Miss Sarajevo

Because its so beautiful, and because it's been stuck in my head for the last two days...

First impressions: how sad it is that a city - a whole country - can be known for one thing and one thing only: atrocity. It's not fair.

I'm back!

Greetings from Sarajevo - that's right, in Bosnia.

Only three months after leaving Uganda, I've begun another spontaneous adventure. This is as much a surprise to me as it might be to you - I was offered this internship only about three weeks ago, I took a plane on Saturday, and here I am.

For the next six months, I'm going to be working on justice and legal issues - specifically on the war crimes trials being held in the local courts here, which are increasing now that the court in the Hague is trying to wrap up its business within the next year or two. I'm working in a large international organisation - I won't say which one in case I ever want to entertain myself making catty little comments about it here on a future basis. Suffice to say its not the not the organisation I worked for in Uganda... I leave it to your imagination.

I bid Front Line an emotional farewell last week. I can't believe my year there has come to an end already. They were incredibly good to me, and were a home to me as much as an employer - they literally put a roof over my head for a couple of weeks at one point, besides making my Ugandan, Armenian and Swiss adventures possible. As a parting tribute, as a chance to make it public - Front Line and your valient human rights defenders, I salute you!

Hopefully I'll keep up the blogging much as I did down on the equator - I didn't realise how much I'd enjoyed writing until I didn't have the excuse to blog back home. Thanks to my beautiful new shiny Sony Vaio and a pretty reasonably decent internet connection (take that, Uganda!), I'm actually looking forward to trying to upload here without spending half an afternoon on it...

So stay tuned for some musing and updates on this cosy little city.... although no photos this time around I'm afraid, thanks to the asshole who robbed my house in Dublin last week. The robbery could have been worse - I was insured - but the timing could not. Leaving home without a lens has been excruciating. Funny to think how I attached myself so much to that black little mechanical eye on the world.

More to follow soon....