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Broadside: A city divided by the Neretva

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The Stari Most bridge brings Bosnia and Herzegovina together. Photo: oranges and lemons/Flickr.

Boys jump off the old bridge in Mostar before the summer sun sets but first they ask passers-by to pay to see them plunge the 24m into the Neretva’s cold, rushing waters.

“It’s a rite of passage for 16-year-old boys here,” a diver says, “If they don’t jump, their lives go unfulfilled, they will not be successful.”

Alma doesn’t agree with this tradition. When a diver extends his cap to her, she pulls his hand instead. She doesn’t want to pay to watch the boy jump into the river. She doesn’t want the boy to jump into the river. She wants him to live a long, healthy life, she says. The boy thanks her graciously. But Alma doesn’t think he understands her. She grabs him by the shoulders and tells him how life is precious and worth living and things have their own way of working out. The boy thanks her again, and says, “I am not jumping because I want to die, grandma. I am jumping because I want to live.”

He shrugs off her hands and moves on to find funds for his plunge.

“Did you hear him? He just called me grandma,” says Alma.

Alma is in her early 40s, sprightly dressed in sneakers. Her greying hair is a bun tied at the nape. She runs an inn in Herzegovina and joined us on the drive into Mostar.

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Mostar is a city divided by the Neretva. The Stari Most, Alma tells us, is the bridge that brings Bosnia and Herzegovina together. It was built during the Ottoman Empire and is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

“The young, we hope, learn from the mistakes we made. The city is beautiful again and we are learning to rebuild our lives, learning to be together,” she says.

Bosnia is mainly Muslim and Herzegovina mainly Christian. In times of peace, the scene from the bridge is a stunning landscape of minarets and crosses rising in silhouettes against the darkening sky. During the war in 1993, the bridge, which had stood for 427 years was bombed and a temporary cable bridge kept the two banks connected. It was 2004 before the bridge was built in its original design.

“Peace is hard-won and fragile,” says Alma. “The land is still recovering, the country is still recovering and the people, we are still wary, still unable to trust each other fully. There are things that can and cannot be said. Those were difficult years. We do not want to lose all this that has taken years to build.”

After being bombed during the war in 1993, the Stari Most was re-built in its original design in 2004. Photos: Wikimedia Commons.

From the Stari Most bridge, a huge sign on the roofs below shout in bold red: Forgive but don’t forget. The bridge extends into a walkway and smaller bridges on Neretva’s banks. There are restaurants, shops, bars and cafes. In a square, tourists sit in an enclave while a busker sings The Cranberries’ Bosnia. Alma takes Psh and I to an eatery with benches in the balcony. Dinner is a giant tray of vegetables roasted to perfection.

Night has set and the divers have gone home. Tourists are still pouring in across cobbled walkways. Lights come on one by one in the houses by the banks, reflections spilling into the river. Loud music pours out into the night like in most tourist areas around the world. People are singing and dancing. Small groups of youngsters are scattered on rocks and walls.

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Alma takes us on a stroll beyond the tourist point and here the ravages of war are visible: shelled walls, abandoned houses, and charred windows. We tell her of our drive into Bosnia and Herzegovina, the signs by the road warning drivers of landmines. There were miles of shrubs and bushes with no rest area, no petrol station, and hardly any sign of life. When we did finally come to a café of sorts, it had only bean soup and omelette but it was the best bean soup and omelette we had had in a long time.

“Bosnian cuisine isn’t something people talk about,” says Alma.

In the morning before we leave, Alma brings us a bowl of figs from her farm and a bottle of Ajvar. “You still have a lot to see, you must return,” she says.

The figs are honey sweet. I spread the Ajvar chilli paste on my breakfast bread with cream cheese. Alma laughs.

“The best breakfast in Europe,” I pronounce.

Psh and I head out in our rental car and back on the highway. Wild pomegranate and fig trees line the road.

(This article is the last chapter of a series. Read the previous chapter here. The writer is based in France and can be reached at [email protected].)

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