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.
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