Zdravo from Bosnia
Hello, from the torn up back roads of Bosnia.
I walked up the stone steps to collect my bags after a day in the city. I ate and drank and talked to a few of the shop keepers. I saw the popular spots of the area. I was dripping with sweat and curiosity; the city is rich with history.
The owner of the home we stayed in was sitting on her patio, taking a long drag from her cigarette.
I went to hand her the keys to the unit, and thank her for our stay.
“Can I ask one last question?” I asked.
She shrugged.
“What can we learn from the Bosnian people?”
She looked at me squarely, “what do you mean?”
I searched for a way to ask the question again, thinking her confusion was due to a language barrier between us.
“What can we learn from your history and people?,” I asked again. I try to be delicate about asking the same question twice. Sometimes I think it suggests that who I am talking to is dumb, when I know full-well they are accommodating me by speaking my language in their country. I’m the one who can’t bend, not them. I just didn’t know how else to ask.
“No, I understand the question, but you are asking the wrong one. I cannot teach you that which you do no stick around to learn. Tourists come in, they eat and drink and satisfy their own need to see the world, pat themselves on the back for being worldly, but what they don’t see in their short time here is the people. The relationships. How we are shaped by time and our relationship to the time that has passed. They see what they want to see. Drinks and trinkets and they leave. I cannot teach you what you do not stay to learn.”
Pause…
She’s right.
Even if I didn’t seek that answer.
Even if I don’t want this description to apply to me.
Even if…
Here is what I can tell you about Bosnia…
The buildings are chiseled away by bullet holes.
So are the people.
The war started after I was born.
The genocide started after I was born.
Trials only ended a few years ago.
This is my lifetime.
And I know very little about it.
I have so much still to learn.
About my world.
About my place in it.
About my responsibility.
About what it means to see people.
The world deserves people who are turning over rocks to understand, not people who seek only to buy polished stone.
So I take what she said and I learn.
This world deserves witnesses.
I become better for a world that deserves the very best that I can give.
Because she was right.
She was so very right.
Taylor Patrice