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Wow! Sarajevo! After seeing it all happen on television from the safety of my living room it finally becomes real. Funny how for most people war is a now a television show with just too many sequels. And than suddenly I am walking around in a setting that I can actually recognize. The realization that this show was not staged and that the actors did not go home after their day's work makes me feel strange. Of course The bazar it is not a shock it actually happened. Everybody who actually watches the news knows about the brutality and senselessness of war. It's more that when you walk around in Sarajevo you see people going around in their daily lives as if nothing really happened and you wonder how that is possible. How on earth can people survive a war like that and still continue to function? I guess when you go through such a thing you have no choice but to look forward. There are just too many things in daily life that need attention to stand still. I experienced a similar feeling after 9/11 in New York. The shock and horror at first, the need to be practical right after that, and only slowly, much later everything falls into it's right place. I don't think about it everyday anymore, day to day life has taken over, but it will always be there, that feeling of fear, anger and loneliness. And so it is probably also for the people of Sarajevo. It's called a Sarajevo Rose and it indicates the place where a shell hit the pavement. For some the impact crater is filled with red rubber to remember the victims. There are still plenty of buildings riddled with bullet holes. The city has for a great part been rebuilt and young people are walking the streets, shopping, and drinking coffee at a terrace. And all that's left of the war are all these new graves in the city parks and the bulletholes in the old buildings. The old parliament building There are graves everywhere Chisako thought the bazar looks a little bit like Japan