Livno Highlights

Suddenly it is our last day in Livno. This small town in Bosnia has been our home for two weeks and leaving in the morning will be bittersweet. Time is too short to begin to do justice to the characters we have met and the escapades we have had. Here are some snapshots:

Coffee bars, cigarettes and beer: It isnt just Livno. . . but everywhere we have been on this trip these three elements are consistently present in amazing proportion to everything else. Having a coffee is just what you do numerous times a day. Socializing to doing business . . . it all revolves around coffee. The coffee is exceptional. One can have turkish coffee which I have tried (its quite thick and one needn't consider sleeping in the near future if this is your coffee of choice) but I stick with the most excellent espresso with milk. Sorry Cup a Joe friends, but returning to the menu options at our place is going to be an adjustment after these weeks. . ..
As for cigarettes, smoking is so prolific I have probably taken a few years off of my life with all the second hand smoke I have ingested. These is simply no such thing as spaces where one doenst smoke and once you are 12 or so it seems to be quite acceptable. I may go into nicotine withdrawal when we leave. . . Finally the beer. For every coffee bar in this small town there is an equal number of establishments serving beer. I personally choose not to practice morning beer drinking, though it is not too uncommon to see folks having one at any time of day. .. again not a practice particular to Livno. Traveling through Hungary and Croatia there were times I could not find fruit juice or botttled water but never a place I couldnt have purchased a beer. I have had my favorite morning coffee shop (our spot each morning at 9)and our favorite bar, a classy little joint called Acoustic run by a great guy named Joe. The Tomislav dark on tap is quite exceptional.

Hospitality - It has been exceptional. The initial stares our group received when we rolled into town have changed into warm greetings. One family in particular has adopted our group. Their precocious son, Faris, is a student at the school where we have been working and it was only one day before he was talking members of the group home with him. Soon we were all invited to dinner. Amra, the mom, cooked a feast for all 16 of us plus their family of six. Amra is probably ten years my junior and speaks English well enough that we had many good talks and become friends. Her husband, Ahmet, is a piece of work. .. he is a large animal veterinarian, long-haired tattooeed motorcycle rider with a gregarious personality. I was at their home on Monday when he got an emergency call only a vet could get. The next thing I knew I was in the car with him racing to a farm in a neighboring village to birth a calf. Imagine that. Yes, I got my first calving expereince in Bosnia. On last Saturday Ahmet and Amra and 3 of their 4 kids and our group traveled an hour or more out of Livno to a small community, indescribably beautiful, where their friends hosted us for a meal. We watched as their scooped netfulls of trout from the where they were raised, then cleaned, seasoned (lots of garlic and olive oil and herbs) and grilled them. Livno cheese, huge rounds of hot bread and potato salad (Bosnian style) and lots of beverage accompanied this perfection of a fish feast. We also had an evening with Ahmet and Amra as their guests for the community dance recital in which their two ('adorable' doesnt do them justice) daughters were dancing. This was quite the Livno event. 400 plus people packed into an auditorium meant to seat about 320 and an amazing number of dances from dancers from 7 years to 17. It could have been small town anywere USA. The delight of parents and community members in watching their children perform is universal.