On the Pursuit of My Dreams

Karlo (22), Catholic, survivor of the Siege of Bihac. He still has vivid memories of that period, he could stay up all night and talk to you about the war, about how brothers turned guns on each other, about how it was all made to look like a war over religion. He is currently working for the Bosnian Special Forces.
Sanja (38), Muslim, lost an eye during the war. He is currently a Bank Manager and is married to Dzana (37), Muslim, who escaped the war’s terror by fleeing to Jordan. She was one of the lucky ones.
Ivan (45), Orthodox, is a Bosnian army Major and an advisor of the Dutch soldiers detached to Bosnia to ‘preserve’ peace, 16 years after the war’s end. He is a funny guy and he immediately gets all of my attention, because his way of telling jokes about the war [haz de necaz – by making fun of troubled times] is a Balkan thing and it reminds me of home. The Dutch guys don’t understand and they can barely keep up.
We are all paddling in the same boat and we’ve passed the 6-metre waterfalls on our way down the exquisite Una River.
Here they are – the abandoned railroad tracks used during the war by the Bosnians trying to escape to Croatia. Our boat is now close to the finish line.
We go out for a drink afterwards and I can hear the call to prayer, but our Muslim friends don’t seem to be minding it. And all the memories of the war are washed down by a sip of a delightful local beer.
I can’t help it though – as I rest my sight upon the delicately lit 13th century church turned into mosque – but think about these people, about how wonderful and kind they are. About how we’ve managed to stay close despite spending only a few days a year together. They did not choose their religion; consequently, they should not be punished for the Turkish legacy imposed onto them. They did not ask for war. Yet it came and all those buildings with bullet holes in them seem ghosts of the years they refuse to chase away: past vs. a future they fear turning its back on them.