One week in Sarajevo - On-arrival training

The training

My European Voluntary Service (EVS) on-arrival training, 3 weeks after I arrived in Serbia, took place in Iliza, Sarajevo's suburbs. Of course, as any longer trip in the Balkans, it took ages to arrive. The bus trip with the famous Serbian bus company "Nis Ekspress" lasted around 11 hours. The purpose of the on-arrival training is to meet with the other volunteers working in the Western Balkans region and to have 5 days of practical activities and conversations about the integration in the Balkan societies (cultural differences, language, religion, habits and customs) and about our different projects and expectations.

We were a group of around 20 volunteers located in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia (or FYROM) and Serbia! It was the occasion to meet volunteers from different European countries currently living and working in Serbia and its neighbouring countries, share our experiences and information about everybody's projects so as to enable creating links for possible cooperation in common projects.

The city

We had some free time to visit Sarajevo. The city is impressive in many ways. It is geographically located in the Center-West of Bosnia-Herzegovina in a valey surounded by gorgeous green mountains scatterd with houses, trees and cemiteries.

Historically, Sarajevo has suffered many influences: It was created by the Ottomans in 1461 and was occupied by the Austro-Hungarian empire in the 19th century. If you walk in the city you will easily distinguish different influences yourself, each side holding its very specificities, be it in terms of architecture, cultural life or special products trade. Sarajevo is a prove of the multi-ethnicity of the country and many mosques as well as Roman catholic and orthodox churches were built throughout the time.

First time in a Mosque

Even if I do not pretend to become a specialist in religious issues and practices, I try as much as I can to understand more about different religions. While comteplating a mosque from the outside, one prayer around 40 year old invited my friends and me to come inside in order to see how a mosque looks like and so he could explain us about the history of the mosque and the funcioning of the pray in the Islamic religion.
Coming from a traditional catholic country which is Portugal, and having all my life until today lived in countries where the predominant religion was Catholicism, the first impact I received from the interior of the mosque was its warm beauty and simplicity of decoration. I always thought that our churches are often too exagerated in furnishement and hold very rich and luxury items which in my personal oppinion contradicts the essence of the catholic moral and ethic.

I was curious about the way muslims pray and the way women are supposed to behave. Before entering in the Mosque we were asked to take our shoes off and to wear a scarf, as every women are obliged to do. The interior of the mosque is not so big. We found a wide area all covered with carpet and in the back, a small area in one corner was clearly separated and isolated from the rest. The women who come to the Mosque must pray there and cannot come to the front together with men, in order to not disturb the men, too sensitive towards what our guide called the feminine beauty. "Men must be concentrated in the pray and if they have a beautiful woman just in front of their eyes, they might disperse and think about other things", said the prayer with a smile in his face and in the same time by demonstrating us the position Muslim have while they pray.

This small cubic space reserved for the women drove my attention in many aspects: first, why was is much smaller than the space for men? Then, why is it in the back and not in the front for instance? The explanation to the second question is already given above. As for the first question, our guide explained that women, contradictory to men, are actually not obliged to come to the Mosque in order to pray. They can rather stay at home and pray from there. Why? Because according to him "women have different lives: they have many duties such as being mothers, wives, housekeepers and professionals." Because of so many duties there are less women than men who come to the Mosque every day. While saying this he insisted in highlighting the fact that women get in any case fully rewarded. Men have the obligation to go there 5 times per day [...]

"God did not created the human being to be perfect. He made him to make sins and to ask forgiveness"

"Everything belongs to God - we need him but he doesn't need us"

Anonimous

Sarajevo, 12th May 2010