Mostar

It seems that every part of Bosnia is inhabited. As we have been driving through farmlands, houses are everywhere on the plots of land. That is a positive in my opinion. I hate how in many Arab countries, everyone seems to be living in the few big cities. Everywhere else is just empty lands that are never tended to, never developed or lived on. Maybe we could learn to spread out the population a little. I am sure it will help with the over crowdedness in the cities!

The amount of wood cut up and placed in piles everywhere we go has also caught my attention. Even the simpler houses have impressive wood work. Door and window frames are made of strong, beautiful wood. I am sure my mother would appreciate Bosnia’s wood wealth.

As we entered Mostar, may be the third biggest city in Bosnia, we were greeted by a hugely out sized cross on top of one of the mountains. It stood there overlooking the whole city below and giving a very powerful statement, “This city is still Christian.” As we drove through the city, I saw many churches and mosques built side by side. It reminded me of driving through Abbassia, Cairo. It seemed to me that religion was a fierce denominator in the demography of this city.

We headed towards the town center. It was so beautiful. The whole place was a bazaar of colourful little shops, selling all types of attractive souvenirs. The ground was built of cobbled stone placed neatly into the ground hundreds of years ago. This city is full of tourists... I did not like that. Although the metal handwork and scenic paintings in the market caught my attention, they were too overpriced; I did not allow myself to delve into a shopping spree. That was a good decision.

Instead, I walked through the old city until I came to Mostar Bridge. This bridge holds an important story. It was built in the 16th century by the Ottomans, connecting between the two sides of the city. The city is named after this bridge; Mostar comes from Stari Most or Old Bridge. During the war, this bridge was systematically bombed by the Croatian Army from 1992 to 1995 until completely demolished. After the war, UNESCO funded a 12 million Euro project to rebuild the 1,088 stones of the bridge to their original form. The bridge was reopened in 2004.

A photo museum had been dedicated to the bridge. I walked past the dated photos and let them tell me the story. I stared at the first photo dated June 1992. The first bomb had ripped off a significant portion of the bridge. It made me tear as I wandered past the pictures and the saw the bridge fall, bit by bit, in front of my eyes. In the last photo dated in 1995, the whole city had turned from a sun light green oasis into a grey, destructed piece of abandoned land. “How do the people of this country feel?” I asked myself.

We have been to another waterfall called Kravic. Then we stopped to pray in the mosque of another Ottoman fortress called Pocitelj. It was dark by the time we arrived and so we could not really appreciate much of it. The boys ran into a little coffee shop and tried to follow the remainder of the match. I think Germany was winning.

We are spending the night in an old Ottoman house. I like the house very much; it is full of old artifacts that have been kept throughout the years. Old ottoman rugs are covering the wooden floors, a wooden cradle for a new born is in the corner of room, and hand-made metal works are covering the walls. Outside, fruit trees are growing among the flowing streams. The only thing I cannot stand is the toilet. It smells and I decided I will have to wait until our next destination to use the bathroom!

The house belongs to an aristocratic family of Hungarian origin, called Velagic. They have maintained a complex of 7 houses as well as the surrounding lands and streams that run through them for over 400 years. Semir, the young man who owns the house we are staying at, has been talking to us for two hours now about tourism in Bosnia. He is studying tourism in Lyon, France and intends to finish his exams in September and come back to apply what he as learned to develop his country. His keenness on Bosnia and on its development is a rare trait in the young generation that has outlived the war. He stood at the door as he left us to go to sleep. “I will bring you honey from our bee hives for breakfast in the morning,” he said in french-accented English.


11.32 pm
7/7/2010
Mostar, Bosnia