Sarajevo

Here I am in the object of my decade-long desire. Now that I am in Sarajevo, I am not sure my curiosity can stand up to the city. It's a mess: burned out homes and Soviet-style office buildings. Birds were nesting in the holes left in the side of a house from Serb shelling during the war. It's like walking through ruins of some ancient civilization. The sides of brick houses still reach upward - just one long column of bricks on either side of the house. Rubble of what used to be homes or offices are strewn about one-time front yards and walkways. The metal that still manges to hold those uniformly ugly 1970 Soviet-era architecture together is rusted, the color dried blood. Indeed, there was enough blood shed here to have painted some of the buildings with it. Stringy, sooty apartment blocks line street and after street. Holes from bullets, shells and grenades scar so many buildings that you stop noticing them, just expect to see them. Of course, arriving in any bus station means taking the first steps in the worst part of town.

The old Turkish Quarter is another story. It's lovely. I've arrived the day before Ramadan ends and lucky for me my host and friend, Saida, lives right in the old town. The call to prayers echoes through the narrow, cobble-stone streets. An eery song that I never get tired of. The bridge where the Arch Duke Ferdinand was assassinated, thus setting off World War I, is about 3 blocks away. For three days during Bajram Muslims celebrate by eating, visiting and drinking gallons of coffee. It's baklava time. Consumed all day. We go to a nearby graveyard where Bosnia's post-war president is buried. His grave, covered by a white cupola, is surrounded by hundreds of gleaming white, obelisk shaped tomb stones made from granite. They are the graves of Bosnian Muslims (Bosniaks) who were killed by attacking Bosnian Serbs, led by Slobodan Milosevic. They are all the same: died 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995 while the international community continued to block weapons to the Bosnians but refused to intervene. A wave of anger and shame swept over me as I watched the families kissing the cold white stone instead of their sons, brothers, fathers, husbands, lovers, sisters, daughters, mothers. They are buried on top of old graves because the city ran out of room and couldn't move outside the city where most cemetaries were before the fighting penned the people in. They buried the dead at night to avoid being bulls-eye targets for the snipers on the hillsides above them. The guard standing over President Izetbegovic's grave looked so lonely and stark and proud. I might be just projecting. Maybe he is bored, but I doubt it. Bosnians are proud of their former president and for having survived death and destruction with grace.

Below, down the winding streets, the Turkish Quarter is lined cafes, little Cevapcici shops, hole-in-the-wall stores selling the special coffee pots traditional to Bosnia. Turns out, Turkish coffee is really Bosnian coffee, so they say here anyway. The Turks drink tea, Saida pointed out. But because Bosnia was ruled by the Ottomans until the late 19th century, it became known as Turkish coffee. Here it's just called "kafa." Strong, hot and sweet. Sarajevo is also famous for its water. Outside the main mosque water spews from a spigot and people stop to take a drink or just wash their hands. It's clear as crystal. They say that if you drink the water from the fountains you will return to Sarajevo.