Peace Camp

As I sit on the train from Prijedor to Zagreb, I am doing everything in my power to keep myself from crying. Getting on the train without Vahidin, Timka, and Ali was like having my heart ripped out (now I know that I have never had my heart ripped out but this is not a feeling I would like to experience again). I don’t know all the reasons why, but Bosnia does something to me… something special. It brings out the best in me and forces me to reconcile with the worst in me all at the same time. Last summer, I did not stop crying from the moment I got on my plane in Sarajevo to the moment I landed in Munich to catch my flight connection home. I have a feeling my flight from Zagreb to Munich will be very similar.

Well… on to more uplifting things… like PEACE CAMP. Peace camp sounds like hearts and smileys, right? It’s not. It is 6 days of intense education in the art of non-violent conflict resolution… something that this world needs a lot more of these days. We started with topics like identity, stereotype, and prejudice, moved to active listening and emotions like fear and anger, and ended with dialogue, reconciliation, and creation of our own plans for spreading our knowledge to others. With the perfect mix of games, activities, dialogue, and self-reflection and assignments, Peace Camp has taught me more in 6 days than I could have learned in a semester at school. Now, I’m not saying that what I’m learning at school is not good, because all of my courses in Peace and Justice Studies at Wellesley have been stellar, but Peace Camp is extremely unique. I was given the opportunity to be surrounded by Croats, Serbs, and Bosniaks who all experienced the pain of war… an opportunity I could not possibly get in the States or in a classroom. I practiced speaking in Bosnian all day, was aided (via translating) in leading a workshop on active listening, and finally decided I had found a safe enough space to discuss the deepest, darkest parts of me. The special thing- none of them judged me. In the States, I find myself often feeling the need to make reasons (and sometimes excuses) for being the way I am. At Peace Camp, where it could have been so easy to identify and therefore judge me as an American or foreigner, I was given a clean slate with which I could write my own story, where my nationality did not determine how I should or should not act. For one participant, I was the first American he had ever met. That always worries me because I feel like I have to make an even better first impression, and after the camp was over, he told me, “You are wonderful.” That alone made my eyes fill up with tears. I hope they know how special and beautiful they are, and what a positive impact they had on my life.

On that note, I will end with a few lyrics from the song “For Good” from the musical Wicked, because there are some sections of this song that apply to my fantastic new friends Mirha, Elhimana, Dinka, and Esada, as well as the other amazing participants in the 2010 Mirovni Kamp (Peace Camp). Volim te puno… Nadam se da ja cu ti vidjeti uskoro:

“I’ve heard it said that people come into our lives for a reason bringing something we must learn, and we are led to those who help us most to grow, if we let them and we help them in return. Well I don’t know if I believe that’s true, but I know I’m who I am today because I knew you.”

“It well may be that we will never meet again in this lifetime, so let me say before we part- so much of me is made of what I learned from you. You’ll be with me like a handprint on my heart. And now whatever way our stories end, I know you have rewritten mine by being my friend.”

“Who can say if I’ve been changed for the better, I do believe I have been changed for the better, and because I knew you…

I have been changed for good.”