Stephanie's Travels in Bosnia: Balkans Letter 3/ Brcko

Originally sent July 16, 2007

Hope this finds you all well. I am now writing from Brcko in Bosnia. Before I delve further into this email though, I should let you know that I am struggling with this Bosnian keyboard and can,t figure out how certain letters or punctuation marks are entered so please bear with my sloppiness or if the wording of something may not entirely make sense!

Saturday was the last day of the camp. In the end I made some good connections with some of the kids and have been inspired by the whole experience. Some of my personal highlights have included the personal connections with some of the youth, working on the play performance, and exchanging notes with our . The kids enjoyed also interacting with other kids from other camps from Russia, Italy, France and Croatia. Indeed there were quite a few tears shed when the bus pulled out from the camp site for the long trip back to Brcko.

The play performance was especially moving. As I mentioned in my last email, the children wrote a Romeo and Juliet/West Side Story type play about a war between two gangs in the City of Roses. A girl from the Red Rose gang fell in love with a boy from the Black Rose gang and as expected, the girl was killed in a fight between the two gangs. Upon finding his love dead, Antonio (the main male character) killed himself and the gangs came together in the end and ended their years of conflict. I had the great fortune of working with one of the other volunteers and two boys on writing a song for the end of the play. It,s a beautiful song and here is a rough translation.....

War is over
The gangs have disbanded
There is peace
Roses grow again

Their love will live on
they are together now forever

On Friday evening, 24 of the kids as well as some of the volunteers performed the play. We dressed up in black and red and beat drums made of cardboard tubes and shakers made of rice and plastic bottles. I was lucky to also have the chance to play violin for part of the performance when I wasn,t in costume with the Black Rose gang...... I think all of the kids were quite pleased with their perfomance and what they were able to create in roughly 5 days. It was great that they all worked so well together.

I will be here in Brcko until Thursday evening. I am currently staying in a flat with the other British volunteers who will stay here for another two months coordinating and leading various workshops for the kids. I will spend my time exploring Brcko, learning a little Bosnian and may also lead one small poetry activity with some of the kids.

I should mention that today two of the teenagers named Denis and Mascha approached me to inquire whether there would be interest in forming a youth exchange between Brcko and an American city. Would be fantastic to get such a program off the ground possibly between Seattle and Brcko?

Pictured with Denis, Mascha and Mirsa (L to R)

Breifly some first impressions of Brcko....
Brcko is a multi ethnic district that is self governed as well as there being a foreign UN presence. Throughout the city I see different buildings or centers with a sign about funding by the Canadian or Norwegian or German government such as a Rehabilitation Kindergarten funded by the Norwegian government (not quite sure what that may be). There is a catholic chruch for the Croat community, an Orthodox church for the Serbs as well as a mosque. Prayer calls can be heard at different times during the day.

I have noticed that posted on various walls or on buildings thorughout the city there are obituaries for people (rather than in newspapers). So for example, on a place where you would see various flyers for events are also these obituaries in both latin Bosnian (for Bosniaks Muslims) as well as in cyrillic (for Serbs). I was told that sadly there was recently a mass grave found so there are a lot of obits up right now.

People are very helpful and friendly and I think generally people may want to put the past behind and not be known as the country where there was this horrific war. That being said, I think there are still many feelings and problems that are unresolved. I haven,t been able to have personal conversations with people about their experiences as it is a very personal thing.