Sarajevo: Fireworks, Grbavica, and Communist ER Rooms

A lot has happened and my first month in Bosnia isn't even over. Rather than detailing events from each day, I'll tell you a few stories....



Ramadan is a Muslim month of fasting. The fast lasts from sun up to sundown. One of our first evenings in Sarajevo, our team walked up to an overlook created by an old stone wall shaded by large trees. (See first two pics in "Welcome to Sarajevo!" post below.) The overlook provides a scenic view of the city in the valley of the Miljacka River. The sun was setting as we took pictures and soaked up the scenery. Some camera men began setting up their equipment nearby and an old man arrived with a mortar for fireworks. Not knowing what to expect, we began to descend the hillside, through a Muslim cemetery towards the Old Town. Before we got far, a red firework boomed overhead and immediately hundreds of minarets across the valley lit up with white lights and the Adhan began blaring through loudspeakers. The valley echoed with the sound. We're not in Atlanta anymore!

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[Bridge across Miljacka River to Grbavica]

Let me introduce you to my neighborhood. Grbavica is a quite neighborhood in the New Town where many families with childrend live in Communist-era high-rise apartment buildings on the southern side of the Miljacka River.


[The entrance to our building. Two grocery stores in our buidling!]


[This street just across the river from our apartment is closed off every evening at 5 and on weekends for walkers, runners, bicyclists, and skaters.]


[Communist-era high-rises. Look closely for bomb damage still present.]

I just finished reading Love Thy Neighbor on the plane ride back from Croatia to Sarajevo. My second arrival to Sarajevo began with finishing the book that is a first-hand account of the war that took place in this city 14 years ago from a journalist's perspective. The stories in the book were never as real to me as when I read one that involved my new neighborhood. Peter Maas, the journalist/author of the book recounted a time when he had been given a tour by a Serbian soldier during the siege of the city. The Serbian led him into Grbavica, into a high-rise, down into underground bunkers where Serbian soldiers slept, and back up into one of the high-rises. The way, Maas describes the high-rise he was in convinces me that he was in one of the two near our building, if not in ours itself. From the top floor (most have 15), the Serbian soldier showed Maas the view of the city from the window where a sniper was posted aiming for people in the city as part of their ethnic cleansing agenda. He pointed out the modern, yellow and orange Holiday Inn where Maas was staying and pointed his pistol at the civilians entering and exiting the hotel. The Serbian soldier said "See! No shoot!" to try prove to Maas that he wasn't shooting civilians.

Over 33,000 Bosnian civilians were killed in the war.

From my window, I can see the same Holiday Inn. The bullet holes in buildings and grenade blasts in sidewalks throughout the city and now this are eerie reminders of this city's all-too recent past.

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Now for some good news right? Well, this is good news: I'm out of the hospital!

Let me back up.

This past Wednesday night I came down with something-- we're still not sure what caused it, but one instant I was sitting at coffee with some colleagues and a new friend chatting about barbecue ribs and Bosnian cuisine and the next minute I was vomiting, shivering like crazy and having diarrhea.

The day before we had visited Vrelo Bosne, a beautiful park outside of Sarajevo one of the natural springs that feed into the city comes from the mountain that stands besides the park. Chad and I had dipped our water bottles into the stream at the source, being told by locals that it was safe. Being the good Eagle Scout I am, I remembered all the precautions I used to take when drinking water in the wild, but thought how great it was to not have to worry about that stuff.


[Vrelo Bosne. Don't drink the water.]

Well, it got so bad that night that I had to ask Andrew to take me to the ER. I vomited from the window of the taxi on the way to the hospital and was prepared for a long wait in the lobby of the ER. We were greeted by a local who laughed at me for "drinking too much Bosnian beer and having too much fun with Bosnian women" and who marveled "How do you draw buildings when you're drunk?" after learning that I had been an architect.

Surprisingly, I was helped after about a 30 min wait and then the fiasco began. First they took blood, then they x-rayed my stomach, then they ran an ultrasound, then they hooked me up to an EKG and took my blood pressure, then after seeing probably five different doctors and being helped by the same amount of nurses, they gave me what I had been asking for all along. Andrew had been faithfully using his Bosnian and a Croatian pocket dictionary to try to communicate with the hospital staff what exactly was wrong with me and what I needed (an IV for dehydration). At about two in the morning, I was finally given an IV with fluids while Andrew sat beside the stretcher reading The Three Amigos. (I need to add that between all these tests and procedures they had to transport me by wheelchair or ambulance to the different departments, that were apparently in different buildings. Being moved around this much is no fun for someone with nausea.)

So, by 7:30 am once the IV was done, I thought I was done and would be promptly discharged to go home and shake off the rest of the illness on my own, but I soon found myself in another ambulance being carried to the operation ward of the hospital. I was then escorted quickly through white halls and into a room where a pair of pajamas and a bed was waiting for me. I was told to change and get in bed. We were also given some paperwork that said something about an operation.

At this point, Andrew, who had been with me this whole time, and I knew that something wasn't right and that we needed some help. Several phone calls with an emergency hotline and several doctors asking where I felt pain in my stomach later, it was determined that I didn't need surgery. (Thank God!)

Then they decided to move me to a different room that had a TV, a fan, and its own bathroom, an upgrade to be sure and let me stay there while another IV replaced my fluids. Now somewhere along the line, a nurse had made a mistake in inserting the IV needle causing a leak, so by the third IV my arm was numb and throbbing with pain. Another teammate, Griffin, hung out with me, while I lay in the hospital bed all that day until I finally shook my fever and then all that was left was the intense pain in my right arm.

Griffin was on the phone with Andrew commenting on the difficulty in finding someone who spoke English in the hospital when a girl who was passing by outside on the sidewalk heard her comment through the open window and said "Oh, I speak English! Do you need help?" The girl then helped Griffin communicate to the doctor and nurse that I was ready to go home. (It turns out that she happened to know one of our teammates Rhesia!)

I was finally free, feeling much better, except for a very sore arm. But now my arm is almost back to normal and I am almost back to normal eating and drinking habits. The night I came home, however, Chad, my roommate got sick, and now as I'm writing this, it sounds like my Andrew has caught the bug as well.......

Pray for healing!