Why my trip to Bosnia have damaged my thoughts about travel! Copy
Its a long due time for me to post to talk about my experience visiting Bosnia,
Being from a country of war myself (Iraq), I have not thought that this experience would affect me as much, to bring the memories in me, to remember hearing the sounds of shots, or seeing them in the the streets.
yet my heart was filled with sorrow, with sadness, and with blame. I couldn’t see a scene without being disheartened.
I saw the building with gunshot holes, the souls broken from the war, yes the war is recent, yet the Bosnians are embracing it with laugh, with love and with hospitality that never was changed by the war..
gunshots were turned into an art
Yes, maybe my thought are a one in a million or maybe there are those who share the same ideas.
Maybe there are those who want to experience the truth or to feel it. maybe there are true travelers, true seekers, the ones who are looking to know the truth rather than seeing beautiful buildings rather than being in line to see the famous Mostar Bridge.
Croatian journalist Slavenka Draku-“Why do we feel more pain looking at the image of the destroyed
bridge than the image of massacred people? We expect people to die. The destruction of a monument to civilization is something else. The bridge transcended our individual destiny.”
As a travel writers we are only sharing beautiful stories about our travels, amazing tales of people we meet, beautiful imageries of famous cultural monument, this usual idealistic images of travel, yet we rarely talk about the pain, the history, this tourism industry and how it is affecting the country we are traveling to? rarely we hear about sustainable travel other than green or eco?
rarely I heard why is this country going through this? or how to help?
instead of commercializing more and more, the famous tourist attractions
why can’t we see more ways to commercialize the whole country? to make the whole country benefit from the tourism industry? rather than being obsessed about lining up to see a bridge!
how can we make an impact as tourists?
how can we help the countries we are visiting? how can we help the people we are meeting?
are we leaving a good footprint or are we just a fading footprint ?
are we seekers of truth or are we just observers?
Bosnia showed me the difference between tourism and sustainable tourism ?
what a tourist sees and and what a traveler feels?
Bosnia have showed me that you still love with a broken heart, you can smile even when your wounds are fresh.
Bosnia was a country where I was welcomed with a smile even when I was struggling to smile,
I can only send love to you,
to the funny guy selling coffee in front o the famous bridge with all the tourists living up to see the divers jump of the famous Mostar Bridge, He was yelling to have free coffee for the girl with the crazy hair and made all the tourist look for her. and yes that was me
to the sweet ladies in the grocery shop who saw me limping with my broken feet, who didn’t speak a word of english yet managed to tell me that I look like the dolls in her store.
To the guy with the coffee shop in the bus station, who refuse to let me pay for my coffee and helped me with my backpack to the bus.
language is never a barrier for Bosnian people and their hospitality.
I’m sorry if I’m mocking the tourists whose heart maybe too fragile to see the ruins in the cities, to read the truth or even feel it.
I’m sorry if I can’t seem to understand why a bridge seems to be more important than the people living in that country.
i dont blame the tourists, I don’t blame the truth, Me, Myself even too fragile to feel it.
here is the difference in pictures of Modern Bosnia, what the tourists are looking for or looking at?
and what is outside the tourist areas? whats it like to be in the sniper tower?
whats it like to feel walking down the streets of Bosnia?
some snapshots from my camera,
and some discussion, please share your truth with me?
how can we make a change? how can we create more love in this world?
how can we create more unity?
my admiration and love to Bosnia is more than ever or any country
translation of words above according to google translate – sorry if its bad translation
“a drop of my blood flowing down this river,
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