member of the human race

during the May holiday, i went to Bosnia with my husband and parents, we flew to Italy where my dad rented a car and we drove through Italy, Slovenia, Croatia and finally arrived in Bosnia.

every one in my family have been to Bosnia numerous times including my husband, i on the other hand never had the opportunity and every one has been raving about how beautiful it is and how the people are amazing, i always thought that they where exaggerating as i never imagined Bosnia to be like they describe it, but i was pleasantly surprised. its a country that is full of natural beauty subhanallah and i swear whilst you are there you cant help but utter words such as subhnallah, mashallah, Allah akbar as you really do become a witness to the greatness of Allah's creation.

as usual here are some photo samples:

any one care to jump?

water mills, never seen the like of...

martyrs graveyard

Bosnian coffee, they eat the sugar cube and sip the coffee...

wudu area in a mosque in Sarajevo

the rules of the mosque in animated form :0)

minaret from the restaurant.

we prayed isha prayer in this mosque, it was full of roses from the outside, so beautiful mashallah.

i love people watching, we went to a local cafe and whilst my mum and dad shopped in the market, i sat and watched the world go by and took shots of people :)

love the fruit and veggies, they taste real lol

this house played a big role during the war, an old lady owns the house and she allowed for the Bosnians to dig a tunnel from her home to just after the airport as the Serbs had surrounded the city and placed snipers and refused to let any one leave, this tunnel helped many escape.

map of how it looked then

the tunnel...

some of the buildings are still damaged due to the war

king fahad mosque, as the name indicates, Saudi donated the money to build this mosque.

ice cream, summer fruit, wafers, sauce, cream , mmmmmmmm delicious

this is a derelict factory that was used by the united nations, 30,000 Bosnians came to find refuge here, the UN declared the area a 'safe zone' only to hand the men and boys between the ages of 12-60 to the Serbs who literally massacred them.

the men and boys where buried in mass graves, and no one new where the mass graves where, and they are still uncovering them today, in some of the graves, personal items where found on some of the bodies, like the above glasses and case as well as:

a napkin

school books ;(

and a quran.

we then went to the srebrenica cemetery where the bodies that are found in the mass graves, are given a proper funeral with a proper burial, the anniversary is the 11th July, and every year they add more graves of bodies they have found in mass graves, this year they will add 750 graves to the cemetery.

so far 8372 are buried.

whilst we where there, it rained for a good 4-5 days, the clouds where stuck in between the mountains.

meat any one?

we made a friend with a horse that my mum named mardeeyah

the local mosque we prayed in

grilled fish, my dad is the only person who eats fish

at breakfast we where joined by a little friend

we went to a taqeeyah, which is like a Sufi retreat and its also where the source of the river comes from, its meant to be one of the wonders of Europe as no one knows exactly where the source of the river comes from.

one of the rooms had graves.Bosnians are not famous for tea, so at this place they had tea and i jumped at the chance to drink the good old stuff, the Turkish delight was one of the best I've had in a long time.

i love these swirling dervishes, I'm going to try and find a swirling dervish in every country i go to.we went to mostar city where its famous for this bridge

the Croatians bombed mostar city including the bridge, the UN helped to re-build it, probably felt guilty for there hand in the massacre.
anglo this one is for you, i made friends with a Bosnian turtle ;)