So the US has avoided the proverbial fiscal cliff. I sense a battle royale stirring over the nitty gritty details of spending cuts in the next few months. We here in Bosnia (and Herzegovina) have it easy. Fiscal Shmiscal. Cliff Miff. We have no economy to speak of. It seems to go from bad to worse […]

I've picked up the laptop to write something positive for the new year about a dozen times in the last 48 hours. I have three drafts in my draft box. I'm not too sure any of them will see the light of day. The thing is, I have a lot on my mind. Maybe starting […]

I had just been relocated to the Croatian island of Brac to work in a refugee camp there. The camp was a hotel on the beach, overlooking the beautiful Adriatic Sea. It was a slight step up from my previous gig. Before that I was volunteering in a refugee camp in the western Herzegovina town […]

I've just realized that this period is exactly 20 years since my Balkan journey began. I guess it's no coincidence that I've started here then, huh? So I'm standing in the office of the Peace Hostel in Zagreb, heart on the floor, remember? You'll have to forgive my memory, some things are very gray or […]

It was Christmas day, 1992. That morning I started hitchhiking to Bosnia. Or so I thought. I was living in Muenster, Germany with my girlfriend Christiane. She was an assistant at a dermatologists office and was kind enough to find me a job. My job was to stand solo in a basement to fill small […]

I never usually have to ponder much the topic of a blog. It simply comes in its own time, leaving me to run to the laptop and release. I'm fighting it a bit today. The only thing that consistently comes to mind at the moment is guns. I don't want to write about guns right […]

Hello there good people. I'm thebosniaguy, so they say, and this is what my countdown was leading to. James Joyce's Ulysses, as you may know, is a hard read, annoying at times even. But I do dig the no-rules stream of consciousness thing. I can't hold a candlestick to brother James but what I'm saying […]

by Jim Marshal It's a long name, I know. Geographically speaking, Bosnia is the larger, northern alpine region of the country whilst Herzegovina is the smaller, sunnier, southern region.

The Dayton Peace Accords were crafted on Air Force base in Ohio. In Sarajevo, Dayton is either a cafe or a butcher's shop.

I hitchhiked from Muenster, Germany on Christmas day 1992. Traveled by car, train and taxi to Zagreb. Ferry to Dalmatia. By bus to Bosnia. For New Years I was freezing my ass off in a refugee camp. More later...