I could go on and on about Sarajevo… I could go on and on about its charming cobblestone roads that lead to its narrow streets filled with peacock colors and sounds of “cling clang” … where one would find a series of tiny coppersmith shops selling silver jewelry and souvenirs… and of course local cafes offering the succulent kebab-like sausages known as “cevapcici”…Yumm… My mouth waters even as I sing the syllables of the word in my head … “Che-vap-chee-chee”… “Che-vap-chee-chee”…

I could go on and on about the very eminent presence of two distinct architectural periods… Each beautiful in its own right… At times, Sarajevo is an old Ottoman town with Sultan style mosques lending to it the ambience of a “mini Istanbul”… A few moments later, it’s like a taking a stroll along a Viennese street marked by majestic Austro-Hungarian buildings… a chronological imperial timeline bearing witness to the fact that everyone wanted to claim the city’s raw Balkan charm at some point in history…

I could go on and on about its hilly “suburbia” of quaint houses and neighborhoods of terra cotta roofs forming what seemed like peaceful communities at least from a distance… and I could go on and on about the endless tombstones and graveyards nestled in between stretches of green grass, brilliant red tulips, and ancient trees making up surreal forests…

I could go on and on about its tranquil emerald lakes… “ice still” lakes reflecting the countryside’s mountainous terrain like gigantic mirrors … And, I could go on about its white mountain peaks weeping away the remnants of last December’s snow…

I could go on and on… but I choose to tell you instead about the few people that I met along the way….

Let me tell you about “Mustafa”, the fruit seller at the local “markale” which means “market” in Bosnian… the tragic sight of two of the most brutal massacres that took place during the Bosnian War… Today, it’s all about strawberries, pomegranates, and an exchange of fresh morning greetings among boisterous vendors. There was Mustafa, a forty-something and a short “jolly chap”, who generously offered us free fruit to taste every single morning… “Come come taste… sweeeet sweeet strawberries from Mostar” he would repeat each day… He would then hand over to us brown paper bags filled with pears, cucumbers, and yes of course “strawberries from Mostar” and never once did he forget to seal them with a warm embracing smile….

Let me tell you about “Selmir”, a handsome tall young gentlemen with a very business-like demeanor sitting on a bench at a local playground …It all began when a young teenage girl with narrow eyes holding onto the rusted chains of a swing began to talk to my daughter in Bosnian. She would not stop speaking but each time we tried to explain to her that we did not understand Bosnian, she grinned at us amusingly and continued to mumble. I glanced around me looking for someone who would claim to be the parent of this lovely child … “No” he said in very fluent English “I am not her father. I am a teacher and she is my student and is intellectually challenged”. There he was an educator for children with special needs… I had mistook him for the father of these bright-eyed children, and all I could see in his eyes was an incredible sense of paternal patience and a whole lot of love. We introduced ourselves and at the end of the conversation I realized that he hadn’t travelled beyond Bosnia… not even around Europe in fact… and I knew that like most Bosnians of the post-war era, he probably couldn’t afford it. It didn’t to seem matter… He did tell us though how he longed to one day visit beautiful Makkah and be called a “Hajji”… He too left us with a warm embracing smile…

Let me tell you about “Ezra”, a young “bubbly” woman… actually a red head with big wavy curls in her hair and a lot of life in her spirit… a salesgirls at the entrance of a tiny shop in one of the oldest streets of the historic center of Sarajevo known as Basjarjia. I can vividly remember the dancing twinkle in her hazel-tinted almond eyes… a reflection of the shimmering copper and brass around her… engraved in them was the unmistakable identity of the daughter of a lineage of coppersmith artisans… We passed by her store almost every single day and she would often stand outside gazing at the world around her. She never once tried to lure us into buying anything which was quite peculiar for a store that probably depended on infrequent purchases made by wandering tourists… but then again she was always ready to talk to us in her broken English. She spoke of the difficult times… and about the close to fifty percent unemployment rate among what she disapprovingly referred to as the young “coffee sipping” generation of Sarejevo… She pointed her long purple manicured fingernail at the cafe across from us as if to prove it… When it was time for us to bid her farewell, she too always left us with that warm embracing smile…

Let me tell you about “Rajib”, our cab driver to the olympic mountains… The silent “mujahid” if I may without being too politically incorrect these days… He wore a medium length beard and “John Lennon” glasses that sat low on his hooked nose… Through his glasses one could peer into two very intense round, almost cartoon-like eyes… He was darker than most Sarajevans with more of an olive toned Mediterranean complexion… I can still picture in my mind his young hands loosely placed on the steering wheel as he confidently drove us through winding roads in his van … Not a worry in the world… He was all too familiar with these narrow mountain lanes …He would hum to us a few lines from an old Bosnian folk song and steal occasional glances from his side window as if to make sure that he was still on track… needless to mention the number of prayers we had recited in our heads in the hope of making it to the top of the mountain in one piece. He spoke close to perfect Arabic from years of living in Libya… We asked him about the war… With the fervor of an athlete flexing his muscles, he would tell us “The war has ended alhamdulilah but Sarajevans will peacefully continue their jihad for victory”…. and then he too left us with what had now become that all too familiar warm embracing smile…
Yes… true… Sarajevo is about ironies… A photo gallery of the Srebrenica genocide, that led to the death of close to 8000 Muslims, behind a street guitarist passionately playing “Hotel California” …Little ones chasing after dogs or playing ball in the city’s central park among tombstones of children who died during the early 90‘s war… Fast paced pedestrians on the city sidewalks probably rushing to work as they obliviously trod on what are called ” Sarajevo Roses”…. Juliet had once said “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet” … But no… not these roses. Sarajevo roses refer to mortar explosion sights that were filled up with red resin in living memory of all those who died right at those spots… those who died immediately… painfully… tragically…

But my favorite irony of all are those “warm embracing smiles” in a country faced with heartbreaking economic hardship and a painful political post-war arrangement … No bitterness… No sense of victimization… No animosity… No “dwelling on the past”… Just “warm embracing smiles” emanating an incredible sense of hope to the ends of the world… At least that’s how it felt…

Although I’ve travelled quite a bit in my lifetime, I must say that Sarejevo was the only city where I chose to leave a part of me… and I did so wholeheartedly… maybe as an excuse to someday return to this enchanting yet humble and at times haunting place… or maybe in the hope of letting the people of Sarejevo tame that part of me that often forgets how important it is to never lose hope… no matter what 😉