Isn't it getting cold and snowy in the mountains yet? Here in the Pacific Northwest of the United States the snow level is probably 5,000 feet this time of year.
Winter slowly starting, there is some snow in the mountains, mostly ankle deep, melts during the day, freezes during the night. Winter tiers or chains prepared in the car mandatory as of 15th of november.
How is life there? Getting back to normal after the war? Are people bitter or reconciling to their situation?
I'm not sure if you want to know about my country (10 day war) or Bosnia (3 years), so I will just presume it's the later.
Well, after 12 years it has ended (1992-1995), the infrastructure is a mixture of modern buildings and socialist urbanism. Houses that were damaged by fire or shells are now hard to find, some areas were not cleared of mines. Orthodox churches of Serbs, catholic churches of Croats and mosques of Bosniaks (previous name for Slavs of islamic faith was Muslim - as a nation) are more or less rebuild in all areas, other signs of religion of the majority of the people in the area are blown out of proportions and put on a visible places (like 20 meters crosses on the hilltops). Banja Luka had and has a serbian majority, mosques were all demolished during the war, all are now rebuild except the one that was on the UNESCO list. All of them can be recognised by huge graveyards around them, almost all tombstones are new. It is just like an entire muslim population of the area has moved to the graveyard. The reason I didn't take any picture of them was because a funeral was underway and I didn't want to bother people involved.
When you talk to people (and this was my impression in all parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina I visited in the past 6 years), there are 2 kinds. One express deep sadness; refuges abroad and old people who already experienced WWII. The other express a certain satisfaction of being involved in the war, fighting the enemy, burning the houses, "getting even" for all the atrocities and historic disputes. For these people it is rather obvious that the only thing they are sorry is that the evil international community prevented them from total victory.
No, there is no reconciliation. To draw parallels with my country, the civil war that coincided with WWII is still a major topic. Interestingly, dictators that ruled Yugoslavia and countries after the disintegration of Yugoslavia are in general regarded as lesser evil. They can be forgotten and accepted as a part of history more easily, not so with civil wars.
