Below is the narrative essay for BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA. Heres's a tip for those of you who read this: It is written by two people, so it has two people talking. My words are written inside the brackets [ ], and my partner, Lena's, are written outside. I also apologise for the length.
Have fun!
Hey, this is Lena [and Christina!]. Here we are in Bosnia [and Herzegovina!] to see our friends Ignacio (Nacho!) and his wife Leeann. [We're staying in their home on the outskirts of the capital, Sarajevo.] They have 3 children: one girl, Casandra, and two boys; Carlos and Cory. [Carlos is the oldest of the three. He's nine, Casi is five, and Cory is two. They're such adorable children, and so much like their parents.] Shut up, no they're not. They're annoying, you even said so! [That was Lena. I deny the fact that that can be me. Anyhow, we're here because Nacho and Leeann's daughter, Casandra, has been kidnapped. Both of them are going through counceling. For some reason, they believe that it's their faults.] Sorry I said they were annoying. I was just kidding. Casandra went missing at a family outing in Sarajevo to see the Turkish dancers. [They've called us here to help search for her. It's going to be hard to find one little girl in a country with a population of 3,482,495.] Why in the world would they move here? I mean, they're surrounded by Yugoslavia and Croatia. [And they have absolutely NO beaches in Bosnia. There's all of one place where it touches the water. And the people are SO poor! The per capita GNP is only $520!] Will you shut up?! Anyways, we believe Casandra was taken because of racial tensions in Bosnia Herzegovina. Serbs, a major ethnic group, dislike all who are non-Serbs. That would explain why Nacho and Leeann's little girl was taken, she's Mexican.
[We started in Dobrina, the athletes' village in the '84 Winter Olympics.] Seeing as how that's where she was last seen, we asked around, but no one had seen her. [We checked around the nearby area, and by the end of the day, we hadn't found a trace. Every night when we go to sleep, we hear Leeann crying, really loudly.] We woke up the next morning to the smell of meat and garlic, a weird dish called cerapcici, a sausage made out of lamb. [It's funny. I never knew Leeann could cook such a variety of food. But here, it's a woman's job to make all of the meals. I'm just glad that we didn't have to sit on the ground like the traditional culture. Leeann's more modern, so we at a table. And I'm telling you, meat is too much here. It's their staple, they eat it all the time!] The next day, we took off to Pale, the neighboring city. we got an anonymous tip that Casandra was there. [Don't ask where we get these from.]
[We headed out early the next day.] We took off in a bus that night (since we couldn't take a plane. I mean, there's only 19 airports. and reached Pale with no problems. Once there, we stepped off the bus into the middle of a folkdance. [I think they called it nijemo kolo.] It was weird, 'cause there was no music, just the sound of stomping feet. [Yeah, it was weird, but the government sponsers more than 400 amateure folklore groups. [We'd been walking through the markets, looking at the embroidery , when we realized it was lunchtime.] Yeah, Christina forgot to change our American dollars to their currencey, so we found a bank. [Lena, just shut up.] Well, fine. Anyways, we walked into this bakery and ordered some Backlava. As we were ordering, we saw a little girl disappear behind the wall. Christina grabbed my arm and whispered in my ear, "that looks like Casandra." [Aren't you glad I saw?] Yeah, quit getting so cocky. We followed the little girl to the bus station. We watched her be snatched up by a man in a long coat. We ran after them, but he ran into a private church called the Eastern Orthodox Church of Pale. (Roman Catholic is 15% of the population, Muslim is 40%, and Eastern Orthodox Christians is 31%.) We walked in quietly. Christina tripped on the step and I busted out laughing. [Thanks. They were celebrating Krsha Slava, the Spiritual Birthday of the Serbs as a whole.] Yeah, I know, Christina. Each family celebrates the holiday when they were first baptized into the church. [We watched the man with the girl duck out the back. When we stepped outside, Lena called Leeann from a nearby phone booth. She said she could be there in two hours.] When she arrived, we ran up to her. She kissed us once on the side of each cheek (a common way of greeting people in Bosnia.) and we began to follow the trail again.
[A few blocks down the road, we ran into a group of local police. I guess we were lucky that the Bosnian government is Mixed Republic and Federation, because we could have been arrested for chasing that guy.] Turns out that he was wanted in several countries for theft, kidnapping, and murder. If we hadn't caught up with them when we did, Casandra could have been dead. [So, three days later, we were all back at Nacho's home, safe and sound.] You wouldn't believe the turnout that they recieved upon our arrival. We were showered with all kinds of words and stuff from the locals. [The only thing I understood was "dobro jutro," or "good morning.] Yeah, so I guess you didn't understand them when they asked you if you spoke English, huh? [What was that?] "Govorite li Engleski." [You're joking.] Nope.
[All in all, I think it was a pretty good trip.] I guess we had a good time. [So we went to find Casandra, the daughter of our good friends Ignacio and Leeann, and we found her.] If you go to Bosnia and Herzegovina, I recommend you pick up one of those embroidered cloths. They are really nice. By the way, get me one too. I didn't get a chance to get one.] It was pretty nice being there, but it sure was good to get home. [Yeah.]
Lijepo se provedite!
(Have a nice time!)
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