We Do Adventure

I don’t often post on the political situation here in Bosnia and Herzegovina but when I saw this article today I had to make some kind of comment. It quotes Milorad Dodik, prime minister of Bosnia's Serb-dominated entity of Republika Srpska, from a column published on Monday in Austrian daily Der Standard as saying: “Some countries accept that the people of Bosnia must be allowed to self-manage. Others seem to fear that when the training wheels of this international experiment are removed, "the bicycle" might fall over together with the child. But Bosnia and Herzegovina is now 15 years old. Is it not the time to give it a try?” He is explaining his argument for the closure of the Office of the High Representative (OHR). I can see how what could be seen as a babysitter for the international community could be seen as patronizing. However I’ve done a fair bit of mountain bike instruction over the years with young people aged 11-15. You learn that some riders can be surpris...

Last night I was talking to some of the young people we used to work with back in the UK. I had showed them some video of what we’re up to in Mostar, answered a whole bunch of their questions and finished off by talking about the big lesson I know I’ve learned since arriving in Bosnia and Herzegovina. I talked about what it feels like to cycle up onto the mountains around Mostar and ponder just how many deadly explosive devices still litter this landscape; how strange it is to have a conversation with a former Army bomb disposal expert about what hitting an anti-personnel mine might do to me and my mountain bike. Such a scenario is obviously best avoided. This is just one, admittedly dramatic, example of the lesson that is “don’t let fear run (or ruin) your life”. It’s all too easily done. At the less life-threatening end of the scale is the fear of making a fool of yourself with a failed phrase in local language. The temptation: to keep your mouth shut. Back on the bike the temptati...

This is Adrian. He works with us at Novi Most. He's waited a couple of years for this moment. He may look like he's about to tee-off with some crazy oversized driver but don't be fooled: this is Uni-Hockey. Uni-Hockey is not a sport I'd come across in England but it's big in Finland, apparently! It uses what Americans call a whiffle ball and plastic sticks. Teams have 3 players with sticks and a 'golman', wearing protective gear, on their knees. Tonight we launched what will turn into a Uni-Hockey team in Mostar. Seeing a project finally get off the ground is a great feeling, and so this post is dedicated to Adrian's dedication.

“Don't hate me for this one - but you are tagged at mine...” So began the comment that lead me to discover June 22 - 28th is National Recycling week in the UK. In the blog post she was referencing, Tuzla’s Fraught Mummy asks me: “Can you do any better in the Bosnian context? I think I'll struggle with the free availability of kesa at every store. Is Mostar any better on the recycling front?” It is true that most Bosnian shopkeepers would be genuinely offended, bemused, or both, if you tried to exit their store without your purchases safely wrapped in a generous selection of carrier bags. I could talk about how these bags end up blowing about the city, adorning trees and shrubs like some exotic form of flora. However, I’m going to lurch off in a slightly different direction. I remember one occasion after a particularly windy day when I should have stopped and photographed a field full of this freakish foliage. It was a truly sobering site, all the more so because it bordered the...

I think this post presents my recent ponderings on Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) – although I may have got that wrong! However, don’t be put off by the economic terminology; I’m going to talking about eating and shopping. Last night we were in Split to pick up some friends. It was the first time we’d driven there from Mostar so we left extra time for the journey. We didn’t get lost some we did get to visit the Joker Centar – not a bad comedy club but a smart new shopping centre, with a McDonald’s. At this point I should come clean and say I don’t even like McDonald’s. In the UK, if it had to be fast food like that then I would pick Burger King or, preferably, KFC. Then, of course, there was also the, arguably, healthier option of Subway. But not having had any of the above in none months we thought we should take the opportunity to remind ourselves what we are ‘missing’. As we sat munching some distinctly unimpressive fries I suddenly remembered we used to use the price of a McDonalds ...

Tonight I’m shamelessly stealing an extract from a brilliant post on Brits in Bosnia. This particular aspect of the Bosnian fascination with paper work was new to me but it’s one of the best illustrations of their national fixation I’ve read. The subject is birth certificates... "The problem is that in Bosnia your birth certificate is re-validated every 6 months. Yup, every 6 months every single Bosnian must go back to the relevant ministry and get a stamp, or whatever it is that they do to show that they are still, well, born. Because, you know, just maybe they have been born again and not in the religious sense."

I’ve long said i speak two languages: English and foreign. ‘Foreign’ is my personal amalgam of words and phrase gleaned from my travels. On the surface it could seem a diverse and useful tool, however it is not. The one thing I can guarantee is whatever country I visit only the words and phrases from every other country jump up and down shouting ‘pick me’ in the back of my mind. We are working hard to get to grips with the Bosnian. At the same time I am shocked by the amount of schoolboy French that has resurfaced from my subconscious. A French friend recently sent us an album they have produced but Rowan doesn’t really approve of me listening to it. She claims that it’ll just confuse us. She is probably right. However, today I was at a kindergarten discussing a redecoration project. Of the four of us visiting two were local, one German and me, an Englishman. They were looking at large tubs of paint in a store room when I started to hear disgruntled noises and the word ‘Francuski’. Sud...

Rowan would like to present the dubious award of “Worst Shop Ever” to the Merkur at the bottom of our street. Merkur may be Bosnia’s biggest domestic chain of mini- and super-markets but this example is truly a scourge on its name. I struggle to think of a redeeming feature of our local store. It rarely has what you’re looking for, and we would never think to shop there for anything other than life’s basics. The fruit and veg it displays were fresh once, long before they saw those shelves. At the other end of the scale the frozen produce looks like it actually experienced the ice age! The trigger for this odious honour came tonight as we purchased some cheese. A block of pre-packaged Gouda, tightly wrapped in bright yellow plastic. I should have been suspicious but its slightly squidgy feel but we were in a hurry. We got home to discover it was emitting a powerful an odour – not normal. Then Rowan noticed it was about a quarter green, visible through the packaging. To prevent some kind...

While not want to play down the delights of Mostar, or indeed the rest of Bosnia and Herzegovina, permit me to indulge in a little piece of promotion for the delights of the Croatian Coast...although naturally one tempered with a warning!

Regular readers will probably have noticed my new sources of choice are timesonline.co.uk and bbc.co.uk . You might also have heard me talk about how little of what is happening in this part of the world ever gets reported through those sites. And so tonight I have to blog on this subject because something of a minor miracle has happened in regard to the British press. “Fresh footage of Europe’s top war crimes fugitive Ratko Mladic shown on Bosnian television has today caused a bitter row with neighbouring Serbia, which is tasked with bringing him to justice.” So begins the article linked of the front page of The Times site. The BBC is also carrying the story with similar prominence. While I’m pleased to see Bosnia and Herzegovina getting some needed exposure this is clearly a politically sensitive issue that could serve only to compound an already tense situation in this country. Nevertheless, international attention is important. For those wanting an easy way of getting some backgrou...

Rowan’s sister once saw Robbie Williams sitting on a park bench in London. That was back when he was the star and to suggest Take That could successfully reform (without him) and go on to pull off the largest stadium tour the UK has seen (ever) might have got one sectioned! I’ve visited London many times and can’t claim a single celebrity spot. Ok, so I once saw a woman who was the spitting image of Madonna on the corner of Leicester Square and Charing Cross Road. The huge dark glasses looked legit but as the blond hair wasn’t buried under a baseball cap the lipstick was too conspicuously red I'm convinced it wasa try-hard and not the real deal. Last night we were enjoying a late-night dinner with the guy who drove us to Bosnia, outside a bar in the Old Town of Sarajevo. Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, would surely be the place for celebrity sightings. However in my case a complete ignorance of the names and faces of the local glitterati is always going to make tha...

This is no Ansel Adams but to the naked eye this was a fantastic view. The town across the water is Gradac, on the Makarska Riviera in Croatia. I had to upload this one as a tribute to our trusty Canon Ixus 70, who got a wet bottom as I was taking it! Once the day began to cool down the light was just amazing. I love sunsets at the best of times. Today we were treated to the sun slipping down behind the mountains as we strolled along the sea shore. Beautiful stuff!

If you were to go to www.hyundai.ba you could make an online reservation for a hire car. However, I’m not sure I’d recommend it. Not that I don’t recommend hiring from Hyundai; I am a satisfied repeat customer. Let me tell yesterday’s tale and perhaps you’ll understand why I’m reticent to recommend online reservations. I walked into Hyundai’s rental car office at Mostar’s main station. The staff – in the singular – looked up from his desk and greeted me, in English. ‘I want to hire a car’ ‘When?’ ‘Ponedeljak...whole week’ ‘What car?’ ‘Getz’ Out came a classic Stabilo highlighter – fluorescent pink- to draw a neat line on the A4 schedule sitting on the desk. I spelt out my surname and and couple of little ‘8’s were scribbled at the beginning and end of the line – a record of our agreed pick-up and return times. And that was that. It is obvious it is the A4 paper schedules, not the computer, which governs what goes on in (or out) of the office. To use their website not only would run th...

I was chastised tonight for my reticence to speak Bosnian, by a Bosnian in Bosnian. That I understood it was a telling off says something about the improvement in my language skills. But they have a point. It is the embarrassment of being wrong I need to get over. Perhaps I need someone to get in my face a scream: get over yourself! Yesterday I was reading ‘It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want To Be’ by Paul Arden*. He extols the freeing power of being wrong. And in this context he’s right. I know it. When it comes to working with ideas I constant encourage others not to fear being wrong, yet perhaps the same fear is stopping me from opening my mouth. I know I’m becoming too comfortable being silent – not needing to explain myself of have my say in a conversation! When I do try it can all backfire. If nothing else, those moments give Rowan the chance to laugh at my deer-in-the-headlights facial expressions. She is enjoying watching me struggle at something, and I can’t bla...

The second song from our first gig in Mostar. This is our as yet untitled band rocking at it's hardest and fastest...which is way the sound quality suffers a little at the end! Filmed at Klub Novi Most in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina. The drummer and I teach music there and the performance was part of our work to inspire young people to get involved in learning to play an instrument. Early signs show we succeeded.

I don’t really want to write about the weather, it seems like such a cop out, but I will. What’s convinced me is the sorry situation I found myself in this afternoon. Ben’s family are visiting from Wales and as Ben doesn’t drive (it’s probably more accurate to say he doesn’t have a licence) I offered to play taxi for a spot of local sightseeing. So it was I ended up at Blagai in the pouring rain! Up at the source of the Buna water was gushing out of the cliff face at such a rate it was within an inch of overrunning the riverside cafes. As we sat huddled around some hot drinks I noticed I could see my breath. Ben’s younger brother started shivering and it wasn’t long before he was wrapped up in his sister’s spare cardigan. For Ben and I a freak week of bad weather in June isn’t too much to grumble about, even if we have been told, repeatedly, that there’s no rain in Mostar in the summer months. However you have to feel for his family who’ve flown in expecting a summer break. Not only ar...