Its really over?

Final thoughts on Bosnia.

I’m really not sure what to write here.  It all happened so fast, I wish I had more time, the cliché’s could get out of hand if I am not careful.

More seriously though, in the short time we did have in this country I have learned so much more than I thought I would.  I’ve learned about things I didn’t know I needed to learn about, let alone expected to discover.  It was one thing to learn about a new culture and about a genocide that occurred, but there was so much that went on here that I could have in no way prepared myself for.  Has there ever been a more impactful two week period in my life?  I’ve had life changing moments before, but this experience seemed to go on and on and on.  And I don’t mean that in a bad way.  I loved almost every minute of this trip (outside of a few very close calls with regard to making it to a bathroom on time), but the amount of tragedy and pain present in this city and in this people has been at times overwhelming.  I believe this moment for me was best captured as we watched the videos on the massacre that occurred in Srebrenica.  There was a point in the video that focused on the death march specifically.  At one point during this segment the video starts to show all of the empty clothes found in the mass graves from this march.  At first there are just a few empty shirts and pants, but as the emotional content of the video was coming to a climax, it continued to show pair after pair of different sets of clothing from exhumed bodies.  It went on for several minutes.

That moment, for me, describes how submerged in the tragedy we have been as a class.  It didn’t stop the entire time we were here.  And while we saw some exhibits perhaps designed to give us a sense of closure in the war crimes court, or to appreciate the beauty that still exists in the city though our Lukimor hike, the tragedy never stopped.  We never stopped driving by buildings still crumbling to the ground after their destruction 20 years ago.  We never stopped walking past Sarajevo Roses as we traversed the streets of the war torn country.  We never stopped hearing tragic stories from locals in passing conversations even after we left the guided tours and heard the planned stories from Hassan and SuliHa.  And I’m realizing that is the trauma that the people of this country still experience today.  Its the country some of them have been born into, never knowing or experiencing anything different.  And as time passes and the older generation passes on, I begin to ask the question, will things ever be ‘normal’ again?

There was no normal for Sarajevo, for Bosnia, for Yugoslavia, for whatever country was here before that.  As Hassan told us, during the war people yearned for Tito to come back, but even then things weren’t perfect.  There has never been and will never be a ‘normal’ Sarajevo.  There will only ever be the Sarajevo that exists in the present moment, and that city is the city that we make it.

I’ve learned more about myself and about my cultural identity then I did in nearly an entire quarter of Power, Privilege and Oppression while on this trip.  And while the friendships I’ve made on this trip, and the meaningfulness of the photos I’ve taken will likely fade over time, the messages I have taken from the heart of the people of Bosnia never have to.  These messages will likely be different for all of us as I read through each reflection here and see just how different and unique all of our perceptions are.  But the impact that they have on us, maybe for the rest of our lives, doesn’t need to differ.  We were given the opportunity to see a country, a culture, a people at there most vulnerable state.  They shared that with us.  And now it is up to us to honor that story and make the message we have taken from it have an impact on our lives.  Only then will the lessons learned from Hassan, from SuliHa, from Srebrenica, from whatever it is you found meaningful, only then will those lessons be worth something.

Its been a pleasure to get to know all of you over these past two weeks!

Today was our trip to the war crimes court, and I thought it was also going to be one of the less emotional days we were going to experience on the trip.  Not because the war crimes court was any less important, but instead because for me, seeing a place of justice and how perpetrators were being held accountable for their actions should be a relatively happier place.  A place for victims to experience some sense to satisfaction, or better put, to gain a sense of closure after experiencing their loss.  I thought, as I have been identifying with one group of victims throughout our trip, that I might experience this same feeling of closure as well.

I think what spoke to me most during this experience was the incredible amount that I didn’t know about the courts that I had just previously assumed.  We learned about their sentencing policies, to which I had previously just assumed that anyone convicted of the serious crime of genocide would be put to death, or at least a lifetime in prison.  However, as I would learn, the maximum sentence for this crime was initially only 40 years in prison, and later reduced to 20 years in prison.  Hearing that the sentencing policies changed so drastically was initially a shock to me.  I didn’t understand why they would be so lax and why their court system would allow for a change to a sentencing policy that seemed more favorable to the perpetrators.  However, listening to the judge I gained a clearer understanding of why this would happen.

I was also surprised hearing about how poorly off some of the convicted were.  I expected that those responsible for the war crimes would have been the best off as we heard about soldiers forcing families to give up their homes during the war under the threat of violence or death.  However, the judge informed us that this wasn’t the case.  I pictured a villain when trying to picture these criminals, but the picture she presented was very different, a poor and often unemployed person with little to take from.

Another one of the more interesting things I experienced during our interview of the judge was that there were war crimes perpetrated on both sides of the conflict.  That was an eye opening statistic to me.  I know it shouldn’t take away from any of the tragic things I have seen thus far, however hearing about this helped make me understand that no one is innocent in a war zone and that often one set of atrocities can lead to another.  It helped me empathize with everyone effected by the conflict knowing there were obviously victims on both sides, war crimes or not.

I was interested in the social work portion of the interview as well.  It was nice to conceptualize how we could be effective as social workers, giving me some closure as to how I could gain some level of control in such a terrible situation.  I keep thinking how I would feel if this had happened to a group of people in Colorado.  How would I deal with it?  What would that trauma look like?  And the only thing I can come up with is just how amazed I am that the people of this country have moved on so well.  I know they have had twenty years to do so, but the level of social change measures that have been implemented to change things on a large scale is impressive.  And the impact of these measures provide a place for the victims in this war to let out their anger and put to rest their sadness.  And while the judge we spoke with suggested that this is often not the case, with families feeling punishments are too short, at least on some level families know that their grievances can be heard and that something will be done about them.

Favorite Experience Thus Far

For me to answer this question successfully, I think it would be easier to answer, what has been my most meaningful experience so far, as well as asking what has been the most pleasurable experience of this trip.  No wait, that isn’t right, I don’t think its right to call this cultural experience a trip.  Calling this a trip would imply its just been a vacation, a way ‘see the sights’ of Bosnia.  I have to admit, it has been far more then that, encouraging me to question deeply held American beliefs that until recently I was unaware I had.  I apologize if that sounds convoluted, I just want to express that there is a difference between traveling for pleasure and relaxation, and what we are doing here: experiencing cultural heritage and trauma.

The most meaningful experience of this trip for me happened as we drove through the country side of Bosnia in route to Srebrenica.  Before that point, I think the trip was just a trip.  We toured the city of Sarajevo, saw the pieces of the war still left over in the physical damage done to the buildings of the city, but it just hadn’t sunk in for me yet.  Jadranka told her story and was so generous with everything she shared with us those first two days, but it just didn’t feel like I was talking to a local.  I don’t mean to express anything negative about what she gave us, it was just that due to her position as our guide, sitting at the front of the bus, speaking on a microphone, gave me the impression we were talking to a guide, not a local.  And while there wasn’t anything wrong with that, it just didn’t sink in the same way as I would experience on the drive to Srebrenica.

Halfway through our journey to Srebenica we had the pleasure of an interpreter joining our group.  And out of no where as we were driving, this member of our class started a conversation with the driver of our van.  As they spoke in Bosnian, the topic of the conversation soon turned to the war and what had happened to his family during the conflict.  It felt so genuine and unscripted.  Ann hadn’t scheduled this driver so he could be our tour guide and tell us about his experience.  Here was just a man trying to make a living, talking about his past and how it had changed his home.  That was the moment this class turned from a trip into an experience.  He shared his story, and as I have since found out, everyone, every single person present here during that time, has their own story.

Last quarter I read about cultural trauma and how a culture can carry the trauma of their families for generations as is it passes vicariously from one generation to the next.  I read about that concept, spent maybe one hour all together considering it, and felt that I understood what it meant, not only as a concept, but what that would feel like because the author described it to me.

I am breathing in a cultural trauma right now as it is being passed from one generation to the next right before my eyes.  As one generation ages and a new one in born into a country free from war, the people I have talked to now will pass on this tragedy as a memory and lifestyle to the next set of Bosnians.  What will it mean for how people live?  When the older generation passes on, who will remember what the country was like before the genocide?  How do you heal a wound that existed years before you were born?  And how could I, never having truly lived this experience, have any impact whatsoever in solving it?  I have more questions then answers tonight unfortunately.

As our time with our driver came to an end I was given the pleasure of saying goodbye, and though we had a member in our group that could have interpreted my words to him if I had wanted, I chose to express my gratitude in my own way: giving a gift.  While a small Colorado keychain might not be much, the way the driver accepted it, and showed his gratitude for it was enough to commemorate for me our time together.  That for me was the most pleasurable experience of the trip.  Being able to look into the eyes of a stranger, whom I only know a few words of language to communicate with, and know that he had shared with me his story, a piece of his culture.  It wasn’t about the words we exchanged, or the similarities we had.  For us to form this bond all it took was an open mind and a willingness to listen.  To try and understand what he had gone through.  That acceptance and willingness to see things from a person-in-environment perspective is at the heart of what we do as social workers, and to experience it in person was an experience I won’t soon forget.

Reflecting on Srebrenica

I’ve been trying for the last 24 – 48 hours to wrap my head around everything I have seen and experienced, but so far nothing I have come up with seems to be working.  And part of me is wondering if thats how the families of the victims of the genocide have been feeling for the past 20 years as they too comet to terms with what happened.  “Why did god let this happen?”  “Why would god let them do this?”  Our story tellers, Hassan and Suliha, both said that they went through period in which they asked this question over and over, looking for someone to blame other then their Serbian neighbors.  As they spoke these words, I felt myself unconsciously thinking the same way.

I found myself angry for a crime that wasn’t committed against me, feeling resentment toward a people I have never met in the Serbians, from a place I’ve never been.  And yet, as Hassan continued, he, of all people, was the one to speak of forgiveness.  To speak of letting go.  Here was a man that marched for days, running form a cultural geocode, telling the story of how his father and brother were murdered, and yet it was him to spoke of forgiving those responsible for their deaths.  Suliha was the same way.  Choking back tears, a woman that had lost everything expressed that she was no longer angry about the death of her husband and son, the destruction of her house, and the loss of her family that the war had brought upon her life.  Instead of preaching anger and resentment, Suliha had found solace in knowing that God would rule with the ultimate judgement.

I am not a religious man.  While I was raised catholic, I no longer believe in God in the same way as a traditional religious person would.  However, I do believe in the power that religion has in Suliha’s life.  That believing in a power, to judge right and wrong, allows her to let go of an incident that she might otherwise not be able to.  For her, it seems like a second chance.  A chance to life a life free from anger and hatred toward another people.  While she still feels remorse and sadness about what happened, Suliha was at least able to let go enough to continue with her life, to not contemplate suicide as she put it.

It made me wonder about the cultural differences between us.  In America, a woman still grieving the loss of a husband and son, twenty years after their death, might be shunned and told she needs to ‘get help’ and talk to a social worker to come to terms and accept these loses to move on.  But here, Suliha seems at peace.  She isn’t being pressured by any of her family or friends to get help, to them she is at peace and should be accepted as such.  What’s right?  How would you use your American social work skills in a place so different?

I don’t know how long this will sit with me so uncomfortably, or how long it will take to find meaning in all of this.  Is there a meaning to be found?  I am sure it will be impossible to get the same meaning that a local would experience, but what can I take from this for myself and for my own experiences as a social worker.  From everything I’ve seen, it has been so impactful to experience all of this 2nd hand rather then 3rd hand, reading it from a book.  Just walking through the streets, every single person has a first hand experience of how the war has effected them.

I walked into a t-shirt shoppe today and spent 15 minutes talking to a young woman tonight as she explained that at 7 years old 3 Serbian soldiers came into her home and threatened her family.  They all thought that they were going to die.  She said she was too young to remember exactly what happened, however, her father went outside with the soldiers and when he came back, he the soldiers left.  To this day she hasn’t asked her father exactly about what happened and she has chosen not to.  Everyone here has a story.  Everyone here has their own perspective on what the war has done.  And I believe what I have taken from today is how important it is to value and experience the story with an open mind.  I could sit here and talk about how much I hate Serbians, and how they deserve the same, but that wouldn’t do justice to the people who’s stories I have experienced.  For me, the most important part of this experience will be honoring these people by retelling their story and giving it the attention that each individual has given me.  They showed me their experiences, allowed me to feel their emotions.  It is the least I can do to show them respect through giving their story to others willing to listen.

First Impressions 2015

Second night in Bosnia, time to check in. It’s hard to describe my first impressions about my time here. I feel like every time I start to formulate my opinion on the city and the people here I am given a new experience and my impressions change. I can say for sure that the difference between experiencing this place in person compared to reading and watching videos about it is remarkable.

I’ve heard the expression before, “the death of one man is a tragedy, but the death of 1,000,000 is a statistic” used to describe how it is possible to become desensitized to disastrous situations, that it is impossible to conceive tragedy on a large scale. I feel like that saying has applied to my pre-existing understanding of Bosnia, and Sarajevo in particular. I read the articles about this place and learned its history, but nothing could have prepared me for seeing it in person. You don’t conceptualize how meaningful the barricade of this country has been until you hear it come out of person’s mouth that they lived almost completely without power for 3 years, only getting a few hours a week if they were lucky. You don’t understand how desperate people were to get food and supplies until you walk through the tunnels they had to walk through, just to get access to relatively cheaper food and supplies. You don’t understand how devastating the war was for communities until you are told that our tour guide personally knew over 100 people that died during the conflict.

How did this happen? Why did we let it go on? I find myself asking these questions, yet wondering simultaneously, are situations like this going on currently that I am just not aware of? Is this what families in eastern Ukraine are experiencing right now? Is this what families in the middle east are experiencing as they are forced from their homes or into living under the rule of unorthodox rebel groups like Boko Haram and ISIS? They are situations I knowingly don’t understand but wish I did. They are problems that I just don’t know if I have the answer to or the means to solve.

Regardless, it is important to keep one thing in mind, that the people in this country have experienced incredible trauma. There is evidence of that trauma all around us physically. However, I wonder if over the next few days I will get to see and experience how some of the mental, intangible, trauma from this war has impacted the people here. Our tour guide, Jadranka, has given me some insight into just how impactful this might have been for her. I can only imagine how that might have affected someone 20 years ago just after it happened. How did it change how the people here raised their children? How does it still change the way families interact with one another? These are just some of the questions I hope to answer over the next 12 days. And while I know I can never truly experience what the people of Bosnia have gone through, perhaps being present for this journey will allow me a bit of insight into how it has effected the people of this nation, and more importantly, I hope this experience will prepare me to be better equipped to deal with cultural trauma in the future.

I’m still unsure what to make of my emotions as of now. Sometimes I am angry hearing about people being gunned down as they ran across the airport runways, illuminated by United Nations spotlights. Sometimes I am horrified, as I was when I saw the footage of Sarajevo being bombarded by gunfire and mortar shells. I’d seen footage like this before, but it just felt different after being present in the country. It wasn’t just a place in my mind anymore. Are people grateful to us for trying to help? Do they care? Do they blame us for not doing something sooner?

I still have yet to make up my mind about what I have seen and experienced these past few days, and I have a feeling that seeing Srebrenica tomorrow is only going to add to my confusion. But for now, I am okay with that. If the people of Sarajevo can move on with their lives, perhaps there is hope that I will find some closure to this terrible conflict after all. But have people found closure, or have people just moved on and just gotten back to living a normal life for the sake of normalcy?