We Do Adventure

There can be little debate that a camp that doesn't involve tents or sleeping bags, dodgy toilets or cold showers is no camp real camp at all. Be that as it may, last week's camp we organised in Jajce had a lot of other ingredients that go into making a memorable summer experience: sunshine, swimming, sports and surprisingly good food. That everyone got to sleep in real beds, in respectable bungalows was, in my opinion, simply something of a bonus! The picture shows everyone but me - I was holding the camera. Just over thirty young people and youth leaders, representing six towns in Bosnia and Herzegovina. I was also responsible for putting together short highlight videos of each day's activities. These got played out as part of the evening programme. They're now hidden away on YouTube but if you'd like a glimpse into some of what we got up to you can find them by clicking on one of the following days: Tuesday , Wednesday or Thursday .  

This is this evening out by the lakes in Jajce. What you can see around the the top of the mountain in the middle of the photograph are not clouds but smoke from fires that have been burning up there for the past two weeks. We spent last week 'camping' out by the lakes: the inverted commas indicate that I understand staying in a bungalow doesn't equate to real camping; but neither I or any of the young people involved seemed to be complaining about that. Almost every day was cloudless but every day we saw smoke. A few days before our camp started I had read about similar fires on a mountain outside Sarajevo. The article said no one was able to attempt to put them out because the area still had so many landmines it was too dangerous. According to a guy working on the rental boats we went out on, no one has attempted to put out these fires because there is no agreement over who the land that is burning belongs to, so no one feels the need to take responsibility.

It only seems appropriate after our previous post to upload this video. This is proper pedalo action from Jajce's Plivsko jezero. Well, I say proper but I'm not sure whether a duck shaped pedalo can properly be described as proper. Nevertheless, it proved a worthy lake-going craft, even if it did list a little to port. We wondered if this was due to my superior weight advantage but we noticed every vessel out this evening was leaning one way or the other. Perhaps not then, but if it was then an hour's energetic pedalling will have done something to help in that department!

In the last couple of weeks we've had a couple of great watery experiences. Together with the Novi Most team we went on a canoe safari on the Trebižat river, near Čapljina. Surviving three hours on the water in the hot and sun without getting burned was something of a triumph - it was up around 40C that day - and our canoe skill were almost impressive, up until the point we capsized! I took photos but they didn't do the scenery justice. Neither does this video . Instead here's a picture from our latest adventure. We have two friends visiting this week - the one who is less into being in photographs took this one for us! Last last we decided to spend an hour out on the lakes in Jajce in a rental boat. These boats have very quiet, battery powered motors that are very cool if the battery has enough power. Unfortunately for us, about twenty-five minutes out from our start point I began to suspect ours was not going to last the duration. A quick check around the boat reveale...

Five hours and twenty minutes sat on a bus between Zagreb, Croatia, and Jajce, Bosnia and Herzegovina, yesterday morning gave me more than enough time to ponder some of the idiosyncrasies this mode of transport offers in this part of the world. I suppose I should confess I'm no expert; the town I grew up in was not big on buses and, baring one memorable overnight coach journey from London to Edinburgh, most of my bus experience involves the top deck of old London Routemasters. That and school trips. The distinction between a bus and a coach that the English language provides is not one that holds up in translation. Everything is a bus here. There are local buses and there are buses that make international journeys. From the bus station in Jajce we could travel to a number of nearby or neighbouring countries but the only trip I've made thus far is the one to and from Zagreb. This latest journey was the first time we've travelled the route through Bihać and Karlovac; ...

We recently came by a generous consignment of tortilla chips. Although they are readily available in shops here they are relatively new and comparatively expensive. Most of the young people we work with had never tried them before. It's fair to say most were not impressed when they came out of the box last week. This week, in an attempt to spice up the taste experience, our local colleague suggested we buy some salsa dip and make a more local-orientated dip, by mixing sour cream and ajvar – a relish made predominately from red peppers. This afternoon he gave a short talk introducing the concept of dipping chips and I joined him in a demonstration of how this is done. To their credit almost all the young people attending our Novi Most youth club session gave this culinary novelty a try. The mild Mexican salsa was deemed to hot and spicy by a few that I spoke to, nevertheless a couple of bags of chips were happily munched through. This is just another example of a ne...

There are good surprises and there are bad surprises. Today we had a bit of both. We had a floorball game arranged for the team I'm involved in training, Lavovi Jajce, against a team from Prijedor, a town about an hour and a half north of us. The bad surprise was the size and age of their team. Bigger and older than ours. Significantly. I wasn't expecting to play, seeing as our team are all teenagers, but they wanted someone to drag the average age up so I was called into action. The pre-match team talk made it clear what Dina, our coach, thought of our chances: "I want you to keep playing, keep trying, even if you are losing fifteen nil!" The good surprise began with going a goal up shortly after the game started. I was playing in what could be described as a right-back kind of role. I was just waiting for some undefendable attack on our goal. It never came. At least it didn't while I was on the pitch. Floorball is one of those rolling-subs games. The three g...