Time to ride?

I don’t often post on the political situation here in Bosnia and Herzegovina but when I saw this article today I had to make some kind of comment. It quotes Milorad Dodik, prime minister of Bosnia's Serb-dominated entity of Republika Srpska, from a column published on Monday in Austrian daily Der Standard as saying: “Some countries accept that the people of Bosnia must be allowed to self-manage. Others seem to fear that when the training wheels of this international experiment are removed, "the bicycle" might fall over together with the child. But Bosnia and Herzegovina is now 15 years old. Is it not the time to give it a try?”

He is explaining his argument for the closure of the Office of the High Representative (OHR). I can see how what could be seen as a babysitter for the international community could be seen as patronizing. However I’ve done a fair bit of mountain bike instruction over the years with young people aged 11-15. You learn that some riders can be surprisingly competent at this age but others are a danger to themselves. I remember picking a chubby kid up off the ground, blood pouring from his chin and a chunk missing from his helmet. “He’s unlucky with bikes” was his mother’s response. The truth was he didn’t listen to instructions.

Opinion is divided on how long the OHR should remain open. The ‘training wheels’ do need to come off at some point but when depends on when those with the power to say so decide that the rider really wants to ride and isn’t going to end up in a bloody and broken mess. The jury is still out on that one.

Test drive!

Last night I was talking to some of the young people we used to work with back in the UK. I had showed them some video of what we’re up to in Mostar, answered a whole bunch of their questions and finished off by talking about the big lesson I know I’ve learned since arriving in Bosnia and Herzegovina. I talked about what it feels like to cycle up onto the mountains around Mostar and ponder just how many deadly explosive devices still litter this landscape; how strange it is to have a conversation with a former Army bomb disposal expert about what hitting an anti-personnel mine might do to me and my mountain bike. Such a scenario is obviously best avoided.

This is just one, admittedly dramatic, example of the lesson that is “don’t let fear run (or ruin) your life”. It’s all too easily done. At the less life-threatening end of the scale is the fear of making a fool of yourself with a failed phrase in local language. The temptation: to keep your mouth shut. Back on the bike the temptation would be not to ride. When facing cross-cultural challenges the temptation can be not to go there. But that’s where fear is such a spoiler. We had so many positive experiences since moving that would never have happened if we’d let our fears get in the way.

You can’t say stuff like this without it being put to the test. This came sooner than expected. Early this afternoon I got off a plane a Dubrovnik airport and headed for the taxi rank to catch a quicker ride to the bus station, hoping this would mean an earlier arrival in Mostar. I got in the car and immediately noticed something strange. The driver hand a muscle twitch. Normally it would be rude to comment on such things but when you’re being driven along a twisty mountain road in a powerful Mercedes it could be seen as a matter of some concern that barely a minute passes where both the drivers hands don’t involuntarily leave the steering wheel at the same moment, or you feel the car gently kangarooing under the varying pressure being applied to the gas pedal.

I was surprised at how relaxed I remained. I made the bus station in time to catch an earlier bus. And it was the bus that was arguably driven more erratically!

The Wait Is Over

This is Adrian. He works with us at Novi Most. He's waited a couple of years for this moment. He may look like he's about to tee-off with some crazy oversized driver but don't be fooled: this is Uni-Hockey.

Uni-Hockey is not a sport I'd come across in England but it's big in Finland, apparently! It uses what Americans call a whiffle ball and plastic sticks. Teams have 3 players with sticks and a 'golman', wearing protective gear, on their knees. Tonight we launched what will turn into a Uni-Hockey team in Mostar. Seeing a project finally get off the ground is a great feeling, and so this post is dedicated to Adrian's dedication.

Recycling

“Don't hate me for this one - but you are tagged at mine...” So began the comment that lead me to discover June 22 - 28th is National Recycling week in the UK. In the blog post she was referencing, Tuzla’s Fraught Mummy asks me: “Can you do any better in the Bosnian context? I think I'll struggle with the free availability of kesa at every store. Is Mostar any better on the recycling front?”

It is true that most Bosnian shopkeepers would be genuinely offended, bemused, or both, if you tried to exit their store without your purchases safely wrapped in a generous selection of carrier bags. I could talk about how these bags end up blowing about the city, adorning trees and shrubs like some exotic form of flora. However, I’m going to lurch off in a slightly different direction.

I remember one occasion after a particularly windy day when I should have stopped and photographed a field full of this freakish foliage. It was a truly sobering site, all the more so because it bordered the rubbish dump where many of the young people we know live and work with their families. We put our rubbish in the large bin on our street. They come around and rummage through the bin rescuing anything useful, like bottles for recycling or metal for resale. They are the heroes of recycling in Mostar.

I’ve still not been to see where they live. It would seem like an insensitive intrusion unless I has a legitimate reason to visit, although I regularly drop young people to the car park just outside the dump after an evening at Klub. I’ve not asked but I can’t help but wondering if they prefer me not seeing where they live. Perhaps it allows them greater dignity and the freedom to be what so many others refuse to let them be – normal young people.

In a city too often divided by ethnic tensions these heroes are a unifying factor in that they are almost universally looked down upon. But as we’ve got to know more of these young people we’ve found them to be so different to the prejudice-driven stereotypes that exist. When these young people visit Klub they are polite and well behaved. I’ve always found them obviously appreciative and never seen them take advantage of what’s on offer to them; all very different to some other young people from more privileged backgrounds.

So my pledge is not to do something that reduces my waste or increases my recycling but to do something for those who are already out there working with Mostar’s waste. Novi Most’s summer programme starts tomorrow morning and I will be there to serve, amongst others, those who get no thanks for working with rubbish. And when I am shopping I will only take a plastic bag if I absolutely need to!

Purchasing Power Parity?

I think this post presents my recent ponderings on Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) – although I may have got that wrong! However, don’t be put off by the economic terminology; I’m going to talking about eating and shopping.

Last night we were in Split to pick up some friends. It was the first time we’d driven there from Mostar so we left extra time for the journey. We didn’t get lost some we did get to visit the Joker Centar – not a bad comedy club but a smart new shopping centre, with a McDonald’s. At this point I should come clean and say I don’t even like McDonald’s. In the UK, if it had to be fast food like that then I would pick Burger King or, preferably, KFC. Then, of course, there was also the, arguably, healthier option of Subway. But not having had any of the above in none months we thought we should take the opportunity to remind ourselves what we are ‘missing’.

As we sat munching some distinctly unimpressive fries I suddenly remembered we used to use the price of a McDonalds meal to make a rough comparison between currencies. For example: last night two meals cost 73Kuna. The exchange rate is approximately 8 Kuna to 1 GBP, meaning we paid a little over nine quid for two large ‘xtra value’ meals. That’s not unlike UK prices, as we remember them; certainly much better than McDonald’s we bought in Norway or Switzerland.

However, living overseas you start to see how this is a very shallow measure. Walking around a fancy shopping centre could give the impression Croatia is an affluent country on a par with any of Europe’s leading economies. But this is only half the picture. There are plenty of people who have money and can afford to pay, comparatively, more for the latest trends from Nike or Benetton or Topshop. But there are many who can’t. The same is true in Bosnia.

Add in the ice creams we had and last night dinner cost 93 Kuna, which is a little over 20KM. That we paid so much of a McDonald’s would be anathema to some of our Bosnian friends. (For that price we can get a decent meal in Mostar.) Going out for coffee is a big part of their culture but paying to eat out isn’t. And as firm believers in the supremacy of good ćevapi they would have been appalled by the quality of the soggy patty in last night’s burger!

A stolen story!

Tonight I’m shamelessly stealing an extract from a brilliant post on Brits in Bosnia. This particular aspect of the Bosnian fascination with paper work was new to me but it’s one of the best illustrations of their national fixation I’ve read. The subject is birth certificates...

"The problem is that in Bosnia your birth certificate is re-validated every 6 months. Yup, every 6 months every single Bosnian must go back to the relevant ministry and get a stamp, or whatever it is that they do to show that they are still, well, born. Because, you know, just maybe they have been born again and not in the religious sense."

Francuski?

I’ve long said i speak two languages: English and foreign. ‘Foreign’ is my personal amalgam of words and phrase gleaned from my travels. On the surface it could seem a diverse and useful tool, however it is not. The one thing I can guarantee is whatever country I visit only the words and phrases from every other country jump up and down shouting ‘pick me’ in the back of my mind.

We are working hard to get to grips with the Bosnian. At the same time I am shocked by the amount of schoolboy French that has resurfaced from my subconscious. A French friend recently sent us an album they have produced but Rowan doesn’t really approve of me listening to it. She claims that it’ll just confuse us. She is probably right.

However, today I was at a kindergarten discussing a redecoration project. Of the four of us visiting two were local, one German and me, an Englishman. They were looking at large tubs of paint in a store room when I started to hear disgruntled noises and the word ‘Francuski’. Suddenly I’m being asked if I speak French. Before I know it I’m blagging my way through a translation of the side of a paint tub; an unexpected moment of triumph for my limited linguistic abilities!