We Do Adventure

We have a floorball team here in Jajce. That is unusual. Although I'd never heard of the sport until I arrived in this country it's not one of the main sports here. Football undoubtedly claims that prize, although handball, basketball and volleyball would all give it a good run for its money. While floorball may be largely undiscovered here, as it is in the UK, it's huge in Finland. The couple of times I've been there it was the only sport I saw kids playing in the streets, unless you count cycling, which they do a lot of too. When I heard our team had been drawn against a Finnish side in an international floorball tournament hosted in Banja Luka this weekend I was a little concerned. Concerned that we would be on the receiving end of a lesson that our young team might take a little too harshly. There is, after all, no shame in being beaten by people who may have been playing the game longer than some of our team have been alive! I made sure I mentioned this per...

Back in the UK I used to take lessons, that is I was the sort of person who'd give the real teacher a break for a lesson or two. Who knows how many times I wielded a dry-wipe marker during the late-nineties and early-noughties but I do remember the first time I stood up in a classroom with an interactive whiteboard. What a distraction, to me at least. The subject of that lesson escapes me although me the memory of playing with the light-sensitive pen on the projected image does not. Nevertheless, as a child of the seventies chalk dust and free school milk were part of formative educational experience. I learnt something about Bosnian handwriting today. Somehow in a little over eighteen months here I hadn't noticed that, from an English perspective, handwritten m's and n's have an extra hump. Look closely at the picture above and you'll see a sentence that starts: Moj otac je. That means 'my father is'. The next word was a mystery to me. It looks vaguely ...

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...

After a break from language lessons for two weeks there was something reassuringly familiar about sitting down with our teacher again today. I think we both felt under-prepared, I certainly did. All our good intentions for the festive period had come to nothing and we were left scrawling last minute homework this morning. But despite this something almost miraculous happened. We had both written lists of prepositions, ordered by case. That was part of the homework. What I’d forgotten is the expectation everything written in our books is etched on our memory. Suddenly I’m having to answer questions. What is ‘towards’, what is ‘under’? My perfect six in a row was greeted by a slightly raised eyebrow and a look of surprise. I didn’t quite get what was said but I’d have loved to be able to reply it was all the result of my hard work over the holidays. It wasn’t but it was an encouraging start to our first lesson of the New Year.

One thing I'm learning, or perhaps not learning well enough, is to steer clear of categorical statements when it comes to life in Bosnia Herzegovina. Matters political, historical and even geographical are best broached as broad questions on the understanding that unexpected or contradictory answers are likely. Much depends on who you talk to. Retelling these conversations should be done with care. Hence the title of this post. For today it is after contacting a 'realtor, letting agency or estate agent' that we appear to have found ourselves an apartment! I leave that statement broad and slightly inconclusive as a testament to my learning. We cannot move in immediately, the landlord needs to prepare one or two things first, so we have to wait about three weeks. They do say you shouldn't count your chickens! Other than the wait the apartment is all good news. A nice size and a great location: I've never lived next door to a prison before! In other 'getting it wro...