bosnia

hari nie dah 17 august, genap sebulan sejak saya balik dari Bosnia..  Baru sekarang rasa macam nak tulis :)

Hari tu orang Utusan email, mintak saya tulis pengalaman dan bagi sekali gambar-gambar saya kat sana untuk diaorang tulis kat surat khabar diaorang.. kat UK plak, saya mausk TV Islam Channel :) baru tadi dapat email dari orang MADE untuk saya isi borang mintak Islam Channel bagi DVD rakaman yang saya keluar TV tu.. 

i dont know what should i feel. only one word i can think of, for all the feelings that i have about it, alhamdulillah :) alhamdulillah that i'm given the opportunity to do whatever i've done.. to be given the courage to do whatever i did.. and to even have the thought of doing it :)

okay, now lets start about my journey :)

oh, just so you know this programme is under MADE in Europe and I'm the only non-british in the group.. :DD

first of all i want to apologise if you feel annoyed reading manglish because i dont think i can write everything in one language. i believe that certain things are better expressed in english and some in malay.. please bear with me :)

oh, the pictures here belongs to other volunteers.. credit to moazzam and shareef :)

hikayatnye bermula begini....

okay, cubaan pertama saya nak pergi ke bosnia adalah untuk sampai ke airport -.-'

tak sampai pun lagi airport, dah kena cobaan.. LOL

bayangkan saya bawak camping bag merah saya yang teramat sangtlah besar itu dengan bag laptop saya yang warna pink tu.. nie yang karimor pink, bukan merah tu.. so, depan belakang ada bag yang total beratnye saya rasa lebih 20 kg.. sudah pasti menjadi perhatian kan!

okay, disebabkan saya nie sangatlah tak organised orangnye, saya lambat.. dah tu, saya decide nak naek teksi ke victoria station.. lepas tu, area whitechapel nie sungguhlah susah nak dapatkan teksi.. nak call addison lee (syarikat teksi) takut diaorang lambat plak, tak sempat.. tunggu punye tunggu, alhamdulillah akhirnye ada teksi lalu :)

alhamdulillah, akhirnye saya sampai airport on time dan siap sampai awal lagi :DD tapi kena beli tiket train baru sebab terlepas train yang saya sepatutnye naek untuk ke airport... haha

kami transit di Zagreb untuk setengah jam sebelum sampai ke Sarajevo.. alhamdulillah, kami sampai dalam pukul 9 rasanye.. tak pasti pukul berapa tapi yang pasti dah malam.. tak banyak sangat yang saya nampak masa tu sebab dah gelap kan..

obviously this picture wasnt taken at night.. this is the picture of first group, they arrived earlier.. and i was in the second group  :)

we were at Sarajevo for two days before we were sent to our respective host family in Republika Srpsk.. 

the first thing i saw when i get out of our accommodation hostel was houses with bullet holes.. it felt surreal.. just imagine, they live in place that hold lots of memories of the war.. what do they feel when they see the bullet holes and abandoned houses that was bombed during the war? it's like they are constantly reminded about the war.. the nightmare keep on haunting them..

Next we went to Sarajevo tunnel of hope.. it was AMAZING! the tunnel was built under the airport during the war that was used to transport food people weapons and anything, you name it! it is so small with a width of 1 meter and i think i need to bend a bit to walk in it.. i found a video about the tunnel, please have a look :) 

we went to the museum as well.. it feels so sad to see the food they had during the war.. just imagine, america gave them leftover food from the vietnam war which was like more than 40 years before the war in Sarajevo.. there was a soldier that served Bosniak people during the war to tell us the stories.. he said, some of their foods were so bad that when a cat came near to it, the cat ran away.. just imagine, even animal cant eat it, for them it was a treasure.. they need to eat to survive.. 

actually i have more amazing stories about the tunnel that the ex soldier shared with us.. but i dont think i should write them here.. this post will be too long then.. if you want to know more, let me know and i'll tell you personally :)

What a typical mine would like like. There was approx 2,000,000 mines in Bosnia. They have disarmed the majority of them with 200,000 remaining (copied from moazzam's description of the photo)

group photo with the ex soldier, he's the one in the middle..

 after we were done with the tunnel, next destination is Sarajevo!

the city is clean and the buildings have awesome architecture :) they have lots of mosque and it was easy to eat, most of the foods are halal :) oh, the day before we came back to london, i had ice cream every hour! :) i love their ice cream and it was so cheap :DD

Sarajevo has lots of beautiful masjid like, seriously they are very beautiful... but i dont know why all the masjid are locked.. so, people pray outside and the normality of masjid where man pray in front and the women pray at the back dont work at their masjid.. maybe that system works when they pray IN the masjid..

enough with words, enjoy the pictures!

that's bosnian flag

we used all public transports Sarajevo has to offer :)

lepas dah habis menjelajah kota sarajevo, kami pun bertolak ke potacari pada hari ke 3.. alhamdulillah, my host is quiet well off.. they have a very beautiful house and a big farm.. you can see that i tried to help with the cow :D

i'm trying to help out, cleaning the barn :)

whenever i had the chance, i went to the farm to help out a bit.. even though it wasnt much, at least i get to experience a farm life :)

i can assure you, farming really is a hard work.. we only eat fresh vegetables that we pick from the farm :) raspberries, tomato, paprika, cucumber, pumpkin etc...

nak tau sesuatu tak? tomato dalam bahasa bosnia paradise... LOL rasanye timun dalam bahasa diaorang pun macam kelakar jgak, tapi tak ingat... nanti saya ingat saya tulis ye :)

you can see from the picture below that bosnia has a very beautiful scenery :) they have lots of untouched forests and clean air as well.. i know, you can even get that at any outskirt malaysia :D the fact that it's in europe, it makes all the difference, i guess so :)

our last day at potacari :)

somehow, i feel Bosnia is almost like malaysia.. the weather... the mountains.. the pace of life.. except for their language and their people.. because i always feel that malaysians are the best! :)

insyaAllah i will make another post specifically on Mars Mira, where my team walked for 110 km from Tusla to Sebrenica to experience what the refugees went through during the war to save their life.. i can say for sure, the real mars mira was so much harder than what we went through.. and what we went through was hard enough for me..

i know i wrote a very brief story about my stay in Potacari with my host family.. it's just that i'm not really in the mood to write about it.. if you want to know about it, please let me know and i'll tell you personally :D

owh, malam nie flight saya balik rumah dari sabah.. doakan semua berjalan lancar ye :)

kepada anda yang baca blog nie, terima kasih sebab luagkan masa untuk penulisan saya :)


Have a nice day!

so.. to be continued :)