Bosnian Bulletin #17
July 14, 2000
Dear Friends and Family,
Greetings from Sarajevo in the middle of a heat wave!! Temperatures here have been hovering
around 40 C (104 F) for the past couple of weeks. The news
has reported more the 40 heat-related deaths throughout South
Eastern Europe. The heat and lack of rain has
contributed to many forest fires in Bosnia and neighboring
Croatia. Farmers' fields are dry and they have very little
opportunity to irrigate. If substantial rain doesn't come,
they may not get another cutting of hay and their corn crops will
suffer greatly. For many people subsistence farming is
their livelihood so they depend on rain to have enough
to make it through the winter. Today is cooler and
cloudy and we are praying the heat will break and that it will
rain soon. Bosnians don't remember this kind of heat and
fear that this will be an annual trend.
Work at Face to Face Interreligious Service has been slow.
But, after the busy year we've had, we're happy for a little
rest. Generally speaking, everything here slows
down in summer. The people who are able to, take vacations
or visit relatives, etc. We try to lay low in this
heat -especially during the afternoons and eat lots of ice cream
(there are stands on every corner)!!
I (Karin) recently had an interesting encounter on a visit
to a small city named Foca. Before the war, the city was
predominantly Muslim and during the war there was horrible
ethnic cleansing, mass murders, rape camps, etc. It is now
part of the Republika Srpska (the Serbian entity) and has
been renamed "Srbinj". I traveled there with a
group of Catholic theological students from Sarajevo (the
students from the Islamic faculty had to cancel at the last
minute) to meet with students from the Serbian Orthodox
theological school there. This was the second time the
group had met. The first time was at
the Franciscan Catholic theological seminary here in
Sarajevo. The idea is to open up dialogue between the
groups, therefore reduce misunderstanding, mistrust, and
fear, and to look for ways to cooperate. The whole day
was very interesting. At one of the several coffee
breaks, I sat down next to a Serbian Orthodox
priest. We talked briefly about the school and then,
noticing my accent, he asked where I was from. Upon telling
him I am American, he began to talk about damages
done by NATO bombings in Yugoslavia. He became
visibly agitated and began pointing his questions directly
at me. I told him I was painfully aware of what my
country had done there and that I didn't agree with it
and that's why I was there. I tried to explain to him that
I am a Mennonite and that I don't believe in violence
as a solution. I told him I had come to help people out of
God's love and I hoped that he could see me as a child
of God and not just as an American. He responded
that "you sects all speak of love, love, love, but
what about truth?". It's important to understand
that Christian churches other than Catholic and Orthodox are
considered sects or cults or heretics in this region.
I knew he would not be inclined to see me as an equal. He
continued to talk to me about the atrocities in
Yugoslavia. I listened as carefully as I could
and when he stopped briefly, I asked him if he thought
he could forgive me as a person who was truly sorry for
what my country had done. For the first time in
the conversation, he was at a loss for words. Finally, he
offered "...well, yes, of course" and added "but I
cannot account for your salvation!" I told him
I'd leave that to God. Coffee break was over and
we joined the group for the remainder of the
day's program. Our conversation had been difficult but
I hoped that it had been a positive experience for him with a
reformed Christian, with an American. Perhaps it was
the first. As we prepared to leave for Sarajevo,
I went to say good-bye to him and thank him for our
conversation. To my wonder, he took my hand and said
"until next time, Sister". A gracious gift
of healing and understanding.
Another highlight for us since I last wrote, was the peacemaking
seminar that we attended in Northern Ireland. It was a week
long "summer school" on issues related to
peacemaking. MCC sponsored us and a group of individuals
from all over the Balkans to attend. We spent a couple days
with that group in Belfast hosted by Mediation Network
(affiliated with MCC) learning more about that conflict and
visiting groups there that are working in areas similar to those
we work in here in the Balkans. It was a very valuable
experience. We then went on to the seminar on the northern
coast at the Corrymeela community. There were more than 100
participants from some 30 countries around the world -Northern
Ireland, Kazakhstan, Russia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Rwandan,
South Africa, Congo, Kenya, Sudan, Sri Lanka, India,
etc. We were able to spend a lot of time learning
together, talking together and fellowshipping together. For
our main course of study, John participated in
"Peacemaking in Chronically Divided Societies" and
I participated in "Restorative (or Transformative)
Justice. We both came away with more knowledge, more
perspective, more hope and a feeling of renewal.
MCC hopes to continue to develop the relationships with the group
from the Balkans who attended.
And before this e-mail gets too long, I'll answer another
Frequently Asked Question:
**********
What kind of food do you eat there?
I think what most people want to know
by asking this question is, what are the
traditional foods in Bosnia? First of all, I would
say it is a lot of meat and potatoes. A
special meal for guests would include roasting a whole
animal (lamb or pig) on a spit over an open fire. They then
chop the whole thing into pieces with an axe (not exactly
like carving a turkey!). You might get a lot of bones and
gristle in your piece, but the meat is quite tasty.
The bread is wonderful! There are several different
kinds -some with cornmeal, some baked in a very hot wood
oven. They would also probably serve cabbage or lettuce
salad, tomatoes, pickled vegetables, boiled eggs, etc.
The "national" food however, is called cevapcici
(che-VAP-chee-chee). It's basically little sausages
(without casing) fried or grilled and served on a big
bun-like bread with onions and a homemade, soft
cheese. Quite greasy and heavy, but fast, cheap and
yummy. It's their equivalent to a hamburger.
The other most common food to buy on the street is
called "pita" which means pie. However, it
doesn't resemble Greek pita bread or American pie!! It is
made with very thin layers of dough and filled
with either that soft cheese, cheese and spinach,
potatoes or meat. It's baked. I can proudly say I've
learned to make this very time-consuming food from scratch!!
There are lots of other wonderful traditional dishes -stuffed
peppers, onions, grape leaves, okra soup, Bosnian stew,
etc. Pizza is also very popular here, though they use
ketchup instead of tomato sauce, dried or smoked meats instead of
pepperoni and often crack an egg onto the center.
At home we cook all kinds of different foods. We have
requested spices from home and can make almost anything from our
favorite cookbook "Extending the Table".
**********
Feel free to submit more questions to be answered in future
Bulletins. :)
We know you must all be having busy summers and are spending more
time outdoors than at your computers (judging by the reduced
number of e-mails we receive!) We hope you're having a
wonderful summer. And we hope to hear from you, too!
God's Love and Peace,
Karin & John
Face to Face Interreligious Service
Splitska 39
71000 Sarajevo
Bosnia-Herzegovina
home tel: 387 71 207 860
office tel/fax: 387 71 442 468
home: jandk@bih.net.ba
office: ociuoci@bih.net.ba
http://www.progressive-bih.com/ociuoci
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