Old History - New History

So - it was an interesting day today.

Watching "Survival in Sarajevo" with some new friends and listening panel disscusion, where reporters, politician and a lawyer are talking about Balkan, war, standing up for what you belive and - yes - what is the one and only version of what happend. For me, and my fellow regional teachers - it is always the same story and we know what it is about to happen.

Panel started as it was planed but - since nothing in Balkan region can really go straight - the talk went on various sides. I was looking faces of people sitting around me - very soon they were totally lost. Serbs, Muslim, Croat - then Serbo-Croat and Ortodox Serbs and Catholic Serbs and Jewih, and Muslim here and Muslim there and....if I heard it for the first time I would be also lost. Too much history. And then, when everything is finally over - the same thing is happening every time - there comes coffie break and I'm helding consultation (instead of smoking) about everything - friends comming to me with question mark on their forhed - what was that, I did not understand nothing, why is this relevant for my students....every time.

Maybe I should write manual - not lesson plan - and maybe then - I would also understand what happend, why did it happend and what my fellow teachers all over this world should know of this strange and exsotic land of Balkan.