Rape as a Weapon of War

Women in War Presentation

My Work Featured by Berkeley

Here is a short piece from a publication called "The Promise of Berkeley." I was interviewed because they wanted to feature a social worker with a committment to service.

http://promise.berkeley.edu/winter_2008/recovery/

I'm Going (going) Back (back) to Cali

Hopefully things will go better there than they did for Biggie Smalls when he uttered these words... I am sure they will. But I have had that song in my head all day and so I thought it was a funny and appropriate title for this blog post...

Tomorrow I catch a cab at the ungodly hour of 4:45 am to catch my 6:50am flight. No less than two connecting flights later, Toshi will pick me up at SFO! I am very excited to get back to him and to my life in California. I miss my guitar and I want to have soy milk again. And i guess it will be nice to have a meal that does not consist of cheese, meat, and/or pastry dough (that is what most Bosnian food consists of). A note for vegetarians: Today I saw "meat salad" on the menu and I laughed out loud. What a contradiction in terms!

I bought a Bosnian cookbook (in English!), so I won't have to do without my beloved Sarajevo plate (meat, potatoes, stuffed veggies, dolmas in yummy sauce). And I even bought my own beautiful version of the plate it is cooked and served in (handmade by the guy I bought it from), so I am really prepared to bring a little bit of Bosnia-Hercegovina home with me. I am also bringing Bosnian coffee (a traditional Bosnian gift) for friends and family.

Of course I am already planning when I will return to Sarajevo next (maybe in the spring or next summer?). And I am plotting about how to get more of you to come with me next time!

I will miss Sarah and I will miss Sarajevo and all the wonderful things about this place and the amazing people who call Bosnia their home (hopefully someday I will be one of them!). Lejla (our cultural emissary/translator) said to call her next time I come to Sarajevo and I promised she will be the first one I call. What a wonderful woman and a kind friend. I will miss her very much!

Here is a photo of Lejla and I eating an incredible lunch (probably one of the best meals we had on the trip) in Tuzla.

And here is the photo of the three of us (taken by a very nice waiter) at that same wonderful lunch. I wanted you to see the three of us all together. We really make such a great team! I am sad to leave these amazing women, but I am looking forward to hearing about their work and their successes. Sarah is really blazing new ground with her work on fertility and reproductive choices after genocide.

At this lunch, I had the distinct privilege of eating Pura for the first time (a traditional Bosnian food made from cornmeal with sour cream-type stuff on top). It kind of reminds me of Paella but better.

My book success

Just a quick note. I checked the website where people can buy my book, and 3 people bought it!!

While I suspect that one may have been my mother, this is still VERY exciting!!!!!

Mothers of Srebrenica

The last meeting we had today was one of the most intense emotional experiences of my life. We visited a women´s group called Mothers of Srebrenica (recall that in Srebrenica 8,000 Muslim men were slaughtered in the largest genocide in Europe since the Holocaust-- AND it occurred within a UN ´safe zone´ under the supposed ´protection´ of the Dutch batallion).

They have a small office in Tuzla, which has photographs of their murdered sons covering one whole wall. During the meeting, Nura (the woman with whom we met) brought out a thick photo album with more photos of sons, husbands, and brothers who will never be seen again. She said they have 6 more albums full of photos in the back and that is not even the beginning of all the men who were missing or killed (because many women do not even have a picture of their fallen sons since their belongings were destroyed or they had to flee their homes in such a rush they could not take memorabilia with them).

She was so candid and open with us, telling us about a woman she knows who was raped in the camps during the war (who was only 16 and a virgin at the time). This woman met a Bosnian man and they escaped the camp and made their way (over about a year) to Hungary. During this time, the woman gave birth to 2 baby daughters. The family could not assimilate in Hungary, so they returned to Bosnia, and the husband divorced her, saying he could not stay with her because she had been raped. At the end of the meeting, Nura gave us this woman´s phone number and said we could talk to her if we told her Nura sent us. She also gave us contact information for a few other women in Tuzla and showed us how to contact the women living in refugee camps nearby.

She invited us to come to a special gathering that they have on the 11th of every month with survivors and mothers of Srebrenica. July 11th, 1995 was the starting day of the Srebrenica genocide so that is why they get together on the 11th of the month.

She told us, while showing us the pictures of the murdered men, that the Chetniks (Serb soldiers) did not care about the men´s age; they just killed every man who looked like he was strong. Old men, young men, were separated from the women (while the Dutch soldiers watched and even helped the Chetniks to separate out the men). The women and children (under age 12) were sent away on trucks and buses. The men were summarily shot and put in to mass graves. The mass grave site I visited 2 weeks ago at Potocari was one of these sites. When she was telling us about this, tears streamed down my face, and I could see Sarah was crying too. As Lejla translated, her eyes were also full of tears.

When we left, we told Nura we did not even know how to thank her, and she gave us hugs and kisses on both cheeks.

We bought a book of testimonies from 104 survivors of Srebrenica that the Mothers put together to document the complicity of the UN/Dutch batallian forces in the genocide. The money supports the work of the organization and it is in English and Bosnian. I read several of the testimonies and they were so powerful.

It made me so angry. Again and again the women testified that the Dutch soldiers would not let them inside the building where civilians could have been kept safe and where there was room for thousands more refugees who were left outside. They also described how the Dutch soldiers celebrated and drank with the Chetnik soldiers when they came down from the hills to massacre the Muslim population. The Dutch soldiers were seen (this is reported by at least 20 witnesses) giving their uniforms and guns to the Chetniks, so that later it was hard to tell whether the soldiers were Chetniks or Dutch.

But the worst thing is that at a certain point, the roughly 2,000 civilians who had been allowed to stay inside the factory building with the Dutch soldiers were forced out. They were made to walk in a corridor created by 2 ´yellow tapes´, at the end the women and children were separated from the men and the Dutch soldiers would not let the families stay inside the building or stay together once they had walked through this corridor. The women testified that the Dutch soldiers even threatened them with guns if they tried to help their fathers or husbands in to the trucks where only the women and children were supposed to be.

The book is called, ´The United Nations on the Srebrenica´s Pillar of Shame: 104 testimonies about the role of the UN in genocide against the population of the UN ´Srebrenica Safe Haven.´´ As I was reading, I found Nura´s testimony (the woman with whom we met earlier today). It made me cry all over again and my anger was subsumed by sadness and horror. This did not have to happen.

Viva Žene

This morning we met with a women´s NGO in Tuzla which provided therapy and psychosocial support to women and children during the war (but now also provides services to men and families, particularly with regard to domestic violence issues).

At this meeting we were informed that there are still people living in ´refugee settlements´ in Bosnia because they cannot return to their homes where they lived before the war. I did not know that there were still internally displaced persons living literally in ´temporary´ encampments outside cities here in BiH. There are many children who have been norm and lived their whole lives in camps, they have never known any other life. Lejla, our translator, said she knew people had not returned to their homes, but she thought they were at least displaced to cities in places where they could have a chance to work and regain some semblance of a life. One of the requirements for Bosnia to join the EU is to have no more IDP (internally displaced persons camps) and to facilitate the return of these refugees to their homes (or to suitable habitation elsewhere).

The woman, Ina, with whom we met, described that there is no provision of food or clean water to the camps, and people are expected to provide for themselves. There is no work for adults, except for sporadic agricultural or construction work. Some of the camps have schools for the children; others have nothing for the children to do with their time. In some of the camps, the Dutch built small houses/shacks where people are living in large numbers. She only knew of 1 camp that can be reached via an asphalt road. The rest are ´in the middle of nowhere.´

This was very eye-opening, because the war ´ended´ 12 years ago. It boggles the mind to think that people have been living in refugee camps for 12 or more years, with no opportunities for returning to a normal life, to work, to school to their homes or families.


Here is me with Lejla, our translator whom we decided was so much more than a translator, so we have been calling her our "cultural emissary."

Medica Zenica

So yesterday we had an amazing meeting with a very well-known organization which provided rape crisis services, shelter, therapy, and a safe house for women during the war. They have written some articles about their work that have been translated in to English and which i had read very early on in my research of this topic. So I felt kind of ´star-struck´ to be there in person.

I will try to summarize the meeting, but it will be difficult because it was easily the longest meeting I/we have had with anyone here. The woman we talked to even joked that when you ask her about Medica´s work it is like pulling the thread on a sweater and more and more unravels. The other note before I start is that we brought Lejla (our translator) because we had been told we would really need her, but the woman Mariana to whom we spoke used perfect English so that was kind of funny.

So Medica Zenica offers a very holistic set of services for women and children, including physical health (medical and gynecological care), psychological (therapy and groups), family interventions (sheltering women and children, interventions for children), education (for women job training in hair styling, sewing, upholstery, etc and they have a kindergarten for children in the shelter), and advocacy for them women and children. They work based on these holistic, multi-discipilinary, feminist, and humanistic values. The fundamental belief of Medica Zenica is that RECOVERY IS POSSIBLE!

One of the things Mariana talked about is that basically nobody came to the clinic and said, ´I have been raped and I need help.´ This is partially because of stigma and also because the Bosnian language is ´euphemistic´ (as she put it). She said women would talk about other women by saying, ´you should talk to her because she doesn´t feel well´ or they would talk in therapy about ´when it happened´ without mentioning the Bosnian word for rape. Even the 25 out of 150 raped women they served during the war did not say they were raped and often were in denial that they were pregnant, so Medica was involved in a stages of recovery process with them to help them come to terms with what happened to them and accept the fact that they were raped and they are pregnant.

The stages of recovery model that they use is based on trauma work of Judy Hermann and others, but they have adapted it to be most relevant for the Bosnian women and the circumstances in which they found themselves. Here are the stages of recovery that Mariana described to us (which may not occur in a predictable order and may be circular or overlap, especially if there is ongoing trauma, such as in war zones where maybe a woman is recovering well until she hears her son whom she has worried about has been killed or something else awful has happened):

1. Breaking the silence by telling a ´person of confidence´ what happened (this could be a therapist, not more often it was a friend or neighbor or relative.

2. Dealing with the confusion and the memories that come up when one begins to talk and break the silence.

3. Admitting and believing that the violence did happen (moving through denial).

4. Connecting with one´s own vulnerability.

5. Directing anger where is belongs (at the perpetrator, not at the self or the body or the baby born of rape).

6. Connecting with one´s own spirituality.

7. Finishing or completing the gestalt process and taking steps for the future (projecting for the future).

During the war, Judy Hermann´s important book, Trauma and Recovery was translated three separate times in to Bosnian because the clinics using it had no way to contact one another because of the fighting. It shows how useful the book was though because at least three separate places used Hermann´s work as guiding principles for their interventions with women.

Hermann´s principles of recovery from trauma also follow stages, and the way Mariana says Medica offers interventions follow this pattern:

1. Establish Safety, build confidence and relationship
2. Build the woman´s strength resources (focus on and build on existing strengths within the woman and her family and community)
3. Projections for the future (building new relationships, fostering and reconnecting with old relationships, planning and making strides toward a new future)

The other text that Medica uses extensively is by a survivor of Nazi concentration camps called Finkel (the book is called ´Why didn´t you kill yourself´). He talks about his experiences and the 4 main principles that Medica Zenica found applicable to their work are these:

1. What happened to you was not the worst thing that could have happened (keeping the trauma in perspective).
2. Bad experiences can be helpful (you can develop new strengths or skills or resilience that you could not have developed in any other way than through the trauma you experienced).
3. No one and nothing can take away your previous life (your life and existence before the trauma are not lost or gone).
4. There is an expectation that you will ´suffer with dignity´ as a human being.

One of the most important things about the way that Medica does its work that I really could relate to because of my background and my own work is the idea of healing occurring in a relational context. The way Mariana put it was simple and straightforward: one relationship hurt you and another relationship can heal you.

She also talked about Maslow´s hierarchy of human needs and how a person needs basic safety and physical/biological functioning to be intact before one can even begin to work through trauma. So they provide the women a safe place to stay (with armed guards) and they feed them and house their children, restoring a sense of safety and relative normalcy (to the degree it is possible in war).

She also referred to a famous quote which basically says, ´The best way to forget is to remember.´ This means that in order for trauma to stop haunting a person, it needs to be given the attention and remembrance that it is calling out for (through nightmares, hypervigilence, intrusive memories, etc).

She talked about the experiences of some women who had given birth to babies who resulted from rape, and this was one of the most intense parts of the discussion. Of the 25 pregnant raped women, about 1/2 were able to have abortions at Medica (many of them were late in the pregnancy and dangerous for the mother, but the surgery was made available to them because it was their deepest wish not to give birth to these babies). Of the 12 that gave birth, 6 kept the babies and 6 gave them up for adoption. If the women were willing to feed and keep the baby for the first 40 days, that was the best option to try and develop a relationship between mother and infant, but some of the women did not want to even see or feed the baby because the baby itself was a traumatic reminder (especially for girls who were virgins before the rape).

Mariana told us about a woman who agreed to keep her son, but vacillated between caring for him and neglecting him. She would leave him for days with the other mothers in the house and often she could not even look at him because he reminded her of the rape, his father, and all the associated war trauma. One of the nurses took special care of the baby and eventually during a period when the mother was really incapable of taking care of the baby, Mariana came in to work to find a note in the logbook written by the nurse: ´I took baby home.´

The nurse kept the baby at her own house and cared for him for several months until the mother was stable enough to take him back. It is this kind of caring and commitment that I respect and admire so deeply. I will never forget how Mariana said those words, because they sounded like the kindest thing I could imagine: ´I took baby home.´

She also told us another powerful story about a woman who chose to keep her baby daughter. It was complicated to introduce the baby to her family, so Medica helped her plan out the best way to do this. First the sisters and mother visited the woman and the baby at the Medica clinic a few times over a period of months. Then the female relatives started talking to the father and other male relatives about the existence of the baby over more months. Finally, when the father was ready (after a year or maybe more), the woman brought the baby to the family home. Her father (baby´s grandfather) said, ´Give me the baby.´ The woman handed the little girl over and the father said, ´She is ours.´ Nothing else. (meaning that they were claiming the baby as a member of the family, the ethnic group, she is only ours, not of the enemy or the other).

Concentration Camp Survivors

This morning we met with the Association for Concentration Camp Survivors and the meeting went very well. They are an association that provides vocational training, compensation, and general support for concentration camp survivors in Bosnia-Hercegovina. The office that we visited had 6,000 registered members (5,000 men and 1,000 women) and that was only for the canton (regional area) of Sarajevo. The Federal Association has more than 54,000 registered members. Keep in mind that is only the number of *survivors* of concentration camps (not people who died there or after), only people who stayed in Bosnia (many more left the country), and only people who are registered with the association. So there are probably at least 10 times that many people who were in concentration camps during the war, maybe more.

The office we visited offers a lot of great services to survivors. One of the most important and successful rehabilitation programs is occupational therapy (teaching people skills for working). They had 5 computers donated and now they have trained 300 survivors in computer skills which they can use to get work.

Also they teach the women sewing and have a small room with sewing machines that the women use to make clothes, stuffed animals, slippers, bags, purses, hats and everything else you can imagine. The main woman to whom we spoke said that sewing is good therapy and helps to keep their minds off the trauma, but it is also great because they can make some money selling the things they make.

We actually got to buy some items from the women (I bought a bear puppet one woman made, and I love to think about using it in my work at home with kids who have been through trauma). The women were so proud to show us what they were working on and they seemed very pleased to meet us. When I asked if it was OK to take photos, they were extremely excited and posed for many pictures.

One woman in particular seemed keen on being in the photos. She would run to wherever the camera was pointing and pose, smiling ear to ear, and proudly displaying her handiwork. I bought a small purple dress from her that I am hoping will fit Christa's baby girl (Ella).

The woman we met with was very excited about my book and even told Sarah that next time Sarah contacts her, she should say she came to visit last time with the girl who wrote her own book! I told them I would send them a copy, and I am now thinking that I might even see about having it translated into Bosnian, because so many of the organizations I met with were interested in having a copy. I thought I could send one in Bosnian and one in English as a sort of "thank you" for the amazing things I learned from each organization I visited.


Months Later...
In the Spring of 2008, I received a comment that the women in the photos that were included in the original version of this post were not clear about the fact that these photos (with faces removed) would be posted.

When I asked for permission to photograph, I told the woman who was translating where the photos would be, and I gave the women my cards which had the blog address so they could see it, but I think something must have been lost in translation, because I just received the following comment (which is not from the women in the photos but she seems to know them):

I would like to request that you remove these photos from your blog. You stated that you asked if it was ok to take their photos and received their approval. Did you tell them what they were going to be used for? That they were going to be identified on the internet, for all to access and labeled as wartime rape survivors with details of the city, association and group in which they could be found? I know these women quite well and I can identify them. I also know that they had no idea that their photos were going to be placed on the internet. So as a researcher, I would ask that you take into consideration the ethical implications of your actions and their privacy and remove the photos.

I immediately took the photos down from the post, and reposted this to the top of the blog.

Of course I did not mean to use anyone's images in a way that would be uncomfortable or not consented to by them. The worst thing possible would be for me to make these women more unsafe or to feel more unsafe. I thought I had made sure that they understood, but clearly I did not make sure enough. I also thought it would be OK since I had completely blocked out their faces with white circles, so I thought they were not recognizable--I was wrong, and I feel terrible about the miscommunication. Since the person who left this comment left it anonymously without any way for me to contact her/him, the only thing I can do is to re-post this without the photos and hope for the best. I will be more careful and conscientious in the future about the use of images, and more clear in my communications about my intentions.

Žene Ženema

Today I had a perfectly fantastic meeting with a women's group here in Sarajevo called Žene Ženema (˝women to women˝) that provides direct support to women, but also is involved with the empowerment and funding of other women's groups, local organizations, and smaller NGOs. They are working on a number of projects, but focusing on the implementation of human rights laws such as the Geneva Convention and specifically making sure that women's human rights are respected at every level of society in BiH.

I showed them my book (unfortunately I don't have anymore to give out and I had to borrow the copy I had already given Sarah to show to people!) and they were really impressed. It seems to really open doors because the book shows the comittment I have to the issue. The woman, Theresa, whom I met with asked me to send her a copy and I wil definitely do that. It is still somewhat shocking that people actually WANT to read it!

I also have improved at not spitting out all my ideas in the first minutes of a meeting (although often the first question they ask is: ˝what do you want?˝). So this has drastically improved the quality of my meetings, because even though they are asking, they don't always want to hear it before they have a chance to get to know me. So we talked for a good long time before I pulled out the book and we talked about many things before we talked about the subject of rape. It is much better this way.

Tomorrow Sarah and I (and our translator, Lejla) will take the bus to Zenica which is about 2 hours north of Sarajevo and have a meeting with a women's clinic there. Then we will sleepover there in a hotel or something (there aren't really hostels in that part of the country) and the next day we will take another bus to Tuzla (about 3 nours north of Sarajevo and about 2 hours east of Zenica) to meet with women's groups there. It is so wonderful to have Lejla with us, because she makes everything easier, from ordering lemonade to getting fertility statistics from the Federal Statistics office (which she and Sarah did this morning while I watched crappy TV).

In some ways, I wish I could stay longer, but at the same time I feel ready to come home. This has been an incredible trip!

Piramida (Bosnian Pyramids)

So OK, you are wondering what I am doing talking about Pyramids when I am so far from Egypt (Egipat in Bosnian), but you might be suprised to learn that there are pyramids in Bosnia and they are the only pyramids in Europe (take that, snobby western europe!)! [OK, I have just received a comment form someone reading my blog that is studying other European pyramids, and there ARE other ones. To learn more, you can see her website at www.european-pyramids.net. thanks Gabriela for correcting this misinformation I was given].

A few years ago an archaeologist was visiting Bosnia and saw these hills that looked just like the right geometry to be pyramids... and everyone laughed him out the door. But he persevered and eventually they started excavating and doing geometric measurements and found out that under these hills (which people live on!) are actually several pyramids from 12,000 years ago!


Here you can see some hills which are actually pyramids: the biggest one is the pyramid of the sun and the smaller one to the left and a bit closer is the pyramid of love. So... not only are they there, they are also laid out in a perfect grometric pattern, so the three main ones actually form a triangle between them. Each pyramid had a 60 degree angle going up, and they are all oriented to north-south, east-west. The north sides all face the north star. In one of them, they have found some hieroglyphs that may be the oldest sample of European writing! Amazing!

This hill is actually not a hill or a pyramid. They believe it is a temple and they call it ˝The Temple of Mother Earth.˝ This whole area is called ˝The Valley of the Pyramids.˝

So there is the pyramid of the sun (Piramida Sunca) which is the biggest one, over 220 meters (like 700 feet). It is 1/3 taller than the Great Pyramid in Egypt (take that, Egyptians!).

Getting there requires a very long uphill walk (after walking very far out of the small town Visoko) and climbing many stairs! You have to earn the view of the pyramid! Actually, I was climbing up stairs for so long I was so tired and I came upon these people sitting in the shade who asked if I needed help. I said I was looking for the pyramid and they laughed. ˝You are walking on it!˝

One of them volunteered to me my guide and showed me the stuff there was to see (which was good, because otherwise I would have climbed all those stairs and would have ˝missed˝ the pyramid!). After we finished, she asked me for my comments and took my photo to put up on the website, which ia apparantly www.piramidasunca.ba (see if you see me!)

She showed me where they have excavated and found blocks and plates made from a material similar to concrete but apparantly much stronger than our modern stuff. I saw where they had 7 layers excavated and I could tell this was definately the work of human hands, not nature!

There is a huge crack that they found (which is like a natural air conditioner-- at least 20 degrees cooler in there!).

There is a room inside the the crack in the pyramid which I guess the archaeologists have gone in to and found air ducts and 90 degree angles forming the walls, ceilings, and floors. More evidence it was made by people.



Here is me with some of the blocks and plates that were excavated. You see how I would have just thought they were big rocks without my guide!







Nearby is the Pyramid of the Moom (Piramida Mjesaca) which is made of sandstone. Another collossal hike up to the spot they have excavated, but much cooler looking than the other excavation.

Here you can see the bricks that form part of the pyramid (with some kind of ˝shadowy˝ person also sneaking in to the photo.

More bricks!


So it was a pretty neat day trip (the town of Visoko is only thirty kilometers away from Sarajevo) and now I can honestly say I did not spend my entire three weeks here in Sarajevo.


Me with sandstone excavation in background!

Under these haystacks are also pyramids!



Just kidding! They are only haystacks.

Sarajevo Rose

Sarajevo Roses are spots on the sidewalk where shells fell during the war. They leave a spiral mark that is very distinguishable, once you have seen one, you see them everywhere.

I was told that people have filled some of them in with red paint, but until today I hadn't seen any of them like that. I had only seen the ones that look like an unnatural skeletal mark in the concrete.

This one is near our hostel.

Last time I was in Sarajevo, I saw more and photographed some. If you would like to see them, you can cut and paste this URL http://rubyincroatia.blogspot.com/2007/06/sarajevo-roses.html

Yummy Sarajevo Plate

So we have eaten (or had coffee or lemonade) at least once per day at this cafe/restaurant called Bascarcija (ba-shar-shee-ya) which is located in the area of Sarajevo bearing the same name. This is the old town, and the cafe is right on pigeon's square. In fact, the movie Grabavica which is set in another part of Sarajevo (Grabavica) has a scene where the main characters are having a coffee here at the cafe! Very authentic!

Anyway, my father thinks it is funny that I write so much about food, but he will have to bear with me, because this "Sarajevo Plate" is definitely something to write home about!

OK, so to start with, it comes in a really cool pot with a fancy lid that I should have photographed, but I was so excited about eating the food I forgot and then the waiter came and took away the lid... I think they actually cook everything in this pot...anyway... (later on... here is a photo).



A short guide to the Sarajevo plate: Starting from 12 o'clock and going clockwise, there are the stuffed onions, then the meat, then the dolmas, then the potatoes. And obviously you can tell which is the sour cream. Check out the sauce, how tasty it looks... I am getting hungry just looking at the photo and I already ate this once today (and yesterday too!).

So here are the details...

There is a thick and meaty broth-like stuff in which the whole thing is cooked. It is a little spicy but not too spicy (perfect amount of spice for me). Then there are many foods inside the plate that I will now desrcine in detail...

There is meat; otherwise it would not be Bosnian food! I don't know if it is lamb or beef, but Sarah says she thinks it is beef, because beef is cheaper. The meat is tasty, not too tender and definitely chewy but it makes you feel you are eating something REAL. There are usually a couple pieces of meat in the dish, one usually had a bone in it, so you have to be careful.

There are also lots of boiled potatoes, with the perfect consistency. Not too soft, but you can easily slice them with a fork. They soak up the broth/sauce and they are oh so tasty!

Also inside the plate are "dolmas" which are very different from the Greek kind. They are wrapped in a much thicker and chewy leaf (maybe it is cabbage? but I don't like cabbage and I do like these dolmas) and of course they are hot instead of cold like the Greek ones. Inside you will find a bunch of spiced meat and rice. These are my favorite part of the whole plate.

The only part I don't eat are the stuffed onions. Everyone knows how I feel about onions, even cooked ones... so this will be no shocker. I keep wishing my mom was here to eat them (they remind me of a big stuffed version of the onions my mom and aunt eat at Thanksgiving and Xmas). Today I did eat the meat/rice stuffing out of one of the onions and that was very yummy, so maybe I will branch out (or maybe not, because the plate is so filling I still have not finished one, and I concentrate my energy on the dolmas!).

The whole thing comes with the most awesome and decadent bread you can imagine. Like pita on steroids! It is thick and yummy and really indescribable until you eat it. You can dip it in the broth/sauce and then you have all the benefits of what the plate has to offer. They give you a lot of bread, so I put some in my purse and took it home (I am my Nana's granddaughter after all!).

The plate is topped off with a large dollop of sour cream, which just adds a certain something to the whole dish. It balanced the spice and makes everything in the world seem good and wonderful! (OK, maybe I am exaggerating, but this is some fine food!)

The best part is that you can have all this happiness for only 7KM which is about $4.50. I like a meal that appeals to my palate and my wallet!

Pedikura

Today I treated myself to a pedicure, and it was another tiny culture shock experience. First of all, they put me in a small room with a water bubbler for my feet (with cool water, which was SOOOOO nice after such a hot day!). They gave me Elle and Cosmopolitan magazines to read (in English, praise the lord!). I opened up the issue of Elle and the Editor's note was all about September 11th... then I noticed it was dated from 2001. So I a now fully aware of what the fashion trends were 6 years ago (honestly, it all looks the same to me).

Then for Cosmo... it was the British version, so in the sex advice sections, it kept encouraging the reader to say "rude" things to your lover. I thought this was hilarious.

So the Bosnian pedicurist kept me in the small room, entertained only by imagining "rude" things to say, such as, "You have smelly feet!" or something like that, for 1 hour. I can only imagine she was chatting with friends, smoking cigarettes, and drinking coffee (maybe even doing someone else's toes?). It was OK, though, because I had no pressing engagements. Bosnian time is kind of similar to "Toshi time" because you know that eventually they will show up and things will be great, but you just don't know quite when.

Anyway, she finally came back and then spent another hour fixing up my feet. The first thing that was different about this pedicure from the ones I have had in the US (and Costa Rica) is that she actually used some kind of straight razor to "shave" the calouses off my feet (maybe too much information?). This was particularly interesting on the "Flynn toe" as those of you who have one can probably imagine and those of you who don't might not want to. Anyway, she was thorough and then painted my nails a nice maroon color which matches my skirt and shirt. So I felt pretty snazzy.

Meeting with Bosnian TV Journalist

Today I had a brief but productive meeting with Duska Jurisic, a journalist for Bosnian Television (actually I think now she is a producer as well and she told me she is also working on her Masters degree in Media). So no wonder it was a short meeting. Anyway I was glad that she had time to meet with me at all. She give me some advice about how to go about conducting my project, and I got to visit the BiH TV and radio station building! So Cool!

The best thing is that she gave me the contact information for a women who started the most well-known organization for survivors of wartime rape, which is called the Center for Women War Victims. I am very excited to finally have her phone number in my hot little hand because no one seemed to have it.

The other best thing is that Sarah found a translator yesterday, so we will be able to actually talk with some womens groups this week (we met with only people who speak English so far, but there are so many others who speak Bosnian). So this is exciting beyond all excitement! And Sarah is beside herself with happiness (I think she was starting to get stressed that she had been here for 2 weeks already with no translator). Plus the woman who will be the translator is the woman we were really hoping would take the job: she is very nice and also spent a year in the US studying at the University of Georgia. Hooray!

On my way out of the TV station, I talked with another journalist and I asked him what his area of focus was. He said, ˝HOT˝ and gestured outside. He reports the weather! So I asked if it was going to cool off at all, and he laughed, shaking his head. ˝Only getting hotter!˝ Actually, though, the temp has dipped under 100 degrees F. It is funny to say that it is cooling off when it si still 96-98 degrees F, but it sure does feel like a bit of relief!

People keep asking me how I can live in a place like California where it is hot and sunny all the time. They do not believe me when I say that is is mostly rainy and foggy where I live. There eyes widen and jaws drop and they ask me incredulously, ˝In California it is raining?˝ Apparantls they have heard that ˝it never rains in southern california,˝ so I try to point out that I live in northern california where we actually have seasons including snow in some places. they think I am telling a fairy tale or pulling their leg. I cannot convince them. After this type of exchange a few days ago, one Brit asked me, ˝don´t you get bored when the weather is all the same, just nice days everyday?˝ I gave up and said yes, it is boring to have sun all the time. I didn´t even try to clarify my point because obviously he was attached to the image of sunny California and I was runing it for him, so he was simply not processing what i was actually saying about the weather in SF. Very amusing. Next time I travel, I will bring photos of me in my heavy coat and umbrella in the rain. Then maybe my words will have some degree of relevance for their recipients.

Shopping in Sarajevo

Today I had a fine time shopping for some things for Toshi´s new apartment in Berkeley. I bought a very nice blue ornamental tablecloth, which I think will be so snazzy for dinner parties. I also bought a simpler white one that is a bit dressy but kind of sheer as well (I think it is meant to be a woman´s head scarf, but it was big and nice, and in the US, who will know the difference anyway?).

Toshi has a door in his apartment that opens on to a shared balcony, which is lovely but not very private, so I got a nice Turkish-style curtain so we can leave the door open without having the whole apartment open to the world. There is a little 3 year old who lives in one of the other apartments and she is quite bold and inquisitive. One of the other neighbors mentioned that if you leave the door open, you may find you have a tiny visitor in your living room... Not that curtains really keep toddlers at bay, but it is just the idea of a boundary that will be nice.

I also am so happy because I bought a nice green silk that will cover the (crazy flatscreen) TV that Toshi has installed in the bedroom. The TV is a bit ominous when we are not watching it (small loft bedroom, big TV). Oh but it is nice when we are watching a movie or something!

For myself, I bought just a small thing, a kind of covering for the face that matches my bellydance costume. It has a headband part and then a veil with coins on it so that only the eyes show and the rest of the face is veiled. It is very dramatic and I can´t wait to try it out when I get back with my whole costume (some parts of which I bought last time I was in Sarajevo). Yippee!

Hacienda

So Sarah and I found one place in town that offers free wireless for its customers... and it is a Mexican restaurant! So funny. We have been eating quesadillas (pictured here), enchiladas (below), fajitas, and drinking margaritas (OK, actually I haven´t had a margarita there yet, but I will tonight because they are highly recommended by Sarah who has tried 2 flavors during our excursions to Hacienda).

Last night when we got there around 9pm, the tables downstairs were all ˝reserved,˝ so we were shooed upstairs (to a nice quieter part of the restaurant with less cigarette smoke!). Then they started testing the sound system and we realized we were seated under a speaker--bummer! There was so much squealing interference (what a girl will put up with for free internet!). Finally, after we had finished our little fajitas (fajitas poquitas en espanol), a nice waiter turned down the speaker above our heads and we enjoyed a few minutes of comfortable internet surfing. (YAY!)

When we went downstairs, the empty restaurant had been transformed in to a crazy nightclub. The beautiful (and YOUNG) people were out in droves. There must have been 100 of them inside and another 100 milling about in the street outside waiting to get in. We looked around and joked to each other, ˝you eat a fajita and look what happens!˝

We managed to push our way through the throngs of people out to the less crowded street and we decided that another night we will go out and try to experience the nightlife (when we are not lugging around our laptops!). It was funny because I am still young and so is Sarah, but we both felt kind of old and fuddy-duddy compared to the rest of the crowd. The drinking age here is 18 I think (it might even be 16, I am not sure) so everyone seems very young to me.

When i got back to the hostel, Sarah and I hung out a bit in the courtyard, as the day had cooled down significantly and it was finally comfortable to sit outside. There was even a nice breeze, which felt like a Godsend.

I watched some TV in my room (can you believe it, I have TV in my room). Lots of channels have American and English movies and shows, with Bosnian subtitles, so that was fun. As it got later in the evening I stumbled upon what looked like a cool show. It was in English (with subtitles) and the main character was this Deaf psychic. When she signed (using ASL) the subtitles would explain what she was saying in Bosnian but not English, and I was able to understand most of what she was saying through a combination of understanding a little of both.

As the film progressed though, it became very disturbing, as it was about this creepy murderer who filmed himself killing little girls in sadistic ways. The cinematography was really intense, especially the ˝psychic sequences,˝ where she would see him killing the girls but always be too late to stop him. I kept watching, thinking that I had already seen so much and I was sure that the film would end with the killer being caught or killed, or at least that there would be some kind of closure by explaining why he was doing this or something. NO such luck. The film had one of those really ambivalent and troubling endings that leaves you feeling unsettled. The super-creepy last shot was a close-up of the killer´s eyeball.... just to give you a sense.

So what this pointed out to me (besides the fact that I should immediately turn off all scary movies and not watch them once I realize they are scary) if that as an American, I am always assuming that films will end with closure and a nice ending that make me feel satisfied. The more foreign films (and some experimental US films) I see, the more I realize that this assumption is not only invalid; it can be dangerous!

So I was totally creeped out, and everyone was sleeping except for me, so I called Toshi. That is the great thing about the 9 hour time difference: I can call in the middle of the night and not wake him up! We talked for a little bit, and hearing about Toshi´s woes about the film he is working on, etc made me feel better and checked me back in to reality.

Fellow Travelers

I met a group of great travelers the other night at theold hostel where we stayed the first 3 nights after the conference in Sarajevo. We sat out in the backyard, talking, laughing, and drinking lovely Montenegrin red wine until the wee hours of the night. We polished off 3 bottles of wine among the 6 of us and things just seemed to get funnier as the night went on. Unfortunately I lost my purple corkscrew in the process (I loved that thing, and this was the first time I had even used it on the trip!).

So these folks I met were very cool, and I will describe them each in turn...

Sarah (another Sarah, not my Sarah) is an English girl who had been traveling in Asia for a year; she taught English in Chang Mai, Thailand for some time before coming back to Europe. She had just come from te Exit Festival (a "rebel" festival in Serbia) and she was on her way to a Rainbow gathering which is apparantly happening in western Bosnia for the next month! I was tempted to check it out until she showed me the directions... It sounds like no buses or trains go within 40 kilometers of the gathering, and her plan is to take the bus as close as she can get, then hitch-hike the rest of the way. Those protective people in my life (boyfriend and mom at the top of the list) will be happy to know that plan was not going to fly in my world. But more power to Sarah and I wish her the best of luck in getting to what i am sure will be an increadible gathering. Sarah makes jewelery, and I bought a very nice pair of earings and a necklace that she made. i will think of her when I wear them, and i will smile. She was a real traveling soul and I count myself lucky to have had the chance to meet her and spend an evening together.

The other four travelers can somewhat be introduced together, because they had all been camp counselors at a summer camp in Croatia which brings together young people from many countries (especially Balkan countries) to show them a good time and to help them develop relationships/friendships upon which a foundation for peace in the region can be formed. Their stories were unbelievable and funny and wonderful. I am missing T-Camp for the first time this year, so i was so happy to meet up with some "camp" people and get a vicarious taste of that energy. They had only met 2 weeks prior at this camp, but now they are thick as thieves and it was awesome to see their bonds with each other and to know how close you become after doing camp with people. Maybe next year I will work at that camp... they gave me the information about whom to contact to get involved.

So there was Jema (maybe spelled totally wrong), an Irish girl who apparantly starts everyday with a deluge of swears you wouldn't expect from a nice Catholic girl (most of the words start with F* but she is very creative in using the same word in multiple different ways to express the subtle nuances of unhappiness at awakening). While we were sitting at a cafe today, a pidgeon pooped right on her, and she was so cool. She said it was good luck and made a wish, then of course she cleaned herself off... She had a beautiful singing voice and serenaded the group frequently and the others would join in too.

The other girl in the group was Becca, who in addition to being beautiful had one of those sunny personalities that just lights up a room. She was really interested in my work and said she was very impressed that I had presented at the conference last week. She is from England I think and was heading that direction on a bus with Jema tonight. She shared juice and water with me after we all hiked up to a gorgeous vista point where you can see all of Sarajevo.

The two guys were Mike and Mark. Mike was an English guy; very funny and gregarious. He was so friendly and he was the first one to talk to me and tell me about the camp. He is one of those people who just makes you feel comfortable right away and you feel as though you have known him for ages even though you've just met.

Mark is a new Yorker, but it sounds like he hasn't been in NYC for a long time, and he has that "extreme traveler" vibe. Mark's claim to fame has to do with pidgeons (and there are plenty of them in sarajevo's pidgeon square where we sat today). He throws a small thing (such as a wallet) in to the air in the middle of a crowd of pidgeons and every single one of them flies into the air in a huff. Simply chasing them isn't nearly as effective. Mark is headed to Kosovo and Albania next. He hasn't told his parents exactly where he is or where he is going; he just said he is "in the Balkans."

Anyway, these folks really made my day when they asked me to sit with them in pidgeon's square because I was sort of wandering purposelessly at that moment. The same thing was true the other night in the backyard of the hostel; I wasn't feeling too sleepy but it was nighttime, and the good conversation and great laughs made me so happy. One of the best joys of traveling truly are the characters you meet on the road. Hostelling is the BEST!!

Fantastic Article

Wendy (Toshi's mom for those who don't know) sent me this great article about an American clinician (who is of Bosnian Serb heritage herself) working with Bosnian women on trauma issues. It focuses on how she learned to take care of herself while doing this difficult work.

http://www.giftfromwithin.org/html/bosnia.html

Sorry the computer isn't letting me make a link out of this, so you'll have to cut and paste in order to read the article...

Frizerski Za Zene (Women's Hairdresser)

I had a cultural experience the other night (it is amazing how everyday things can become a learning and growing experience). My hair grows ridiculously fast, and it was starting to get very shaggy (my friend –and Toshi’s cousin-- Rebekah cut it so stylishly before I left for my first trip to the region). Normally I am VERY picky about letting someone cut my hair, but I figured it really needed a trim, so I would trust in the universe (and the Bosnian hairdresser).

Sarah got a little trim and that seemed to go well, so I gestured about where I wanted my hair cut short and where to leave it long.

I had the most vigorous and fantastic shampoo of my life with a fruity smelling shampoo and conditioner. There was a young lady who washed and blowdried my hair and an older guy who actually cut it.

He seemed to be the “master stylist” and she seemed to be in training. They were an amazing “tag-team” because one of them would be working on another person then they would switch off.

After my hair was cut, they spent a good long time blowdrying it (I have so much thick hair it takes forever to dry, even though it is short now). They put a mountain of mousse in my hair (so much mousse… definitely the pile of it was bigger than my head). I tried to protest, but the Bosnian stylist was having none of it. He ignored me and continued making me in to one of the “beautiful people.”


After all this mousse and blowdrying my hair completely straight, he made a cool zigzag part and then used hairspray too. I don’t think I have had mousse OR hairspray in my hair since I was about 13, and WOW, now I have both. So my hair looked very cool, but it was very crusty to touch it! (haha)

After it was all done, we took these photos and told him we would email the pictures. He then told a few ladies (in Bosnian) who were waiting for haircuts that I have something on my head. I clarified that it is a birthmark, but I felt a bit “exposed” and I didn’t know why random ladies need to know about the condition of my scalp. But there are no secrets here…

Before I left the shop, the stylist forbid me from wearing my hat (luckily it was late in the day and not too sunny!).

New Hostel

We moved to a new hostel last night which is cheaper and we each have our own room and bathroom. Mine even has a big bathtub (but no shower curtain, so the floor is now a small swamp post-shower!). The wireless is not working, though, which is a big bummer. But they say a guy is coming some time today to fix it. Apparently we are only the second people to even want to use the wireless, so we are the test subjects it seems.

On to other things…

We had a nice meeting yesterday with a woman named Jasna whom we met at the conference. She works for the University of Sarajevo Institute for the Research of Crimes Against Humanity and International Law, and she gave us a ton of good advice about how to go about conducting our respective projects. She also gave us some more contact information for women’s groups that might be good collaborators for us.

We also visited the library of the Institute and I left some flyers for my books in the library. Sarah is going to read my book and then donate her copy to the library when she is done, which makes me feel very good. I wish I had more copies—they went like hot cakes as soon as I offered them to the conference participants.

After all this excitement, we met with a translator whom Sarah may hire for her project. It was very interesting to sit in on the meeting, and the woman Lejla is very smart, beautiful, and speaks impeccable English. She is a student and spent last year studying in the US at the University of Georgia. Being able to vicariously experience the process of setting up a research project here in Bosnia has been very helpful for me in terms of thinking about my own project, both process and budget. All together, being part of Sarah’s process has been very useful and encouraging to me.

Yesterday I also bought an incredible book that one of the conference participants recommended to me. It is called Zlata’s Diary, and it is the diary of an 11-year old girl living in Sarajevo during the war. Many people have compared to Anne Frank’s Diary and certainly there are parallels. I have almost finished it, because it is a fast read (although upsetting to hear about the war from a child’s perspective). I highly recommend reading it if you have a chance. It is widely available and I am sure they have it on Amazon or at your local bookstore.

The Trout? You Can´t Handle the Trout!

So I have been eating a ton of tasty trout, pulled from Bosnia´s rivers and set upon our plates with heads and tails on... and Sarah and I keep joking about Jack Nicholson´s famous line from the movie, A Few Good Men... ˝you can´t handle the truth!˝

Yesterday we ate at a Cafe that was called, ˝To Be or Not to Be˝ before the war. During the war, the proprietors crossed out the ˝or not to be˝ part. For them at that time, not surviving was simply not an option. Sarah ate what she described as the best tuna salad of her life, and I had a pretty mediocre but filling chicken risotto.




They also had this interesting and bizarre image posted where I could see it throughout the meal. I am told that people ate everything they could find in Sarajevo during the war, including the pidgeons. I assume that is what this artwork refers to, but perhaps there is a deeper humour that I do not understand.


This morning we went to Club Bill Gates (yes, really) and the only thing we could distinguish on the menu was ˝nutella˝ so we assumed it was crepes (which it actually was!).

They came with very heavy whipped cream and a whole bunch of tiny blueberries.

The crepes were so heavy and sweet (and it was so hot out--over 100 degrees F) that each of us could only finish half of 1 crepe... but they were tasty!!!


I also tried doner kebob for the first time yesterday. It is a kind of meat where they cook it slowly on a spit and slice off pieces which they put inside pita with tomatoes and spicy sauce. Actually very yummy and also cheap!

Today we found a new hostel where we can stay the next few nights, which is closer to the old town (and not up a heinously steep and cobblestone hill like our current hostel). For only 2 euro more than I was paying at the current hostel, I get a very large room to myself and also a private bathroom!!! They have a kitchen which is free for guests to use (the other place where we are stying now you have to pay to use a knife/fork and they only have a small fridge, not a kitchen for guest use). They also appear to have air conditioning at the new place, which I have to say will be a Godsend. AND IT HAS WIRELESS INTERNET IN THE ROOM!!!! So I can chat or video chat for free (instead of paying like a million dollars a minute on my cell phone) starting on Wednesday!!!

Sarah and I have decided that today is ˝Happy Tuesday˝ because we keep having the most awesome windfalls and easily finding things we are looking for, etc. For example, Sarah found a translator for her project today who is affordable! And Club Bill Gates was such a funny experience and a cheap meal!

I am literally melting in the heat. It is unbearably hot by 8:00 in the morning and it stays that was until at least 8:00 at night. The apothekas (pharmacies) tend to have AC (˝klimatarizando˝ is now my favorite word which I look for with a certain hypervigilence that can only come from melting brain syndrome). So Sarah and I have been looking at lots of unnecessary medicines in the name of cooling off a bit. (By the way, they sell Viagra over the counter here to anyone who wants it). Siesta is the name of the game for beating the afternoon scorch.

Everyone concerned about my alabaster skin will be pleased to know I am bathing in sunscreen repeatedly during the day, staying in the shade, wearing my hat and cover-up shirt (long sleeves in this heat-- ugh!). So far, so good. I am not even pink!

One of the things I like best about Sarajevo are the mosques. They are on every street: small ones, big ones, simple ones, fancy ones... but the thing they all have in common is a fountain or water spout outside with cold, clear, fresh water which you can drink or splash on your face. Very refreshing!

The other nice things about the mosques is that they have a call to prayer 5 times per day. At these times, the entire city is filled with the sounds of singing in Arabic, reminding people of the importance of connecting with their faith. The main mosque has rugs outside where you will see people praying at all times of the day, but even more respond to the call to prayer and then the mosque and courtyard are filled with people kneeling, laying down, then kneeling, then standing up and repeating this sequence in a beautiful and full-body prayer. I would like to learn to pray in this way. It seems so much the best way to pray, because the whole body, voice, mind, and spirit are engaged in the connection with the divine.

Here is me, first thing in the morning, with mismatched socks... gotta love it!

And here I am in a ˝mall˝ where you can buy every kind of western fashion that you can imagine.

We also saw these Barbie dolls yesterday and it was so funny to see the Muslim Barbie next to what looks like a ˝streetwalker˝ Barbie.

Ode to Sarah (a work in progress)

Sarah is my new friend who is wonderful and here are some of the reasons why:

Studying Sociology and Demography
Always caring for people and the earth
Righteous
Angry only when appropriate
Her skills include getting air conditioning in our room

She is my hero
Truly a wonder of a woman
A self-described Africanist
Venturing to faraway lands
Evolved mind
Thinking all the time
Eventually I hope to be like her someday
Individual and unique
Gorgeous personality and embodied self


And a Haiku for Sarah

Sarah Staveteig
Learning about womens lives
Knocking on their doors

The Happiness of Funding

Oh I am so happy!!!!

I just received news from UC Berkeley that they are giving me a $500 travel grant to cover some of the costs of attending the conference. It is so great!

They only give travel grants if you are presenting a paper, and $500 is the highest amount that they give. I feel very blessed and so grateful!

Just wanted to share the happiness with you all!! YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Excursion

Yesterday was a crazy long day. We visited I don't know how many different sites in Southern BiH (in the Hercegovina part of BiH).



So wherever we (the conference people) go, we have a police escort. It makes us feel important (haha). We also have an ambulance which travels with us.

We make quite a spectacle (on the way to Srebrenica we had 1 "executive van," 11 buses, 2 police cars, and an ambulance--today only the van, 3 buses and the normal detail of police/ambulance). People come out of their houses and lean far out the windows, quizzical expressions on their faces, trying to figure out what we are up to.

Actually on the way to Srebrenica the other day (the cemetery/mass grave), some people were not quizzical; they were a bit hostile. There is a Serb nationalist hand gesture which is the thumb and first 2 fingers extended-- this is very offensive to the Bosnians and Croats-- and many of the people we passed made this sign at the buses and cars passing on the way to the cemetery (because it is located in the Serb part of Bosnia). Some of them smiled and waved. So it was a mixed bag. Also on thw way t Srebrenica, there were Serb soldiers stationed on small bridges and outside houses and businesses to protect property and people from any angry and upset mourners who might take revenge or take out their grief on the Serbs living in the vicinity of Srebrenica... but back to today...

Here is me on the bus (where I have spent countless hours in the past few days).

I got to visit Mostar for a second time and I was elated to stand on the bridge once again.


Here is a photo of my friend Sarah (a sociology and demographics PhD student at Berkeley doing her dissertation in Bosnia and Rwanda) and I on the Old Bridge of Mostar. You can see in the background the minaret of the mosque I climbed last time I was here in Mostar.

After the brief stop in Mostar (where I bought local honey with almonds and wine and a small replica of the bridge which I regretted not buying last time I was here), we went to visit an old dervish monastery on the Buna river.


Here are some things you can't do in the monastery. My favorite is "no love" on the bottom right (which is not what they meant, but it looks like that, doesn't it?

You have to cover your hair with a scarf (which they kindly let you use for free) when you go inside and I saw a woman dashing ahead with her hair uncovered. I said, "I think you're supposed to cover your hair." She rolled her eyes, sucked her teeth and said (in the manner of a 4-year old or a spoiled teen), "Do we have to?" I repeated that I thought we were supposed to and then I added, "it is respectful to cover your hair." This elicited another eye roll and teeth suck and she sprinted up the stairs. She was then stopped by a man who had seen this whole interaction and told she could not enter with her hair uncovered. I couldn't believe how obnoxious she was. We are guests in this country and the least we can do is to follow what they ask of us in terms of basic respect and not desecrating their most holy places.

Anyway, the best part of the monastery for me were the views out the windows of the beautiful Buna river. there were also a few balconies where you could walk out and see the vistas. A man was praying in one room, and another room had a whole bunch of copies of the Koran. I tripped over a pile of prayer beads on the floor. oops!








Also there was a stairway leading down to the water where you could wash your face and even drink from the icy water (it was 10 degrees C, so "icy" is a very accurate description). There was an ornate silver cup that you could use to scoop up the water which I happily filled several times.


After touring the monastery, we had a wonderful lunch on the banks of the river. They gave us each 2 fish (and tried to convince the few vegetarians at the table that the chicken soup and the fish lunch were vegetarian). the fish were whole with heads on and they seemed to be looking right at you. I took the head off mine (a first time experience for me) and after I didn't feel it's fishy eyes staring me down, it was quite tasty!



It was sooo hot (nearly 100 degrees F), so periodically during lunch we would stick our feet in the icy Buna river. The water was so cold that it kind of hurt at first but it was such a relief from the heat that we kept doing it until our feet went numb. Here you can see me talking with a girl to whom i gave a copy of my book. She was telling me how much she enjoyed it and Sarah snapped a photo. You can see how my feet are only partway in the water and the beverages are not refridgerated-- they are just stached up in the river in a special stone part that was built up to the fast current doesn't taje the beer, juice, and water with it as it flow onward. OH SO COLD! My feet were numb for at least 30 minutes in th ebus after this, but it was so refreshing after such a hot, sunny day.


Here is my friend Rowan (from melbourne, Australia) with his "sun parasol." I gave him some sunscreen and he was very happy.