Gone!

-

I took this photo on our first visit to Mostar, back in March 2008. A quick search through my photo albums has indentified it as the best photo I have of the building second from the right.

As we walked into town this morning we discovered this ruin had been reduced to a pile of rubble. (I didn't have my camera with me or you might be looking at picture of that too!)

This highlights a dilema I have often pondered. For us, who only arrived in this country two years ago, the derelict and ruined buildings are part of the character of the place. We never knew them when they were shops or houses. For people here they must serve as a constant reminder not just of the pain of conflict but of a past that is unlikely ever to return. Seeing them restored or replaced by new buildings must give some hope for the future. For us is a reminder to beware the dangers of misplaced sentimentality.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Anyone for Battenberg?

-
It was the reminder of yet another iconic food item not available – at least to my knowledge – to those of us living in the Balkans. A friend messaged me on Facebook to say he thought it was time the resurrect ‘The Battenberg Effect’. Now that’ll mean nothing to some of you, while other readers will be thinking of pink and yellow fluffy sponge squares glued together with jam and wrapped in marzipan! The Gutenberg Effect – or thegutenbergeffect – is a blog I started a couple of years ago. It was a ‘tech blog’ of sorts. Drawing from my experience in communications and creative development, as a writer, project manager and mentor, I wanted to add my two pennies to the understanding of trends in technology and the social impact of these changes. I hadn’t posted on the site since before our move to Bosnia and Herzegovina...until today. His message made me realise I still have something to say on the subjects I used to riff around, but from the new perspective of our new environment. For ex
Read more

10 things we learned in 10 years of adventure

-
Image
As we write this it is less than a month to the ten year anniversary of us climbing into a Transit van to drive across Europe to start our adventure in Bosnia and Herzegovina. A lot has happened since then. So much we could write a book about it. We haven't written a book but we did push the boat out and make a booklet highlighting ten key things we've learned over the last decades. While supplies of the physical booklet are limited you can grab as many copies of the pdf version as you like! Click here for 10 things we learned in 10 years of adventure Click here for 10 things we learned in 10 years of adventure (+support forms)
Read more

Happy: we didn't make this!

-
Don't miss the nuance of the colon: the video is called Happy, and we didn't film or edit it. Rowan, however, did lend her smiling face and improvisational dance skills to the project. Internet people will probably have heard about Happy, the song from Despicable Me 2 by Pharrell Williams. You can watch the original version on the IamOTHER Youtube channel . If that's not enough for you there is 24 hour version , split into hour-long movies on the same channel. It's a genius way to prove a viral concept doesn't have to be short and sweet. Far from the streets of LA, this dance response comes from the streets of historic Jajce, in Central Bosnia. The project was organised by volunteers at the Omladinski Centar, the local youth centre in town. The video was uploaded yesterday and as I'm writing this has just under two thousand views. That's good going. Judging by the number of people we're seeing share it on Facebook that's just the beginning. Enjoy
Read more