ROAD TRIP

Sandy and I headed down to Mostar this last weekend to visit with La Strada, an anti-trafficking organization. Since the last bus ride I took to Mostar ended in disaster; so we decided to rent a smart car. Our friend Vesna's brother in law rents car and had smart cars. Instead of only dreaming about renting a smart car, the dream came true and Sandy and I were the proud renters of Baby Blue. She is amazingly big on the inside until you turn around and notice that there is no backseat. The road on the way was beautiful. It is something I would have never seen if we took the bus again, because i would have had sandy knock me out. I wanted to post some pics for you guys to see!

Weekend with the Girls Mostar Style!!

It has been awhile since the fab four have been together and we finally made it back in Mostar. Which could be the hottest place in the whole of BiH. There are three minarets in the world you are allowed to climb up. There just happens to be two in Mostar BiH. This picture is taken at the top of that climb. We were waiting for the call to pray to go off when we were up there but we made it down.
This is the old bridge in Mostar. It was destroyed during the war so the Muslims and Serbs could not cross sides. It was rebuilt in 2004.
All I know that it was hot enough that i wanted to jump off the bridge. We waited for a while for this guy to go for it. I feel like he might have the best job in Mostar.

Prijedor

Kristine and I went to Prijedor last week for thursday and friday (we missed you sandy). We had a 2 day workshop to put together for the women who will be working at the safehouse there. After a delightful car ride we arrived at the safehouse where about 8 staff were waiting for us to begin. We trained the women on common reactions to trauma, communitcation with trauma victims and began our speil about self care. We were told that most of the women except for maybe 2 were new to this field and were survivors of domestic violence themselves. After a couple of hours of training, the women headed out
and the real fun began. Two of the safehouse staff spent the night at the house with me and krash. Along with 2 daughters of one of the women. The picture krash took of me with our dictionary out is opnly the beginning of our 24 hour charade game. Even though communication was difficult it was a great time. After the water in the house went out the women headed out back to the well to start drawing water. At first they did not let us help but after we revealed krash was a farmer's daughter they put us to work; which was great. We needed enough water for cooking, cleaning, bathing and going to the restroom. As you can see krash did just fine getting her hands dirty. Her snazzy vest is made of wool and aside from begin highly fashionable, it kept her quite warm during our after dinner activites. I was not left out however, my green and purple cardigan rivals the wool vest well. After fetching water we helped Milca and Sloba in the garden. While they were working on the tomato vines we had the task of picking beans. Which we later realized would be a gift to us for our bus ride back. It was a great two days. The evening was so peaceful and relazing, even after 5 cups of coffee. yikes!! we had a training the next morning about self care. I think it was very fitting since i feel that our weekend there was a bit a self care for each of us. We were invited back next year and told they would learn alittle more english and we said we would learn alittle more srpske...even though charades are so fun..

crazy times....

I just really love these two pictures and think they sum up our time here in Banja Luka. As the summer gets closer to ending I feel as if people are really beginning to experience difficult times with tons of things. This is how we are handling it! Scary huh?

creating ethnic tensions...

so, this is a picture of our balcony where we hang our clothes to dry. our friend anchi came into town from croatia. how, the red and blue towel happens to be from croatia and represents the soccer team there. however, we did not realize that it would be a problem hanging this towel out to dry....cause why would we think that it is a problem. So we get a text from Djuro about taking the towel down. we believed it was because he is serbian and likes the serbian soccer team. this however was not the case. He asked us to take the towel down for safety reasons. Apparently after 12 years from the war being over to be seen with croatian objects or as croatian is a safety risk. So there we were, in a completely serbian region, flying our croatian flag high...yikes! needless to say it has been taken down and a serbian one hung up (wink)

Party in Banja Luka...

So Lisa decided to come up from Sarajevo and see what all the hype was in Banja Luka. Also because we are here and what better reason to come to the city than to visit us. Along with Lisa; Susie and Renee came over from Serbia and Anhchi came down from Croatia. Full House (humming the theme song right now)!




There was a trail leading to the top of this mountain we had been hearing about all summer and people have been telling us we need to hike it! Since there were going to be so many of us here we decided what better weekend than this! This is Renee, Sandy, Susie and Lisa as we started up the hill. I was behind cause i had to pace myself. Didnt want to pass out in the first half hour. This is actually the least steep section of the hike. Little did we know what we were getting ourselves into or that hiking meant being on a paved road.



The roomies at the top of the mountain. Taking a break on the WWII monument. It was interesting to see a monument covered with carvings of Nazi soldiers killing people all over the place. Strange monument to honor those who died. But at least they were being honored.





This is me. I made it to the top and it was a close one let me tell you! This is the face of
triumph!!

Prijedor

Here we are getting ready to head off to Prijedor, Bosnia. There is a safehouse and another organization we have been speaking with in order to learn about psychosocial efforts here after the war. Since Banja Luka was more of a safe haven than a fighting area. Tanja and Vesna thought it would be fitting to get us somewhere that fighting happened! We are a strange group of people arent we....searching out war trauma victims!

This is a place in Prijedor we will be staying while Kristine and I train the safehouse staff. We will be spending a few days here training on safety planning, self-care and healthy boundary setting.

Sandy and I after eating a wonderful Bosnian meal....however, once a chicken lung fell out onto my plate I was finished! some things I just cant do!