THE GIRL OVER THE RIVER DRINA

You can't change the Balkans. It's plastic that changes. What humans make changes. What God makes lives. Culture is always stable politics never were. Lying about culture by not talking about what was done is what America was based upon aside from a few Nobel ideals. Working as a volunteer here for two years she asked me if I wanted to go back to America. Of course I do. No one is at home there. I can live in my family, but we make no communities together in policies of division. I've found the Balkans home. Go Home. Don't listen understand. These ramblings I must put on paper for this community grows tired of hearing things it knows. In the Balkans they all know why they can't and growing tired and soon they must. I say to NATO and to the Humanitarian movement...come to the table. And hear a short story about eight people who had nothing to do but live together seven days and share an understanding that never needed words but here they
are.
The west has technology and lacks community
The east has lost its technology, but never community
Who has the greater challenge to overcome??
Sarajevo without reasons and some leaping in the night that was there, but another story. Sunday eight am a walk in the snow a taxi drive my second in two years. The bus station. To get on a bus Bosnian people must have food. You don't buy it along the way you bring and run out. Edin and I as volunteers in the Balkans where going because someone asked us to a seminar in Slovenija. Edo had always been a volunteer in the Balkans I only started, but for two years. Getting on the bus for Ljubiana I thought I had a story to tell. I had lived in Zenica had loved had learned, but all I had was a small understanding to be open and a large need to put importance on things that were not. We rode to Zenica this brown in my eye. I was traveling all the places I had known to Travnik. The conversation around me never stops. At first I was identified as a Slovenian heading home. I left this misunderstanding and only listened and watched those around. To my left a Croatian who knew Bosnia home. To the right behind two from Sarajevo that knew Germany better, were home with Bosnia. Behind a wrestling fan young not in school for four years, but had been all around lost in a conversation with the Balkans. Ten hours to Bihać, three for ten kilometers. Snow on the Srbska republik nothing moves there. They never stopped talking the war, the price of Cevap CiCi in Busovaci, all the stories flowing. When I first came here I only heard the rhythm of language. It all sounded important. In my English rhythm was only found in importance. Now understanding there was more rhythm in nothing in life. A woman to my right only listened and watched I watched her eyes. I studied them in a fourteen hour orgasm of understanding of living. My enjoyment rolled they never stopped. Complete annoyance to complete enjoyment. A year ago I worked very hard to understand. For annoyance and enjoyment I worked very hard. Here it began to roll. In Bihac I was identified and the questions came not looking for answers. Why did you come to Bosnia? Why didn't America stop this war? I came to Bosnia for a bed to sleep in. A place where the question was always why never what. That was the reason I stayed. Bosnians were not supposed to survive. America had sold them to a new world order incomplete. Strength of presence was stability. We had won the cold war by being colder and lasting longer standing on our lines. We crossed the border it was nice to see. Crossing in Croatian land there was always blue policemen. The first international Bosnian border I had reached was green. Sixteen hours and Ljubiana. I watched their eyes head down the road as us eight from Bosnia stood in the streets at midnight. A kombi bus for us three more hours. Martin Slovene greeted us as we continued on. I sat with Slavica sweetly and spoke in English everything I knew about in English that I do. "Do you speak Bosnian?"
"1 do, but I can't right now."
"1 don't like to speak English," I didn't know what she meant. I knew she understood English. We stopped for fuel. And we bought things they had in Bosnia only with new packages and together as a group for the first time. I knew Dorthee or we had met and Edin, we all knew at least another, but this was the first time we all met.
The garbage can had a smilee face, "Everything's happy in Slovenija." It looked a lot like America only cleaner. We in a circle and then go. Zlatko from Banovici. Slaven from Tuzla. Ameldin from Gorazde. Dennis from Cleveland. Edin from Gomji Vakuf. Sanela from Tuzla. Dorthee from Switzerland. We arrived in two rooms in the mountains. A better hotel than I had ever stayed in. Better then they had in Bosnia. Three in the morning in two rooms. Sarajevo Sunday 8am. Our rooms Monday 3am. We had arrived and talked about our work. We had the same ideas. We talked about Srebenica we had the same feelings. The five of us and a bottle of Stock 1884. There were four beds and conversation in rhythm. And then a five am boom. We were all asleep. We were all home. And the morning 9am. We were together with the energy that comes from being together. Around one table all others were certain that we had been together 100 years. I did not know that then, but I find it hard to express closed eyes alone. The time line is lost. I didn't think these thoughts in all those thens, but forever in my life now. The dead in Columbus I fell back in emptiness and all I had was my name and a dance, but I only visited community. Seminar and randomness. One two three four. When we counted it was easy to see. There’s a natural rhythm broken by closed eyes. Most sang out with purpose or only chance. Some refused and they were of no interest to me and we finished a day of randomness. Most thought the day was over. There was a schedule of enjoyment and there was none for Monday, but a guitar and time to be together. Martin and Usor went for Stock 1884 and some beer. There was no place to stay prepared, we all searched and many who had expected an end joined in. On the second floor lobby and the couches gathered near. Bosnians the guitar and the Balkans.
Seven more days drained all of us. We worked every day. The last day everyone spoke like old friends. We eight barely moved. The bus ride from Sarajevo was longer than the time we spent sleeping that week. We all prepared to leave returning to seven republics. The Serbians left at 4:30 am. They had places to go. The five of the republics had plans. Us eight from Bosnia had just realized we needed a way back home. This came as no surprise and with great delight to the other republics. There is a Bosnian identity. We headed in the right direction. Bus to Ljubijana. We clustered in the station still apart from the whole. What Edo described as the modern jail. Train to Zagreb. We’d figure out something from there. Reminded me of those Andric Bosnians arriving to take the train to Sarajevo from Vise Grad. They arrived when they could and assumed there would be a train leaving at sometime. Urbanization taught many the schedules, but in Bosnia sometimes it is just important that you are going in the right direction. To reach my wife years later. I traveled to Vise Grad and was refused a visa twice. Slept the night and hitchhiked to “Pale”. A Bus from Zenica that never stopped there picked me up. Even better I was going to have to go around anyways. Six days from Sarajevo to Nis. Bosnia put me in the right direction.