The first week in Sarajevo has been amazing and also very informative. The city is very unique and rich in history. One of feature that makes this city unique is its architecture. When coming from the airport, you see modern architecture but as you progress you pass through Austro-Hungarian architecture and later on you notice Ottoman empire inspired architecture. This diverse architecture says a lot about the history of this region and the history of the previous occupants.
Sarajevo is very beautiful, hilly and it reminds me of Rwanda. The nature is so breathtaking and it made me feel very relaxed. People are also very welcoming and very nice, which also reminds me of Rwanda and make me miss my family. There are so many museums to visit, so many cool places to see and I am really glad to be here. In addition, the history of this country is so similar to the history of my country but people from here have their own way of mourning that is different from the way people in my country mourn. For example, you can see tombstones in the city next to restaurants, residential houses, etc. This acts as a constant reminder of what happened and this so different from Rwanda where people try to forget what happened as much as they can.
We also visited other cities where we saw more interesting places. We visited Tito’s nuclear bunker near the city of Konjic. For me, this was the best place I have visited on this whole trip. I thought this place was so interesting because it was built for only a limited number of very important people from ex-Yugoslavia but now it’s open to everyone, and this contrast is so cool. This place reminded of the Paul Farmer’s quote that “the idea that some lives matter more than others is the root of all that is wrong with the world”. I guess this reminded me of this quote because, choosing just 300 lives to save, somehow meant that to someone their lives were considered as more valuable than other lives.
Bosnian Nuclear Bunker