This article was submitted by a former English teacher in Sarajevo.
She was an old woman, seventy-five years old, she told me, holding up seven fingers and then five. The day I moved into the flat in the building her family owned, she came up the steps the first day with some homemade sirnica, cheese pie. Every week or so she would come up the stairs slowly, bearing some kind of food. If I ever knocked on her door, she would invite me in for coffee and warm up some food for me.
She told me that she did this because her mother had died when she was young. She knew what it was like not to have a mother around to care for me. When Bajram arrived, the holiday when people feast for multiple days, she made it up the stairs with a full tray of baklava. Such a big tray I don’t know how it even fit in her oven! I was in a hurry, and she said something with a number. I assumed she was trying to explain that Bajram was a three- or four-day holiday. I thanked her and took the tray, saying it was too much for me. I had a half-size refrigerator I couldn’t fit all the baklava in there even when I redistributed it into a Tupperware container.
Later that day, I went down when her daughter-in-law was there. She was the only one who spoke English, so I tried to explain in greater detail. Maybe there had been a mistake? Maybe she had meant for me to take four pieces? I couldn’t imagine why she would bring the whole tray up the stairs when she only wanted me to take four pieces, but I just couldn’t believe it was all for me. No, said the daughter-in-law, it was for me and I should bring it to work. It was difficult even to transport it on the tram there was so much, and even after bringing it to work, I had baklava to last me well into the next month.
A few months later the end of my time in Bosnia arrived. My mother had taught me how to crochet on a trip to the US, so I decided to make a scarf for her. When I presented her with it, she said she hoped she had not done anything wrong to make me leave. I tried to reassure her as much as I could in my broken Bosnian: it had nothing to do with her! In fact, she’d made my stay all the more pleasant. She told me she had wanted to come up more often, and someone had even suggested she get me to teach her English. Obviously, these things had nothing to do with my leaving.
An hour before I left for the bus station, she came up to give me a small wrapped package. Inside were two pairs of nylons. One for me and one for my mother.
Photo Credit: Alen Djuderija Photography via Compfight cc
I'm a motivation explorer, personality type hacker, behavioral investigator and storyteller. I help startup founders, entrepreneurs, and corporate managers to understand themselves, the people they manage and how to get the best of their people. Specialty is in psychological personality types and brain-based methods. When I don't do the above, I hop around planet Earth with TravelJo.com to learn the Art and Science of people from everywhere and to give you all the free travel and tips and advice in many cool destinations.
My name is Cindy, also rhymes with travel junkie. A friend said I was probably a gipsy in my previous life. One of my many secret missions in life is to convert you to run off every once in awhile.
