On the last day of my trip to Bosnia, I ate at a dessert café.
The waitress was one of the nicest, funniest, most outgoing people I met the entire trip.
And because of the nature of Bosnian cafés and how long one can spend relaxing and enjoying… and because of her nature of being somewhat of a “blabber-mouth” (her words, not mine)—I got to hear some of her story.
She was going to university for marketing… was working as a waitress to cover her living expenses… lived at home with her parents, but prided herself in only buying and earning what she could afford.
“I’m a strong, independent women” she said at one point as she flexed her arm and giggled.
Towards the end of our intermittent exchanges, as we talked about travel and life goals, she mentioned that her and her family had applied for visas to travel to the U.S… and all of them got approved except for her… the only difference being she wore a hijab and they didn’t.
Worth mentioning here, too, is that Adis—the gentlemen who gave me that 9-hour tour of Mostar—said he was friends even with those who his parents were at war with.
He said he was only three when the war was happening and so were the people he was associating with. They weren’t at war with each other and so why act like they were today?
He made a brilliant comment that his history was meant to serve as a reminder, as a lesson, to lead to a better future… not a repeated, more discriminatory, worse one.