a knot of cool damp hair

Overlooking a twilight garden on the eve of Swedish midsummer. Listening to my brother sing and play Ben Harper's waiting on angels, wondering how he got so darn good in just a year. The bun of wet hair, fresh from the shower, soaks the back of my t-shirt and I think of my father saying "my back is cold -- it's damp". I hate a cold back. I mowed the lawn tonight and the smell of fresh-cut grass was too appealing. I threw the bathroom window open and showered with the coolness of evening air, overlooking my handiwork. Grateful and amazed with this place; here I can shower with a wide open window and not a soul about. It's the same feeling as when I am hanging our laundry to dry, bras and panties and boxers, looking over to see my neighbors' skivvies blowing in the breeze and I love this place.

burst forth

It's becoming humorous -- almost -- how sporadically I post. My conclusion is that although I enjoy writing I have never, ever been diligent with writing in journals. If I ever have written in a journal, when I go back to read the few entries I managed, I am mildly embarrassed. 

It's a Friday on a week of rain, rain, rain, following a previous week of rain. In the not-raining moments, my brother and I, (Jordan is here for the month of June) have managed to dig and pour concrete pilings for a deck we are planning to build. We have the wood purchased and a plan in place, so as the rain stops we are ready to rock. It's going to be a beaut of a deck once finished.

Jordan has been here for just about two weeks now, and at times I feel like a kid on summer holidays, kicking back with "nothing to do". The first day he was here was unseasonably hot, and we walked through the forest to a nearby lake to scope fishing spots, then to the river in our village, where we sat on the little dock with our feet in the water. We watched for surfacing trout and my joy was unspeakable... He is sleeping in our "new" little guesthouse -- a one-room cedar-lined cottage in our back garden. We bought it and had it craned from it's former location to our place (quite the drama in our quiet little village), and worked like the Dickens to get it painted and spruced up for habitation. It's simple -- it will have electricity, but no running water -- but it's an extra room and a cute, fun little place to use in the summer. All are welcome, and we will gladly give you our bedroom and move out to the guesthouse if you prefer to sleep nearer the toilet. Although if you are a dude feel free to tinkle out back by the barn. We are country folk now, after all. 

With the passing of spring to early summer school ended. It was difficult to say goodbye to friends and good to start a new chapter. The school environment was too closed for me, too cloistered. It's difficult to explain in a short way. It was a good and helpful thing to do my first year in Sweden, and was a safe cushion on which to bounce when struggling with language and loneliness and other things. Looking back I can also see God's intention to drive me to a place where I would see him and myself in a eye-opening way. I also did meet some wonderful people. Many have returned to their homes now. Although few will live close to me, some will only be as far as a short plane ride to Germany, and that gives me comfort.

These days, I am enjoying spending time with my brother, then in July my parents and grandma will visit for two weeks. We will be going for a few days to Kracow, Poland. (My great-grandmother was born in Poland, and my Dad is our in-house WWII expert, so visiting Auschwitz will be gripping.) We are staying in a hostel which I hope will be an interesting, fun adventure. (I don't know how many people cart their visiting grandmothers off to unknown hostels, but hey!)

After my parents leave, which I can't bear to think of, Martin and I are going to go to Prague for a short getaway together. It's one of my "dream" cities meaning there are only a couple of cities in the world I actually desire to go to. Prague being one. St. Petersburg being the other. (And if I was lucky enough to visit some dear friends -- Seoul, Korea. Hyon Joo and Jihae; it's been too long.) 

The rain has stopped and the trees are drip-dripping. Possible we can get some work done today. Although it's good be sitting inside with my brother, drinking tea, reading and discussing the six months of National Geographics my mom packed in his suitcase.

And the forest smells unbelievably delicious after rain.

He is good, all the time.

(zdravo) hello

With my Western mindset, grown in an age of multiculturalism and professed tolerance of all religions and ethnicities, it was a new experience to be in a European community of only one ethnicity and religion.

Gorazde, a small city in eastern Bosnia, is almost completely Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim). A five minute drive up the highway, you pass a Serbian Orthodox graveyard, and you are in "new Gorazde", a Serbian Orthodox community. Sometimes (but not always) you could determine what kind of community you were in by the graveyards -- elaborate, flower-and-candle festooned black marble Orthodox graveyards, and simple, white pointed spires in a Muslim graveyard. It is a tragedy that in some way graveyards are a visible definition of Bosnian cultural boundaries.

There was little I could find to read about Gorazde before visiting the area, but once there I learned that the region and community has a past written in war and hatred, and that it's past irreparably shapes what Gorazde is to this moment. The following explanations are over simple, and probably stupid to someone who really knows Bosnian history, but as it's impossible to explain Bosnia today without explaining Bosnia of 15 years ago, I will do my best.

Before the war of the 1990s, eastern Bosnia was religious and ethnically mixed. Farmers and city dwellers, Serb and Bosniak, lived beside each other in the religious no-man's-land of Communist Yugoslavia. Upon the collapse of that system, and the beginnings of war (I won't even try to explain all the evil politics behind it) Serbian forces began a systematic "cleansing" of eastern Bosnia, forcing Bosniaks out of their homes and either killing them or pushing them towards central Bosnia, where they attempted to reach UN-designated "safe" zones. Gorazde was one of these "safe zones", the only zone that did not fall to Serbian forces during the war.

The result is that Gorazde literally became an island of refuge, filled with Bosniak refugees. Today, in a sense, those lines are still drawn -- Gorazde is almost purely Bosniak and the surrounding area almost purely Serbian. (A strange paradox is that foreign Islamic nations like Saudi Arabia and Iran are putting money into Bosnia and building large new mosques, the spires of which can been seeing shining even in Serbian towns.)

Passing from one town to the other, you don't have to imagine the drawn lines of war. On one side of the line men who were part of the Serbian army are called death-deserving murderers, on the other honoured war heroes. In between is a space of a few kilometres.

Better than my editorializing on this difference is a chilling illustration of two infamous bridges. One bridge is an ancient UNESCO world heritage bridge in the town of Visegrad, about 35 kilometres down river from Gorazde. The other is the concrete and steel walking bridge joining the two sides of Gorazde, which sits in a mountain valley.

One, beautiful and ancient, with a chilling, bloody history. The other, chipped and graffiti-covered, a tragic necessity and refuge.

Gorazde Bridge

The bridge spans the heart of Gorazde, linking two sides of the community over the broad Drina river. On one side many essential services; the only public hospital, schools, grocery stores. On the other, stores and many homes. During the war Serbian forces beseized Gorazde on the surrounding mountain tops. They laid landmines in the hills, set up outposts and gun turrets, made forays into the city, they cut off food supplies and roads in or out, but never fully occupied the city. They did, however, control the city in a way that made the UN safe zone far from safe. From the surrounding hills and outposts, soldiers and snipers would shoot at homes and people, at random and seemingly for sport. You could be shot and killed walking to the grocery store or school, and no age or sex exempted you. People were shot and killed collecting water or trying to eke food from their gardens, walking to school or scurrying from house to house. The results was people who lived buried in their houses, gardening at night, venturing out only as neccessary.

A favoured target area was the bridge over the Drina, where people were completely exposed. So constructed under the steel belly of the bridge was a small cable and wood suspension bridge, tucked up underneath so far that an adult must duck his or her head at each steel girder. On this bridge our host family mother, Amila, and her husband, Fikret, made their way to school and work, huddled over, racing across, fearing the crack of a sniper shot at any moment.

The walking bridge still hangs there today, limp and unused, the wooden slats unsafe to cross. Amila and Fikret tell their 10-year-old son Almin about the war, the bridge, and it's terrors. But I can see that the bridge holds some kind of mystery for Almin, a young boy raised on Grand Theft Auto and military computer games. Thankfully he never experienced the horror of the war just a few short years before he was born.

Visegrad Bridge

About thirty-five kilometres upriver stands another bridge, spanning another valley in the town of Visegrad. This one is stone construction, built long ago by the occupying Ottoman Empire. It is a thing of ancient man-made beauty; it's stone arches spanning the emerald green Drina. It is also the site of the murder of thousands of Bosniaks. Ethnic cleansing took place here on a scale unbelievable. Serbian soldiers and local militia men would come to a Bosniak home and tell them they had 10 minutes to leave or they would be killed. The stories are unimaginable, as one dear elderly grandmother shared with me and our leader Michal over sweet coffee and cake.

Many women and children were sent fleeing through the formidable mountains back towards Gorazde. Hundreds of people were locked up in homes and the houses set on fire. Others shot point-blank on their doorsteps. Thousands of men and boys were separated from their families and murdered. This grandmother told us how men were taken to the centre of the bridge, forced to stand or kneel on the parapet, while the murderer crossed himself in the name of the *father, son, and holy spirit* and slit the persons throat, then throwing them from the bridge.

Above the Visegrad bridge, set back little way up on a hill, sits an Orthodox church, it's black cross on the steeple clearly visible from the bridge, it's windows providing a clear view of the horror and tragedy done here by people in the name of religion and/or ethnicity.

These are the lines drawn. The bridges that represent not union but suffering. Evil, clothed in religion, ruining lives and dividing communities. The war remains fresh, the wounds seeping. The next generation (younger than myself, even) are more objective, searching for better answers, less fundamental in their faith, but still the lines remain.

hvala

"Hvala" is Bosnian for "thank you". This word I used most frequently in this coffee-drinking, hospitality-based social culture. for some reason when the Bosnian words I did know escaped me, I reverted to Swedish. I received some odd looks when I spoke a bit of Swedish before realizing what I was doing.

There are many questions to answer. And what is the simplest way, I do not know. But as a wise team-mate of mine said, it's best to start at the beginning.  So I will post some of the basics about the city of Gorazde, (pictured) and then maybe some more personal stuff later on. 

Bosnia is being effected by the economic crisis, much like the rest of the world, but with greater severity. Roughly half of the country is employed, leaving the other half to find other means of income. The majority of those unemployed receive a small amount of pension from the government, whether it be from a past job or reconciliation for losses in the war. However, even the pension system within Bosnia is failing, as the government is fighting corruption and bankruptcy. But the people try as best as they can to live with what they get.

The city of Gorazde faces about 75 per cent unemployment and almost every family we met had at least one member of the family receiving a small pension. 

Most, if not all, people blame the hard times they are now facing on the war in the 1990’s. The former Yugoslavia was a prosperous nation for its people -- they lived a good life with job security, "peace", food, nice homes, maybe as most Europeans. Now they live in a world trapped between the high living costs of Europe and the desolation and poverty brought on by war -- the evidence of which is still everywhere you look.

Many of the families we met said it was difficult cope with the enormous atrocities of war and how it was a daily struggle just to hope for something better. Often, hope is placed in their children’s lives, with hope for a better future.

As things are, in Bosnia religion and ethnicity go hand in hand. If you are Croatian, by default, you are Roman Catholic. Serbian: Eastern Orthodox. Bosnian: Muslim. Gorazde is almost completely Bosniak (the term for a Bosnian Muslim).

We worked with one of the only non-governmental organizations left in the city, a place called the Hope Center. They run food distributions, English and adventure camps for kids, education programs and agriculture programs -- pretty much anything they can manage to meet a need. It was through this center that we purchased food to do distributions of food -- flour, sugar, salt, pasta, rice, oil -- to people who were in need.

There is so much more to say. But for now, this is a little picture of where we were... Will post more later.

cold toes, warm other things

Once again, I have been chastised for writing so little. And I deserve it, for someone who claims to love writing I hardly do enough of it.

When this much time has passed it's hard to extract a clear thought from my brain-scramble. I am starting to like lists more and more, and therefore will begin a random list of thoughts and experiences from the past while.

• The Ingrate. Whether it's the change of surrounding, or the breathing space from things that previously saturated my life and thoughts, I feel as though I have the clearest perspective I have had in some time, maybe ever. I am learning things that I wished I already knew. Gratitude. Humility. Self-control. Now if it were possible for me to simply learn something and never again return to ways of old, wouldn't that be wonderful? Not so. It seems I can even learn something and unlearn it in the same thought, having never translated learning to action or obedience.
• What Kind of Christian Am I? Swimming my way through a school project and Bibles and books, and realizing more and more I am the sorriest excuse of a Christian there ever was. My reasons for thinking this are many and long for elaborating here, but an illustration could do: Bill Murray, as a neurotic obsessive compulsive in What About Bob?, eventually succeeds in driving his psychiatrist and mentor insane while in "baby step" therapy. I have a billion baby steps ahead of me, and thank God he is a patient, willing, and never-irritable guide. Because I think I would drive myself insane.
  
• Stockholm. Martin and I spent a few days in the Swedish capital, spending our nights in an old hotel of vaulted ceilings and white French doors, the city bustle sneaking in through the old wood. We walked, spent a lot of time talking, some eating, reading, watching, touring, and hardly any shopping. The city seemed filled with more tourists than Swedes -- and in the old town, more rich Russians than anyone. From Holsbybrunn to Stockholm felt like stepping, or falling, on a 50 km/h treadmill from a dead-standstill. It stirred up strange feelings and meaningful conversations, along with sensory overload... The electronic rattle of crosswalks, honking, boom of the bass in nightclubs, the flash of digital billboards, slick, uneven cobblestones, the babble of languages more foreign than Swedish, long nails, fur, and bleach-blond heads, hurrying up to wait, juggling multiple cellphones, mostly manufactured beauty and mostly meaningless contact.
• An Ugly Girl? I have been spending some thought on what a healthy Christian worldview means, how I could live a "simpler" life. Also thinking about our collective insecurity in the Western world -- the way we look. I was recently amazed to hear that hair care products is a multi-billion dollar industry. Enough to eliminate the debt of at least a few developing countries. I don't know why I hadn't before considered how much money goes into hair care, but there it was. Interestingly, the average North American woman apparently has at least five unused hair care products sitting around her bathroom. And yet, an overwhelming majority of women are very insecure about their looks. The majority of girls I attend school with this year have admitted their insecurities with their looks. And these would be some of the more solid, mature girls I have met of the 18-25 range. It's so incredibly sad! Here we are, with a faith that a living God created us in his image, with a creed that says "it's the heart that matters," and yet we are insecure! We care about breasts and butts and 'cankles' and grey hair. I am right there in it, and yet it frustrates and befuddles me.
• On Loving Your Husband. It's 11 p.m. on a Thursday night, and Martin is bringing cheeseburgers from McDonalds. It's a taste of familiarity I cannot turn down, and I love him for it. For many other things too, and these days, the feelings of love are more present than ever. This is a nice thing, a wonderful thing. It makes me happy.  Not only for cheeseburgers, but his sweet face on the pillow, or the gleam in his eye after reffing a good game of innebandy, or that strange weird smile when he is telling me bad news. Definitely enjoying marriage.