Tito's Bunker

Last Thursday the YES Abroad kids went on a field trip with our history class to a nearby town called Konjic. Konjic is a the site of  Josip Broz Tito’s Atomic Bunker. The construction of the bunker lasted for 26 years, from March 1953 to September 1979, but Tito never once visited it. It was one of Yugoslavia’s best kept secrets; our guide told us that workers were blindfolded when they were brought to the building site to ensure that no one would know of the bunker’s whereabouts.

Today the bunker is controlled by the Bosnian Ministry of Defense and functions as both a tourist attraction and a contemporary art museum. As our guide led us past at least 150 portraits of Tito we saw the air conditioning room and went inside some sort of giant fan chamber (it’s hard to explain), sat in conference halls, and past bedrooms that looked eerily similar to the dorm I’ll have next year in college. It was, without a doubt, one of the strangest field trips I have ever been on.

After the bunker, the whole class went out to lunch at a restaurant overlooking the Neretva River. Lunch was followed by an hour and half to explore the town and after a lovely day we hopped back on the bus and headed for Sarajevo.

Global Youth Service Day

Last week was Global Youth Service Day where partners from around the world organized a plethora of volunteer projects with the single goal of making the world a better place. (Its cheesy, I know but its still an admiral goal)

American Councils organized many projects in Bosnia, and in Sarajevo YES Abroad and YES Alumni banded together to clean up Bijela Tabija or The White Fortress which is this beautiful monument that overlooks Sarajevo. In recent years though, the monument has been kind of trashed by graffiti and well, trash. Last Saturday we tried to improve the situation a bit by cleaning it up. You would not believe what some people leave behind. At the end of the afternoon though we had filled up every trash bag we'd brought with us so I'd say it was a job well done.

Happy April 6th!

April 6th is a big day for Sarajevo. Its considered Sarajevo's city day and its the occasion for a lot of special historical events. In 1945, April 6th was the day that Sarajevo is liberated from German and Croatian forces by Yugoslavian Partisans during World War II and in 1992 after the war it was the day that the European community recognized the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina as an independent state. So happy city day! Sretan Dan Grada!

Over the hill and through the woods...

I don't think I've ever been more physically exhausted than I was last night after the YES Abroad group went on an all day hiking trip to the Skakavac (Skah-kah-vats) waterfall and beyond. Despite my ultimate exhaustion, however, it was an amazing and incredibly fun day.

After 45 minutes of walking through a dense Bosnian forest we made our way to the main attraction for the day, the waterfall. The Skakavac waterfall is the highest one in Bosnia and Herzegovina, its about 98 meters tall. At the base of the waterfall there's an almost overpowering onion-esque smell which we later learned comes from an edible herb that grew nearby called...something with an "s" maybe? We all gathered up some of the whatever-it-was to bring to our host moms and headed towards our next destination.

After the waterfall our hike took about a 60 degree turn upwards and it soon began to feel like a climb. The scenery was well worth it though, at times the woods were so think that when it rained you didn't even get wet and everything was dark green and covered in moss. We walked through just about every type of terrain on this hike, well, except for desert sands. The views and the scenery were fantastic and well worth the trek.

The next stop was a little restaurant and bar on the top of the mountain. It was so remote, it didn't even have a menu the owner would just kind of make up items and prices for you. The funny thing was, despite its location, it was a pretty packed house. All these old men had climbed up there to drink beer and watch the Manchester United game on television. We all enjoyed some hearty Bosnian mountain food and headed on our way again.


After lunch the hike down began. We got to the bottom about five hours later then we planned too, but it was all worth it because we caught sight of a gorgeous rainbow. To finish off the day I caught a bus back to Panjina Kula and gave my legs some much needed rest.