Safely, Happily in Sarajevo (at last!)

Today I got to hear the Muslim President of Bosnia speak (my first event once I finally arrived at the conference). I am so glad I didn't miss it. I had only ever seen him on CNN so it was pretty awesome to hear him speak in person.

There are headphones which you can wear when the speaker is using Bosnian and the headphones provide immediate translation. I can't believe the fortitude of the interpreters, because often it is one person translating the Bosnian in to English and then any English into Bosnian. THere may be other languages available as well. amazing.

I also got to hear a speech and large-group-format-discussion with Carla Del Ponte, the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal on Yugoslavia (ICTY) which was amazing except that most of the questions from the audience focused on the failures of ICTY, most of which were no fault of the Prosecutors.

I just finished watching a screening of Grabavica, which won the "best European film" award at the Berlin Film Festival (I missed the film when I was in Berlin because I didn't hear about it until after the festival was over and the film had won). It is an incredible story about a woman who was raped during the war and her relationship with her daughter who was born as a result of the rapes. I recommend the film to everyone (except children). It was a sensitive, honest, human telling of the story of so many Bosniak women and it has really had an impact in terms of helping survivors of rape to become visible in a culture (and world community) in which they have been invisible.

The director of the film was there and I got to ask her a question after the film (about the process of making it, which she said the wrting alone took 5 years). Amazing! She was swarmed after the screening, so I will try to approach her in the next few days to talk one on one if possible.

And Sarah, the other PhD student from Berkeley who told me about the conference is an instant kindred spirit. We have so much in common in terms of our work but also our style of being in the world, importance of human relationships, respect for people, etc. So we are sharing a room in the hotel (which is quite nice actually, despite the initial reports that the room was smelly and hot). Sarah got air conditioning working in our room, so she is instantly my hero (although she was already pretty high up on my list of awesome people).

So I am making friends, making connections, and basically doing what I came here to do. YAY!