Our initial plan when we left the UK was to spend a week in Croatia working our way up the coast and to do a day trip to Visoko, Bosnia to see the pyramids (oh, you didn't know about the Bosnian pyramids? More on those later!) After leaving Greece we decided on more time in Bosnia and just to pass through Croatia. I'm sure Croatia's really nice, but we kinda weren't feeling sun sea and sand, hotels and island hopping (crazy isn't it). This trip has been defined by the people we have met and we wanted to meet Bosnian people. They are famous for their kindness and hospitality, something laid in the foundation of their capital - Sarajevo. The first building in Sarajevo was a tekke. This is a place where travellers can rest for a few days before moving on, they traditionally had free kitchens and accommodation, with devotional activities (zikr - chanting) on offer for people to take part in. Old Bosnian cities - like all old Muslim cities - are filled with fountains, clean drinking water available to everybody. That priceless commodity recognised as a gift from God to all humanity, a stark contrast to the increasing privatisation of fresh water supplies today.
We wanted to stay in a tekke but unfortunately couldn't find one that runs in a traditional way. Many tekkes still function as centres for devotional activities but not as places where travellers can rest. Sarajevo seems to have lost it's purpose somewhat. We had been told that there were more Sufis around the more rural areas of Bosnia, but as is the norm with Sufis there is no organisation as such, they can be somewhat elusive. A world of spirituality can very quickly blossom before you if you meet the right person - if you find the door - but that door is seldom found on the internet (a fact I kind of like) - and the Bosnian tourist office couldn't help either! It turned out that a zikr festival was on which we missed - thousands of people gathered to do zikr and no one we asked knew about it. It was a Bosnian Sufi in Zurich who told us - see what I mean about elusive!
So we took some time to learn about the history instead. Here is what I (loosely) gather regarding Bosnia after WW2. After the war the 6 states of Yugoslavia were liberated from the axis powers (Germany etc) and became a communist republic under the rule of Tito. He dealt strongly with any hint of disunity among his people, which included several distinct cultural identities. While the Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats are all ethnically south Slavic, they have religio-cultural differences in that the Bosnians are Muslim, Serbs Orthodox and Croats are Catholic. After Tito, Yugoslavia became increasingly unstable leading to nationalistic tendencies among the 3 ethnic groups. Slobodan Milosovic, against the wish of his peers, played these tensions against each other. He eventually became president, and in his hopes to create a nation for Serbs led to a genocide campaign against the Muslims. Things got really messy, all 3 groups warred but the Muslim Bosniaks seemed the least prepared and suffered the worst for it. Torture, mass rape - you name it. Around 100,000 people died. Too often I hear of wars bringing out the most evil characteristics in people. Even if you really believe in the cause you're fighting for, why rape your opponents? Overnight, friends of different religions became enemies, we really couldn't understand why.
We met a 32 year old guy called Midhat. While walking around his home town of Visoko he pointed out, "Snipers would shoot and tanks would come down from that hill. School was closed, we stayed in all the time. My grandfather was killed in the war". It was hard to believe, hard to put ourselves in that position as we walked around the quiet village surrounded by hills. How frightening for a 6 year old boy to be faced with that. It all happened so recently - in the 90s! Walking round Sarajevo, we could see bullet holes in some of the buildings. Weird to think this all happened in our lifetime.
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