Bosna and it's lack of functioning toilets...

OK, so when you go to a country that's in the developmental/reconstructive phase you're not really supposed to expect things to be perfect. But Bosna, to my complete annoyance, has this strange inability to get their shit together....literally!

When I went to check out the first apartment I ever looked at last week, the place was really sweet as were the owners, but the bathroom consisted of a 1x1.5m space, with a small sink, a squat toilet, and a shower head for showering ABOVE THE SQUAT TOILET. Mmmm...yeah.

Let's not get into the nooks and crannies of public toilets except that you should ALWAYS carry tissues, and if there's a roll of paper, steal half of it on your way out. Ha..

But, on a more serious note (!), I have a new place in Sarajevo! Eyyyyyyy!!!!! It's got it's little quirks, like things going wrong with the toilet, but after two days of cleaning (and a few odd jobs in the next week or two), this place is turning out to be quite sweet. I've managed to score the bottom floor of a house to myself. Upstairs are the owners - a family of 8. There's mum, Amela who's 35. Dad, Sadik, 42. Then the kids...Merijem (15), Aisha (13), Fatima (9ish), Lejla (7), Amina (5) and Muhamed (3). And the cat whose name is Chiribu or something....didn't quite get that one!

They're the cutest kids. Yesterday day I enjoyed Amela's eggs for breakfast with Muhamed, who loved the salami I shared with him. Think I won his love..he visited me about another 6 times during the day, each time with a new stain on his t-shirt, a new dose of that 3 year old snotty charm and babbly conversation. They're all really smiley and happy go lucky. It's probably got something to do with the fact that their contact with the internet and TV is quite limited, and this house is nestled amongst fruit trees and greenery - meaning they're outside most of the day.

Sarajevo is a pretty old city, so when you're as close to the centre as I am, you don't really expect a garden. It's nice!

In my last blog I mentioned working in an environmnetal activist group. Well, I had a snoop around and found a group called Eko Akcija - who mostly work on projects as they crop up but their main aim is to bring awareness about the environment to the public, and highlight the governments short comings. An example: there's a super highway getting built and it's supposed to be going through Prenj (which is a national park). So Eko Akcija isn't against the highway, they'd just like to see more responsible development...cool! So I've told them that I have some time and they've asked me to maybe help with some translation, and also some water related issues. I'll be volunteering about 2-3 days a week maybe, but I'm starting properly in late July/early August.

The other topic I promised was politics. Very briefly, Bosnia and Hercegovina has 3 presidents. Each one represents the major ethnic groups, the Muslim Bosnians, Catholic Croatians, and Greek Orthodox Serbs. They have a four year term as per usual, except that they take turns of being leader for 8 months. Each president is part of a different office, meaning different administration. This means that a lot of tax payers money ends up in the poorly maintained toilet, figuratively speaking.

This sort of government, as far as the street has taught me, gets very little done and the politicians have far too much money. It also means that the essential departments such as water utilities, healthcare, power, civil works and so on are always behind with work, and there's always someone else to blame.

Water authorities, to my amazement, don't exist. I'm not entirely sure about who does the water treatment here and to what capacity. As far as I've been able to construct from conversations with a few different groups of people, the sewers here are combined. For those who don't know what that means - combined sewers put the stormwater from the streets and gutters together with the wastewaters from homes and industry. This sort of water conveyance was phased out in Australia and the States decades ago. So I suspect this combined water is directed to a river somewhere. It's a little scary. And a little freaky that no one really seems to know what happens to water!

There's an election here in November, and in Australia as far as I've been told. I get to vote in two seperate countries in one month! Two votes one day, queen of the world tomorrow!!

Alright, I'll stop punishing you all.

Enough toilet humour.

Thanks for reading and for all your awesome feedback :-)

Sej xx