a ribbon of highway | an endless skyway: July 2011

Wow. So much has happened since my last blog entry! My last day before I left in Sarajevo, I went to the zoo. It was really great walking through a part of the city I had never been through before. I passed a large graveyard on the way, the feelings it gave me were to be indicative of what I would soon feel on a greater scale as I entered Srebrenica. The zoo was great, albeit small. I had a great time just taking my camera and watching the children interact with the animals. I couldn't help but think of Rainer Maria Rilke's poem The Panther, as I watched a fox pace the cage. He stopped in front of me, pressed himself against the cage bars, with his eyes sweetly closed, almost seeming to smile in a sad way. It was just like when my dog back home would pressed herself against my leg for me to pet her. Who knows why and on what level I connected with this creature, but I began to feel the heaviness of what has happened here in Bosnia, the tension that I feel still very much so remains.
Now, I am at the Franco Bettoli youth camp in Srebrenica. There are about 120 something off people here working at the camp, building the facilities in the camp, cleaning the village, and just in general aiming to help rebuild and strengthen the community here. Emaus is working towards bridging the significant gap between children who face more challenges in even just their transportation who have fallen behind in the educational system compared to the rest of Bosnia. It is pretty neat, I think.

Yesterday I went with a friend to the commemoration for the people killed during the genocide who were recently found. In this small town, the streets were so crowded you could hardly walk without bumping into someone. The ceremony was so intense, so heart-wrenching to just be there. Standing beside the rows of caskets and people sitting on the ground, essentially drying their tears in the summer sun, I asked a simple question of "how?. It is a question that I think most people ask whenever they are exposed to the fact that something very awful happened. How does one have the capacity to do these things, and is there still that capacity to do it again? How can it be prevented, or can it be? Humans have been killing each other in the name of many things, but I question if man should ever stop to ask the question of why in the act. More than anything, it is more salt in the wound to hear that these notions are still very much so alive and active, these prejudices are being transmitted to the younger generations. I can only hope that on some scale that this camp and its facilities will help initiate some sort of dialogue for healing and reconciliation.