in Sumnjajce. We had actually had a 
very early breakfast in the sunshine with Branko, the still manager, who had insisted that we all went to his house for a goodbye breakfast. It was actually like a British summer by 8.30 and they lent Father a baseball cap to shelter his neck from the sun. All he really needed with that was a skate-board! In actual fact they insisted that he kept it as a present. There is little doubt that if he wears it in Windermere he will be one of the funkiest nonogenarians in Cumbria. In the afternoon we went to the farm where Vllora lives with her husband Nurko and her two children, Hirudin, now aged 2 and 
her 7 month old daughter Almedina. They live in the upper floor of a "farmhouse" on the central area of the plateau which is actually really not much more than a living area above a store and attached to a large barn. By UK standards it is rough living. The children, though 
healthy and well loved, live in a situation which would cause our social services departments to have nightmares (and daymares!). The staircase to the first floor is an open wooden one with no protection across the top. It leads into a sort of summer day area where they leave their shoes before going into the house. Muslim households always take off their shoes and walk about in small knitted slippers, which are beautifully made and very comfortable. The Bosnian muslim people are very moderate in their religion compared to many of our immigrant muslims. They do not dress in any different fashion or live any any very different way or eat very different foods, and the only thing s of note which mark them out are that they usually do not use toilet paper in their lavatories but wash instead, they take their shoes off in the house, they have different names and use some different words, and most have more children. Many of them in Bosnia are sheep farmers or have worked on the land, and some of them have a sort of itinerant family set up, living in the 
mountains with their flocks in the summer and outside main towns in the winters. Vllora and her husband live here all the year round however, but are already quite successful with sales of their sheep and are buying a house in Livno. The kitchen, likemost in the valley, has long settees down two sides with a low coffee table between and in the corner is a wood burning cooking and heating stove and a sink............back the story of Zavidovici........
Vllora has a habit of sending me demanding text messages, mostly just “Haw are yau and yaur Dad? Call me!” Actually this is sometimes irritating, especially as she has no idea how much it costs to phone her mobile phone from the U.K. I don’t resent the occasional call, because, at the end of the day, I do like her and the family a lot, but it is usually because she wants something rather than that she is particularly interested in either of our wellbeing. No, that’s unfair, she is, but self preservation and relative poverty and paucity of material things push her to it. Vllora loves her material things, but sadly hasn’t got many. She really is a very attractive 20 year old, with a brain, and if she had been sensible like Ranka, she too would have been at university and be preparing to make herself a better world. Instead, at sixteen, she went off with a middle aged Bosnian sheep farmer and got pregnant. So she now faces the prospect of following the usual tradition of Bosnian female subservience, multiple children, fat. flabby and poor, looking 50 when she is 30, and bent over,wrapped in an old headscarf and grey or black blanket-like clothes at 60. It is sad really. In a fairer world she would have been born on the other side of the Adriatic in Italy, where she would have become all the things that she secretly yearns to be inside the young grubby farmer’s wife exterior that we now see. But, back to the phone call, this time, four weeks before we set off, she asked if I could bring her a computer and a new mobile phone and an iPod. The call back cost me about £16-00! The truth is that I have sometimes taken things like that. I was given some obsolete computers when I was in Germany, which I took to Bosnia. They went down well at the schools I took them to. I have had several one or two year old mobile phones from people who have changed them every year. iPods however are in a different league. The chance of finding an iPod going spare is just a no starter. I did change my own phone this year and now have a Nokia N73 instead of the 6230i (or something like that) which I had had for 4 years. I intended to take that to Bosnia for her because I knew she’d like it. Vllora won’t get that now though. I am determined that she must learn not to demand like she does. She never says please, although she does say thank you, and she just seems to expect me to conjure up the goods whenever she wants. She does not realise that many of the things I have taken out to Bosnia, like sewing machines, cookware, implements, seeds, and babies clothes, I have actually been out to buy specially, albeit from Clitheroe car boot sale on a Sunday morning. The telephone call persisted in asking for a favour when I come; will I take her and the children and Arzija her mother, to see Samire her sister and her new husband? Samire has been married for 18 months and they have not seen her 7 month old baby. ( Samire is just coming up 17 now) “Where do they live?” “The other side of Livno, ‘in the mountains, in the country, ‘bout two hours”. “Well, O.K., we will do a day trip out there before we leave”, I had said. I thought this would be a good way of spending time with them and doing something other than sitting in Arzija’s hot smokey kitchen, which Father hates. With this family, it is always a bit harder to know quite what to do. In Sumnjajce, time is always unpressured and relaxed, but here the atmosphere is slightly different and can verge on boredom. The television is always on in the corner and overshadows easy conversation, while Grandad watches and smokes. Two years ago, we had thought that Arzija and Samire, who was 15 then and not yet married, might like to go to Mostar, a predominantly Muslim town, to see the wonderful newly restored Mostar bridge which had featured in the world news only weeks before. It was a lovely journey and Mostar was just fabulous, the new bridge and the whole great river gorge and area around it was all it was reported to be. Samire however spent the entire trip there and back sleeping in the car, and when we arrived spent all the time texting, and talking about, “my boyfriend this… and my boyfriend that….”.(Not, incidentally, the one she has now married, but Father and I got pretty sick of hearing constantly about this wretched fellow, nice though I am sure he was) She had no interest in what we were seeing other than some passing interest in the shops. She was just sex and text that day. Arzija was rather better, but in general, treated the day rather as I would treat a trip into Skipton. Neither of them showed the slightest appreciation of the architecture or beauty of the river. Father and I had enjoyed it immensely, but I guess we may as well have done it alone for all the apparent benefit or enjoyment that the girls seemed to get from it. So, a day trip to visit Samire, seemed on the surface of it to be something that Arzija and Vllora would certainly enjoy, and Father and I could relax and tolerate.
On Monday evening, we sat eating at Vllora’s house. Two and a half year old Hiroudin was alternating between leaping on the sofa next to the open window, staggering past the steel stove pipe on the red hot wood burning cooker in the corner, and trying to escape on to the outer landing next to the open staircase. He picked up cups and anything on the table, including my new Mobile which Vllora took off him and confiscated, suggesting that I would leave it or swap it with her when I left. I quickly retrieved it. She wasn’t joking. Arzija tried to entertain him. She gave him a packet of cigarettes, from which he took one. “This is party trick by Grandfather” she proudly announced. I watched in even greater horror than I did at the ever present dangers of the kitchen, as he put the cigarette to his mouth and held it there. Arzija lit it and he sucked and blew out a little smoke and gave it to her. “Arzija, you can’t do that” I exclaimed. “He’s only two! He can’t be encouraged to smoke at this age, whatever he may do when he is older” “No,” she said, “is good he no like it make him cough sick and he no smoke when he grown up” I would have said more but I felt Father’s usual quiet calmness about to erupt, and nudged him with a look. How far apart are our two cultures.
We looked towards the following day and I asked where exactly Samire lived so that I could look it up on the map and plan the trip. “Zavidovici”, I was told, and because it sounded to me something like the names of the villages in the Glamoc valley, and I had been told it was “on the other side of Livno” I started to look on the map to the East and South of Livno. I couldn’t see it, so asked Vllora to show me. She pointed. “There, Zavidovici!” “But that’s miles away!” I exclaimed. “No, ‘bout two hours,maybe three”she retorted. Distances in Bosnia are often measured in hours rather than kilometres. It is almost impossible to know how long it will take to get somewhere because of varying road surfaces, forestry trucks and accidents. Generally “’bout 2 hours” probably means about 130km (80miles), but in a camper van that could be two and a half. I measured the distance as well as I could with the edge of a piece of paper. The road was so full of obvious “S” bends that it was difficult. East out of Livno into the Hrbijina Mountains, north west to Kupres. From Kupres to Bugojna and then north following the river valleys of the Vrba to Donji Vakuf, and on at it’s confluence, now in a new range of mountains, the Krušćica Mountains, into the Lasva valley via Travnik to the Bosna valley, through Zenica to Zavidovici. Well, bugger me! That was almost 300km, 180miles! “Vllora, that’s 300 bloody kilometres!” I said. “You said it was just the other side of Livno, about 30 kilometres!” “No”, she insisted, “I say ‘bout 300, you no hear right on bad telephone; I need new telephone for better hear” “But anyway,”I said, “whatever, that’s never 2 hours,maybe three” “Well, three hours maybe four” she replied. “Five hours, maybe six”, I snapped back. “I know men drive that three hour, fast drive” “Maybe, bloody Bosnian drivers all over the road and high on slivo” I muttered, “and not in a bloody 8 metre long diesel camper van”. She could see I was ruffled. “No problem with good mobile”, she sulked, “I know you have me new phone and I can speak better next time”. I quietly seethed inside. All I really didn’t need was a trip like this, through difficult country with a 95 year old Dad with colitis, Vllora and her mum, and two kids playing up in the back. And no, she definitely bloody wasn’t having a new telephone now under any circumstances! Vllora’s little boy could really play up and was into everything and frequently quite demanding. I would have to lock everything up and really batten down the hatches. I accepted the inevitable and quietly broke the news to Father that I had inadvertently seemed to promise a 360 mile round day trip, hooked, lined and sinkered! I suppose I could have pulled out, made some excuse, but I knew inside it was a sort of promise, it was what they had actually wanted and asked of me. At the end of the day I had agreed to take them, even though I had not realised what exactly I was embarking on.
I told Father what a long trip it was. He wasn’t phased. His usual trust and enthusiasm for the adventure was still there. “Can you do it safely” he said, “you’re the driver, I can’t help” “Yes, I can DO it,” I said, “but it’s going to be a very early start and a late return”.
Father and I went across the field to the camper to go to bed. A 7o’clock departure was needed so bed now. It was cold in the valley, the sky was black with millions of stars. No light pollution in Glamoc Polje!. The camper was alongside the diamond shaped wire sheep fold where Vllora’s husband had
gathered his herd for the night to protect them from the grey wolves
that live in the forest. The massive sheepdog lay outside, even two wolves would have thought twice about him. He stands almost to my hips and is about the size of a deer hound but has a brown and cream shaggy coat about as thick as the sheep themselves. He is as soft as putty with people in his owner’s company, but not a dog you would want to meet up an alley on a dark night!(or if the owners were called Baskerville)The following morning, we woke, dressed, breakfasted as usual and got packed up by 6.45. I ventured out. The sky was clear, brilliant blue as the sun was just rising over the mountains to the east of the plateau. The sheep rustled in the cage, thinking I was going to release them to their pastures; the dog growled and then smiled as he recognised a known figure and lay down again. There was a thick frost everywhere, which we had not had in the more sheltered northern end of the valley. Soon Vllora came out. She looked stunning. Thoroughly washed clean, hair done, lippy, foundation and eyes on, smart, clinging, and rather revealing dress and small heeled shoes. “My goodness Vllora, is that really still you under that?” “I still like be pretty when see my sister” she said, “and go out for trip with you,”she added smiling beautifully and flashing her eyes. I take it all as a tease, and laugh. She always was a flirt, well practised with the Canadian and British soldiers who had been in the valley, because she could speak English so well. ( well, American really because she had learned most from American films and TV programmes) How she ever managed to not marry a Canadian or British soldier I shall never understand. She had at least half a dozen offers.
Arzija comes out next holding baby Almedina, and Hiro follows, charging off to see the great dog. “Vllora”, I say, “can you please try to keep Hiro under a bit of control when we are travelling. It could be dangerous if he starts to run about” “Hiro will sleep good” she says, “Nemo problemo” We set off at 7.00 as planned. It is a beautiful day. Little Almedina sucks on a bottle and within a few miles is asleep on Arzija’s lap.
Hiro climbs on the rear facing bench seat and lies down. Within minutes he is asleep. The girls relax in their finery in the 
back with drinks and cigarettes and children fast asleep. Almedina is finally put into the sleeping bag on my berth at the back of the camper with a safety board in front of her. With the exception of stopping then for loos and coffee, the children sleep the whole four and a half hour, 186 mile trip. We didn’t even know they were there. The journey was truly magnificent. Unbelievable. This route took us to the East of Bosnia, into a part that I had never visited. The mountains and river valleys rival the beauty of any in Europe and they are all quiet and just ours, and we are the only tourists, and this is likely to be
the only camper van in Bosnia! This is the true country, the part of the old Yugoslavia that my late Great Aunt Hilda talked about from her coach trips. This is the part that you really should see, much of it restored after the war, much of it farmed with an ancient husbandry and forestry of many generations of Balkan peoples back to the times of the Ottoman Empire. I bet many things have changed little here other than perhaps the dress and the road surfaces. The river valleys were spectacular, deep cool green, verdant, rich gorges; the mountains often deeply forested in the middle areas , barren and rocky scrub high up, and ascending fields from the valleys 600 feet below the road. to rivers meandering across the meadows in their floors. The road wound back and forth around the ridges, following contours through rocky passes. Slow driving, but terrific views at every turn, often almost turning 180 degrees before straightening up and continuing north and eastwards. No, I admit, “bugger me” had been my initial reaction, but this trip was one which Father and I enjoyed every mile of the way. It was a real highlight. You could not have paid for a better excursion. “Haw are yau, and yaur Farder?” Arzija questioned as we entered the outskirts of Zavidovici at about 12.45. “Fine” I said, “sorry about the upset yesterday, we would not have missed that trip for the world, It was fabulous”As we approached the town centre, Arzija, who had been there once before, guided us out on very rough roads, across the back of the railway tracks, and down a narrow track. Here we were between two sets of railway lines, one raised up high on a grassy bank on our left and one on our right on gravel.. “In minute, we turn left” she said. I wondered how. Another 200 yards and we arrived at a square concrete bridge, under the tracks to our left. I looked at it in horror. We had travelled all this way and now, a mile from where we were due to arrive for lunch, we were confronted with a bridge that was almost certainly about the same dimensions exactly as the camper. There was no way that Father could walk the last bit, and I could not push him up the side of this mountain to our left in the wheelchair. I got out to have a closer look. It was obvious that height had been a problem here before. The floor of the bridge had been dug out about another two feet so it was like a bridge over a shallow basin under a low railway track. I paced out the width of the bridge with my feet. I paced out the width of the camper with
my feet. I drove to the entrance, got out and looked carefully at the height of the van and the bridgefrom a little stand off. There seemed just about 4 inches in the height and we would drop as we went under. There was about one shoe width on each side if the wing mirrors were folded in. I asked Vllora to go up front and watch as we came through, and then we went for it. She took a photo. Marvellous, still no disappointments, still a great day out.To cut to the end now, rather than give the reader(s?) further pap, our visit to
Samire was lovely. We had a good lunch with her Parents in Law and her husband, and saw her little boy who she has named Mohammed, which I personally felt was rather inflammatory in a future secular Bosnia, but perhaps it is a sad sign of future divisiveness. They live up at the top of the hill overlooking the railway from Zavidovici to Banja Lika, in a modern comfortable, tidy and clean bungalow. Her father in law looked very cachectic and ill to me. He had a tremor and sallow face. I would guess he is terminally sick whether he knows it or not. Samire’s husband has no job and no prospect of one. There is a factory
there but one has to pay the foreman about £200-00 bribery to get employed and then that is no guarantee that the job will continue. They have about £100-00 a month between them in some bit of pension and some small amounts of casual labour that the son gets 
occasionally. It beats me how they all survive, but they do seem to somehow. We gave Samire the baby clothes and push chair and crib that we had got for her. She was delighted. We had a family photograph of the two sisters with their families and tears when we left. A day that was lovely, reuniting, fulfilling for all of us and a real success.We departed at about 7.00p.m. I felt happier now I knew what to expect from the road. I could remember the phases of the journey, the markers of the distance travelled, the landmarks we had seen on the way. The drive went smoothly. We stopped for a bite of supper, watching the camper with the children fast asleep inside, and taking it in turns to pop back every fifteen minutes or so to look through the window to check on them. The journey was fast as the sun set, and we moved rapidly from dusk to dark, as you do in the mountains, now with the hardest part of the circuitous route behind us. A wonderful sunset, the dark shadows of the mountains, the brilliant sharp beam of the main headlamps cutting the darkness of an empty road, the silence from the sleeping children, the resting adults with hushed and spasmodic conversation, and the gentle growl of the big diesel, its powerful intercooler whistling slightly as it sucked in great gulps of mountain air, climbing once again into the mountains around Kupres before the final descent to Livno and the home straight.. To cap it all, a late text message came in from N. She had been to Sarajevo to sign her new contract for work. S had taken a day off work to drive her there and while there, he had bought her a ring and asked her to marry him. Great! Perfect end to a perfect day.
The following morning, after the late return, we again had an early start. It was the start of the journey home, leaving Bosnia and heading for Strasburg where we wanted to visit A and S, about whom, later. We went up to the kitchen for breakfast, even though Father had already had his porridge of course! Vllora was back to Cinderella. Hiro had woken up and was into everything again, Almedina scuttled around the stove in her baby walker, and we ate bread, Kymac, eggs, and coffee of course. Sad good-byes, hugs and a few tears and thanks for such a lovely day. Zavidovici…..fantastic trip!
Oh, yes, Vllora did get my old mobile phone!
Next…Strasbourg and Paris, the long way home, but the pinnacle of success!
Best wishes,
Doc.
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