FOOC Bosnia
It's been so long. But I will keep as brief as poss.
On the 21st September we were kindly invited to a church party by our Serb neighbours. But this was a significant invitation. Just to explain some background briefly, we live above a village close to a town, and as often happens here, villages and neighbourhoods are ethnically based. So the village we are attached to was traditionally Serb (Orthodox) and there is a little Orthodox church in the middle of it. Sadly, the whole of the village was burnt to the ground by the Croat army (HVO, entioned in one of my early FOOC reports posts) but has now been gradually rebuilt. The village population has changed a lot however. A lot of the older people have stayed here but their children and grandchildren have chosen to move to parts of the country where the population is mainly ethnically Serb, and many of the Muslim population who had to leave those same areas as refugees to avoid ethnic cleansing during the war, have now ended up living here. (There are however no Croats/Catholics living in this village, for obvious reasons). So... the fact that we, as not only non-Serbs but also foreigners, were invited to one of their parties, was very important - it meant that we have been accepted. And WHAT A PARTY! These guys can really put on a spread and they really know how to have a good time! There was roast pork, freshly baked bread, lovely salads, cake, and the ever-present rakija or plum brandy! And it just kept coming - never an empty plate! And constant singing - all the traditional medieval-sounding 'village' songs sung sperately by the men and women (sounds a bit like this but without the formality, the dancing, and the sobriety! - followed by dancing in a long arm-linked chain around the tightly-packed trestle tables of the church hall (a bit difficult to find a clip that gives you an idea but this is as close as I could get - and once more try and imagine it a bit more drunk and uncoordinated!). All our Serb beighbours were there and it was a lovely afternoon. It was the first time we'd met their priest too and he was great - tall, dark glasses, goatee beard, young, a toothpick hanging out of his mouth, and a cigarette on the go contantly!!! And rumour has it that he's quite a ladies' man !
The other significant event lately was the end of Ramadan, from the 1st of October. Typical for Bosnians, who find it hard to resist the temptation of a party, the celebrations started unofficially two days before: the air was filled all day and all night with the sound and smell of fireworks and firecrackers (and the occasional gun fired in to the air), and there was that crazy, unhinged atmosphere in town! The official celebrations (called Bajram here, pronounced bah-ee-ram), started on Tuesday last week, with the first day being the visits-to-family day, the second day being the visits-to-friends day, and the second evening being the night the young people go wild in the town's nightclubs and bars! We were flattered to be invited for 'breakfast' on the first morning by our neighbours, who are a mixed muslim-serb family. They stuffed us full of roast lamb, stuffed peppers, stuffed onions, veal pie, spinach pie, cheese, chicken soup, big salads, home made bread, pickled tomatoes, pickled cabbage, baklava and other sweets/cakes, coffee, and as always the plum brandy! My god, I could not move. Then we were also invited to our friends' house for the afternoon get-together, at which I had to decline most of what was put out for guests to graze on... but as usual I could not resist Zinka's spinach pie! The remaining Bajram days were also a food-and-coffee-and-brandy-fest as we did the rounds of visits. The custom is to greet everyone by saying 'Bajram bajricula' (have a blessed bajram), and the reply is 'Allah Razullah' (god's blessings for you).
So with all this partying under our belts we are back at our harvesting, getting the last of it in before the winter sets in. It is autumnal at the moment and the colours are beautiful as always, but it won't last long. Snow sometimes falls in late October and is the start of a winter that continues until April.