I arrived in Sarajevo on Monday afternoon. The contrast with Zagreb’s stately-yet-dysfunctional facsimile of Budapest was pronounced. In Zagreb the transit doesn’t work and everything remains under scaffolding and a suspended state of reconstruction following the earthquake of a few years ago, but the city still hums with commerce and culture. In Sarajevo the cracks on the buildings’ facades follow unbroken lines onto people’s faces. You step into a mosaic of resignation incorporating body and edifice. Gravity comes first, the thunder before the lightning.
Despite the audible heaviness in contrast to the boisterousness of other places I have been in the Balkans, I have met with cheer verging on bacchanal. My contact here kindly arranged for a meeting with several generous and enthusiastic members of the punk pantheon from this city. I have also had wonderful experiences meeting with my teaching colleagues on the campus of the Department of Philosophy. I can only look forward to what might come from these personal connections. I’m very happy and very lucky to have been able to strike up these friendships, and I hope that it will result in more opportunities for students to study here, and more reason to study this language. Having the chance to study abroad is a concrete motivation for keeping a language in a student’s schedule.
Bosnia won their World Cup game last night, and the whole city was screaming along with every play. Everyone here is invested, and there are throngs of people gathered at the screens set up in the center in various locations to watch.
More meetings today at the university, then tourism. I need to book for Belgrade. The old town has an unreal quality, scented by saffron, punctuated by strong Bosnian coffee.
Moonrise over Sarajevo from the balcony of my apartment.