North Bend graduate Kathryn McFarland, currently a freshman attending Franklin College in Switzerland, recently wrote to the Valley Record, sharing her thoughts on her latest adventures abroad. As a foreign exchange student, in 2006, she wrote about her experiences in France, attending school at Jouy en Josas outside of Paris for the first semester of her senior year.

Contributing once again, she shares her thoughts on college and European life.

Yugoslavian travels

“In school I never learned about the breakup of the former Yugoslavia. My fellow students on my trip credit this to the fact that it was recent, during our lifetimes and perhaps it hasn’t been yet introduced to the curriculum, because they might think we have an idea about it from the news.

Of course, I was only four or five when it all happened, and I didn’t watch the news. I first learned about the civil war in Bosnia-Herzegovina while I was studying in France. The class was called “European Section,” and we learned about history starting with the Cold War (which embarrassingly enough I hadn’t learned much about either) and through the 1990s.

This particular academic travel has been available for Franklin students, with the same professor, since the seventies. He used to travel throughout Yugoslavia. As soon as the roadblocks went up during the conflicts between ethnicities, the trip was modified and later cancelled altogether. After the civil wars in the area, the former Yugoslavia became several independent countries. The trip resumed just two years ago.

Our trip also had to be modified, due to the instability of the region still today. Two weeks before our departure, Kosovo, a province of Serbia, declared its independence. As the departure date for our trip came closer, and the American Embassy was burned, it was deemed unsafe for an American university to take a bus full of students into Serbia, which was supposed to be our second stop during the two-week journey. So again the trip was tailored, with only Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Montenegro on the itinerary.

Shopping in Croatia

We left for Slovenia on a Sunday morning, and arrived in the capital, Ljubljana, in the afternoon. Slovenia is interesting, because it is part of the European Union. In fact, it is the only part of the former Yugoslavia to have joined, though Croatia is negotiating with hopes for joining as early as 2011, and Bosnia-Herzegovina is also hoping to join. When declaring their independence from the former Yugoslavia, Slovenia had it fairly easy, which is because most of the people who live in Slovenia are Slovenian, as opposed to the other regions with numerous ethnicities. Slovenia is also the only country that has its own language.

Next we traveled down to Zagreb, the capital of Croatia. The first thing I must point out about Croatia is that the shopping was wonderful. The Kuna, (unlike the Euro, and even now the Swiss Franc) is favorable to the dollar. And the Croatians seem to share the same love for shoes as I do! As well as good shopping, academically, we had the opportunity to attend a lecture by a founding member of the first non-communist party in Croatia, who is a publisher.

Sarajevo stop

We then left Croatia for Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Some of you may remember Sarajevo as the site of the 1984 Olympics. Our bus ride was about six or seven hours that day. Upon our request, our professor put in a film, “Welcome to Sarajevo,” which is about news reporters in Sarajevo during the recent war, and how one in particular wanted desperately to help the people. As the film played, we crossed the border into Bosnia-Herzegovina. The first part is Serbian dominated, and as we looked out the bus windows, trying to escape from the horrors of the film, we saw destruction. Homes burned and bullet holes in buildings. These homes are still vacant; still belong to Bosnians who haven’t returned. As we approached Sarajevo, saw the famous Holiday Inn where the reporters stayed during the war, the images from the film, and the evidence of the war still there, we were all silent. In was grey, snowing, and cold. Needless to say, most people were in shock and didn’t have high expectations for Sarajevo.

However, Sarajevo turned out to be a favorite city during the trip. Once we got to our hotel, which was right between the old Turkish part of town and the new, many people fell in love with the city. Sarajevo used to be a huge cultural center before the conflict. There are mosques, protestant churches, Catholic churches, and synagogues. The old part of town is intriguing, and merchants line the streets selling items such as with copper, jewelry, scarves, and other hand-made items. In our tour of the city, we learned about the Siege of Sarajevo. Sarajevo is thin and stretches out along a river, instead of being square like our cities, which made it easy for Serbian forces to surround the city, and snipers were placed in skyscrapers. This brought back the sad feeling to the group.

We had the chance to meet with the Vice-Mayor of Sarajevo, and he is very optimistic about Bosnia-Herzegovina’s future and working their way to being accepted to the European Union. He talked about the beauty of Bosnia-Herzegovina, the skiing, and we heard a lot about the winter Olympics that were held in Sarajevo in 1984. Many people, however, are not so optimistic, and of course there are a lot of factors to consider when discussing Bosnia-Herzegovina and the European Union.

Hope for the future

The next part of our trip was lighter. We traveled up the Dalmatian Coast. It was absolutely beautiful (and the weather was better too!) We visited the old walled castle of Dubrovnik, “the pearl of the Adriatic,” took a day trip to a palace in Montenegro, spent an afternoon in Split, and finally visited the caves in Slovenia before heading back through northern Italy and home to Switzerland. You may be hearing of this area, especially Split, as it is fast becoming a tourist destination.

During the trip, while watching the news in the hotel rooms, hearing about the problems going around the world, I felt sad. I also felt as though the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina was still going on, because I saw the destruction and desolate places as we traveled around. I feel very lucky to have had the opportunity to visit these places I wouldn’t normally think to go, and get a new perspective of the area. It was very interesting to hear the viewpoints of the Slovenians, Croatians, and Bosnians. Unfortunately, and especially at this time, we didn’t get to hear the viewpoint from Serbia. The people from the area were all very nice and I wasn’t ever judged as an American, not even when buying coffee from a Serbian working in Slovenia.

This trip was incredible in opening my eyes to ethnic and economic strife. We saw communities of people dealing with conflict and hopeful for the future as well. It was so more impactful than reading about it in a text book or just seeing a movie. ’m very glad to have had this opportunity and I look forward to future trips — and sharing them with you!