A Decade From Celebration to War

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Today was another somewhat slow day. We started with a lecture from our Serbian TA on Balkan relations and why differentiating between the different nationalities can be so different, what with the dozens of invasions and migrations over the years.

We then had the chance to meet with the Bishop of the Sarajevo Diocese, who was one of the few religious leaders that stuck around during the war. When we asked why, he gave several reasons, including "this is home," "the New Testament says a shepherd stays with his flock," and "love is stronger than fear." He was also quite a character. For example, during Communist Yugoslavia, religious was, of course, oppressed. In one interrogation, when he refused to budge, the interrogator took out a gun and put it on the table, saying "you see I can kill you." The Bishop responded, "if they gave me a gun, I could kill you." Then, he told us while laughing, the torture started. Another anecdote: he never felt unsafe, because he "had a guardian angel always following him: a member of the secret police." It was a very amusing meeting, while also informative on the Catholic faith in Bosnia.



After meeting with the Bishop, a group of us went on a walk to find the old Olympic Stadium, Zetra, from the 1984 Olympics. It was sad to see from the outside, because much of it looks as though it has been let go: overgrown bushes, graffiti, rusting fences and the like saturate the area. However, there was a small museum we visited (by the look on the lady's face, it doesn't get many visitors), and we got the chance to peek inside the stadium. It was renovated in 1999 after the war, and is currently used as a multi-purpose sporting arena. There's also a billiards/darts bar, and a few sporting club headquarters. There are a few nice soccer pitches around it as well.



We then went out to the World Cup tent set up downtown to watch the game. I made the mistake of rooting for Brazil...needless to say, I left at halftime. I've had decidedly bad luck this World Cup...I'm about 5 for 20 on teams I've rooted for. Oh well.



On Wednesday afternoon we go to visit the Embassy, but we do have the morning off, which is nice for sleeping in and relaxing a bit more. We're starting to reach the end of our time here in Sarajevo, but we have several other cool cities we head to over the next weeks, including Mostar, Banja Luka, and Belgrade!

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