Young Adult and Thwarted Manhood July 28, 2011

28 July 2011, sometime in the afteroon.

In Teočak, Bosnia i Herzegovina (BiH). I am here with some of closest friends on the planet who treat me like their close family. It was a bit of a journey to get here. After missing the bus from Srebrenica to Tuzla, my new flat mate first drove me to Bratunac, then Konjević Polje with the hope of beating the bus. At Konjević Polje in a gas station we asked when the next bus to Tuzla would arrive. A seemingly simple question, but here in BiH, there is no such thing.

The gas station and cafe are run by Serbs, so they refused to answer the question since Tuzla is in the Federation of BiH. So they sent my pal across the street to the deli owned by Bosniaks who would hopefully have the answer. No bus, though. So, back to the gas station where she asked about buses to Zvornik, which being in the Republika Srpska, they were quick to answer…the bus arrives every thirty minutes. While we waited in the drizzle for the bus, she pointed out a new Orthodox Church right off the side of the road. It was erected after the war on the land of a Bosniak woman who was driven from her home, only to come back and find her property was now a symbol of ethnic nationalism.

Still no bus, but Srebrenica being a small town, a man with a car my mate knew offered me a lift to Zvornik. In the car, it was mostly silent given that neither of us could really understand one another. But as it so often the case, we did. His son studies at the university in Tuzla. During the war, the man tried to escape across the river and was shot in the chest by Serbs. His father was killed. Arriving in Zvornik, I then hoped a bus to Tuzla where I met my friend, Ado. After what was the third coffee of the day, we then boarded the bus to the small village of Teočak, where I currently am. So many parts of a journey that could never safely be entertained as a single woman anywhere in the United States.

Surrounded by Serbian villages, Teočak stands as a firm reminder of the Bosniak defense forces who were able to prevent the town from being overtaken by the Bosnian Serb Army (BSA) led by the commander Hajrudin Mešić. Not without constant shelling and the killing of many innocent civilians and local defenders, including Ado’s father. Mešić was killed in Nezuk in the Federation of BiH, the tiny hamlet where the 110km three day Marš Mira (March of Death, now called the March of Life) begins (another story for a future blog; meanwhile you can check out my blog entry dated 15 July 2010, “Let Me Show You The World In My Eyes”).

In one single day 80 men perished in a single battle and they are buried in hillside cemetery; 400 other souls were killed in the village during the war and are buried in other cemeteries that dot the countryside. Ado told me this quite calmly as we stared at the place where his dad now forever rests. Then, without a beat, we began the evening’s barbeque, eating fruit from the trees and bushes, sans a tear or further discussion. How is this segway even possible, with so much terror and sadness in one moment followed by a return to the present enveloping atmosphere?

On the way back to Ado’s granny’s house, the sky was pitch black, only lit up by the thousands of stars that glisten in the night sky. A plane flew overhead, a sound that, to me, always reminds me of traveling, distant places, new adventures. But for Ado, it signifies blind fear because planes are symbols of bombs dropping, of people crying, of loved ones dying, of houses exploding. In the middle of the night a plane meant you had to hide, run, find safety wherever possible. A mother covering her small son with a blanket to provide symbolic yet impractical comfort and shelter. The stalking of nighttime terror when even walking outside in the gloam could easily yield someone looking to kill you. Having to huddle on a tractor with your mom and sister traveling at a snail’s pace for more than 30 miles to reach Tuzla, the safe haven. Without your father, who stayed behind to fight while the rest of your relatives now live in faraway places in Europe, coming back to visit you in the summer with their new clothes and logo-ed possessions. Reminding you that their lives now are filled with more opportunities than will ever exist here. Can you really afford the luxury of dreams when simply trying to buy groceries, take care of sick child, and pay for routine living expenses dominate your every aching moment?

I used to believe that dreaming was a universal phenomenon. About who you want to be in life, where to settle down, and how to expend your creative and intellectual energies. But here, in the drowsy isolation of Teočak and other ravaged villages that dot the BiH landscape, dreaming is a privilege. Because finding work is next to impossible, getting into a good school beyond expensive, moving abroad a sheer impossibility. Relatives send promises of help only to forget them—and you—when they go back to their new lives in Western Europe, America, and Scandinavia.

With hot running water whenever you want it, dawn or dusk. While here in Teočak, the local officials collect money every so often with the promise of constant water that never materializes. So you are forced to take matters into your own hands, digging wells and installing pumps, that is, if you can afford it or a man of the house (or a neighbor’s if your men have all been murdered and/or have disappeared) can arrange it for you. Otherwise, you wait for the water to reach an outdoor pump, where you fill up as many containers and bottles as you can. To flush the toilet, wash your face, take a sponge bath. Three, four, five days go by without a proper bath if you are unlucky. Good thing everyone smells the same way.

So, you spend the days visiting friends, relatives, and neighbors, chatting the afternoon away over endless cups of coffee and delicacies, because regardless of how much money you don’t have, generosity reigns here. You don’t have to call; you just stop by and enjoy the sweetness of each other’s company. Evenings are spent in front of the television if you are older and outside on the post office steps if you are young. Watching the clouds go by and talking about whatever it is to pass the time. Feeding a sweet puppy who lives in the street yet you call Ahmet, a person’s name, and who nips at your footsteps. And that is when the beauty of life can be felt even though it seems as though time truly stands still. It is in the these shadows where your dreams lurk, if you are brave enough to believe that your life will have more meaning than the demons that you try to outrun whenever you can.

Young adult and thwarted manhood. Perpetually caught in the present, knowing that what you want out of life is a dangerous concept. For if you spend too much time believing things will change, you may enter the hamster wheel of dashed visions of a more fulfilling future.

A Long Way From Home July 24, 2011

Sunday, 545am, 24 July 2011.

The day is just breaking in Srebrenica. The dogs are falling asleep in the streets after a full night of wandering, barking, and fighting with one another. My wrist aches, a reoccurring injury that is more annoying than anything else. I still have a lingering cough from a chest infection of sorts that, despite a trip to the local clinic for an antibiotic IV infusion plus additional meds, continues because I am smoking like a chimney. I am constantly hungry because it is difficult to eat a varied vegetarian diet here and if I never see another raw tomato or cucumber, all the better. I did not sleep at all last night and decided to get up and start writing this blog after being in Sarajevo and now Srebrenica, Bosnia i Herzegovina (BiH) for well over a month.

Which brings me back to this moment. What on earth am I doing here exactly? The rational answers are easy. Write my master’s thesis, conduct interviews, and research the role of the Srebrenica-Potočari Memorial Center (SPMC) as a way to connect the 1995 genocide to contemporary societal issues with the hope of bringing a divided population together. Learn how to conduct human rights work in the field, understand the realities of a post-conflict society, fulfill a long-term dream to undertake such a thing. Immerse myself in what human rights activism means in reality versus in the thousands of pages I have studied on the topic. Find my true path in life, become a scholar, try to make a small difference to one or two people in the world.

But really, why? Alone for months at a time, away from my husband, my family, my friends, New York City, and my life.

Alone in a small town and even tinier hamlets and villages whose very existences, from the people, to the houses and buildings, to the forests, were utterly wiped away in 1995. Alone, speaking with the Bosnian Muslims (Bosniaks) who live here now and who, for the most part are the remaining family members that were not murdered. All of whom have suffered such devastating loses and personal humiliations that no amount of time can heal. Many of whom are continuing only now to find out what really happened to their loved ones over 16 years ago. And even many more of whom are still searching for the mortal remains of the male family members who were wiped off the face of the earth during that fateful period leading up to and during July 1995.

Back home, I spend most nights up until dawn consuming grim and terrifying accounts of genocide, mass rapes, and crimes against humanity searching for knowledge about the unanswerable question of why. Yes, I watch the occasional reality television show or read a music rag, but for the most part, my passion for human rights and the prevention of these kinds of atrocities drives me to learn and research as much as I possibly can.

Here in Srebrenica, I am beyond immersed in the duality of the struggles of the current population’s struggles to normalize their lives. Good jobs, education, psychological support, social services, and an adequate institutional infrastructure barely exist. All the while, they wrestle with horrors that render a great many of them incapacitated. Within a climate that they are all too keenly aware could change at any moment. It is little wonder that all I can do here is just sit, observe, reflect, and nap, unable to write or read books about these experiences. I sorely miss the stack of novels I left back home choosing instead, stupidly, to bring books about the genocide which I simply cannot stomach. It is one thing to read about genocide from the comfort of my bed. It is quite another to be submerged within it, even as an outsider for several long weeks.

But still, no clear answers. Just a growing sense about what my mission in life really is after all those years of corporate whoring, some of which I enjoyed but the majority of which I actually suffered.

So, over the course of the rest of the summer I hope to be better able answer my own question—why—as I come to terms with this monumentous personal, academic, and spiritual journey that I am on.