quincy, Florida. It’s one of those places that as soon as
you hear the name you cringe, as in, “Police in Quincy arrested a man for beating his wife with an
alligator…” or “Pasco man tries to file tattooed IRS 1040.” How can you spot the bride at a
wedding in Zivinica? She’s the one with the braided nose hairs. So, this “Spring Festival” in
Zivinitca is apparently “The Festival of the Unclogged Drains,” in which they celebrate the
thawing of the pipes and the first bath of spring.
      Unfortunately, spring is a little late this year.
      Fortunately, almost all of my Bosnian Mountaineering Companions smoked like chimneys. In
fact, the smoke was so heavy in the restaurant you could have swam in it. There were 100 people
in a room perhaps 20 x 40, and at any given moment, 49 of them were smoking. And as soon as
they crushed out their cigarettes, the other 49 lit up. That was Friday night and I’m still hacking
up lung oysters. I put my coat out on the balcony to air out and I fear it may be permanently
smoked, like a ham or a sausage. Good god almighty, I left my clothes outside except for my socks,
and I swear when I woke up Saturday morning, I could smell the cigarette smoke from socks in
the laundry hamper all the way into the bedroom. Jeez.
      But it was, in a weird way, fun. For one thing, as soon as we sat down, people produced from
coats and purses and god-knows-where, an assortment of recycled bottles of wine and raki (home-
made plum brandy) and who-knows-what-all-else. Now, I don’t drink, but it was still interesting
watching a group of 50 and 60 and 70 years olds get lit up on a Friday night. And there was a
band—if you can call it that—God what a band. There was a singer, a guitar player, and a man
playing a synthesizer so that it sounded like a cross between an accordion and a circus organ, an
instrument incorporating the worst features of each. And at ear-splitting volume. I think I know
where the term organ grinder comes from. If not the act of butchering the organ itself, it might
refer to the vital organs of the listeners. I’ve never heard music before that made me contemplate
ripping out my liver and roasting it over an open fire. But I digress.
      Actually, the music was a kind of Bosnian folk music that evolved from Balkan and Turkish
tradition. The best I can do is liken it to Dead Circus Raver Punk Folk in which four chords are
repeated endlessly to a 5/5 rhythm for fifteen or twenty minutes at a stretch. Everybody in the
crowd learned the dance steps and words in kindergarten and loves them to tears, and they were
all up and dancing, sometimes in couples, sometimes in circles, sometimes in long, snaking lines
working their way across the room and back again. The band knew five songs and played each of
them at least once with every set.
      Now, I hate dancing. I’d rather take a blindfold and cigarette and face a firing squad than
dance – I made up my mind about that a long time ago. But I hate being rude even more than
dancing, so when pressed, I finally joined the crowd and danced, as well (or as poorly).
      But you know, there was a kind of fun to it. There was something strange and beautiful about
these people, these people who are so poor, who have suffered so much, but who, for some reason,
still find a way to get up one more spring evening and drink raki and smoke and eat bad beef and
coax their old bones into dancing until midnight because they have survived another winter, the
pipes will thaw eventually, there will come a good hot bath, and life, and hope, go on.



                                                                                         the famous old bridge in Mostar



                               Kravica Waterfall

Melvin Sterne: Writer, Teacher, Editor, Photographer

Welcome to my home page.
It's the next-best thing to visiting me at home!

Melvin Sterne teaches oral and
written communication, and
leadership, at the S P Jain Center
of Management in Singapore. He
also directs the Passport to
Excellence Program at the
Singapore and Dubai campuses.
He is the author of twenty
published short stories, as well as
a handful of essays and poems.
Several of his stories have won
awards at magazines or
universities. His first novel,
Zara, is forthcoming from Ink
Brush Press.

He may be contacted at
melvinsterne@yahoo.com .