The Latinski Most (Latin Bridge) is where Archduke Franz Ferdinand was shot by a Serb assassin, Gavrilo Princip, on 28 June 1914. This is the event which, we are told, catalysed World War I and the chain of events that finally tore the Austro-Hungarian Empire asunder.

But apart from buildings and bilingualism (Bosnian and German), Austria-Hungary left her mark in another way - by choosing Sarajevo to be the first city to have a tram line operational from dawn to dusk. There was sufficient distance between Bosnia and Vienna for comfortable experimentation.

The tram system is still in existence - it criss-crosses the length and breadth of the city. No longer a symbol of Austro-Hungarian technical superiority, its constituent parts remain the de facto billboards of European power, their paintwork covering everything from promising cheap flights to Rome to commemorating the reconstructive efforts of the United Kingdom during Britain's Presidency of the European Union with a Union Jack or two thrown in for good measure.

Once inside a tram however, there's be no mistaking which part of the world you're in. You're surrounded by Bosnians, yes, Bosnians - there's never enough time in tram conversation for someone to get to telling me whether they're Serb, Croat or Muslim. The teenage boys awkwardly hit on you, older folk stare, and people in between just sort of glance over you before hurrying onward. It's a bit like riding the waves of people in the Tube in London, or clutching on for dear life to the seat of an overcrowded - and overheating - matatu in East Africa. People-watching on the Sarejevo tram is one of my favourite ways of seeing the city.

*

My Czech Airlines fiasco meant that I had one night in Sarajevo before we had to journey to Bjelasnica for the youth camp we were to help organise, so it was not long before I found myself bundled up with all my things on a tram to the zeljeznicka stanica (train station). Out of habit, I wandered to the back of the tram and was soon lost in thought, leaving Sarah, Linda, Monica and Vildane seated nearer the front.

Outside Bascarsija, near the Sebilj, a pair of tram inspectors board the tram and ask for our tickets. I hold mine out as instructed. "Penalty!" shouts the tram inspector in front of me, pointing to a ticket that read 26 KM (S$26/9 pounds/US$18).

Apparently, I hadn't realised I'd neglected to validate my ticket. Confused, I step forward to the machine, which I hadn't seen while boarding the tram, decipher the instructions and validate my ticket on the spot. They snatch it away from me.

"That's my ticket!" I cry.
They ignore me and shout at me periodically in Bosnian.
"I have a ticket, so why do I have to buy a new one? Look, I've even validated it!" I continue.

A Bosnian man standing next to me attempts to defend me. They promptly usher him off the tram at the next stop - he spits in disgust as he leaves - while pushing me towards the very rear of the tram, blocking me from view from the rest of the passengers.

As the tram continues along its route, tram inspectors board the tram one after another. It seems they have requested for reinforcements, and it is not long before they have assembled a posse of portly, disgruntled conductors.

Surrounded by five large Bosnian men screaming at me in their language, I am somewhat bewildered, but after a week of battling with the ineptitude of Czech Airlines, I am certainly not in the mood to entertain a bunch of underpaid civil servants, much less allow them to wrest my hard-earned cash off me, what with a mere 100 KM for my three weeks in Bosnia after paying for my 'penalty' air ticket to Sarajevo. I snatch my ticket back from the first conductor, fold my arms and look him right in the eye. The girls, by this time, have noticed the commotion, and are trying to get the attention of the inspectors.

"Passport!" the inspectors bellow, "Papers!".
"I haven't got them on me! I'm only going around town." I reply indignantly, clutching my bag even more tightly against my chest, praying hard that they wouldn't search me down the front of my polo shirt and cargo trousers in the middle of a public tram. After the hassle at the Bosnian Embassy in London, the last thing I needed was to lose my visa or to be group-groped publicly in the name of civil service efficiency.

"Stop it!" Vildane said, finally, in Bosnian. They'd initially assumed we were all foreign and were surprised by the revelation that among us was one of them.
"So you understand," they snarl at Vildane, in Bosnian.
"Don't hurt my friend," she continues, in English.

"Read, English," they bark at me, pointing at the sign, half-hidden behind the validation machine.
Monica, in a flash of inspiration, cries, "Just because she speaks English doesn't mean she reads it, don't be silly, look at her, she's not English..."

They shove her aside, before forcing the rest of the girls off the tram as well at the train station. Several people complain about the absurdity of this petty corruption. In response, the conductors ask all remaining passengers to leave the tram. To our collective horror they lock all the tram doors. leaving me alone, encircled, still at the back of the tram, refusing to back down.

Linda runs to get Elvir, camp commandant and former captain in the Bosnian Army as the rest of the girls bang on the tram doors. The girls start to lose sight of me.

Worried, Monica hands over 25 KM through the window. They lose interest in me, count the cash, and quickly disperse.

It's all over.

Vildane told me after the event that one of the conductors had pulled her aside and sworn at her, viciously. She had stared impassively at him in return.

"What did he say?" I asked.
"It doesn't matter," she smiled, "It's just not done in this culture, to swear at a woman."
"I don't think it's the done thing in any culture."
"Never mind, we're all safe, that's what matters. You've had a really bad week, haven't you, Xin Hui?"
I laughed.

There's just not much to be said in such situations. I'm just glad Sarah, Linda, Monica and Vildane were there to watch my back. Vildane, she's a strong one.

*

After Mostar, it was time to go home to Iliya's. His grandfatherly care was always a comfort, no matter what happened - or didn't. I felt safe in his time capsule apartment, holes and all. Then of course, there's Murphy's Law.

At the tram stop outside the bus station, a young man, very Scottish and slightly lost, came up to me.

"Do you speak English?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Do you know what tram to take to get to the city centre?"
"Yes, Line 1, but I think it's been delayed, I've been here for almost half an hour."

Alec was from Scotland and studied in Edinburgh. He hated planes and had just taken a train that weekend from Ljubljana to Sarajevo. The tram police had got him that morning, and he was visibly nervous as we boarded the No. 1 tram. All seemed hunky-dory until two stops from the station, without explanation the tram driver changed the sign on the front of the tram from '1' to '2'. Alec and I worriedly wondered out loud how we were going to get back to our respective rooms.

"What are you doing in this fucking shithole? Go home!" a man across from us cried, for no apparent reason. Startled, Alec backed away.
"I'm a student working for a charity on Mjedenica," I replied, stepping in front of Alec.
"Oh," he said, quietly smoothing his unruly grey-flecked hair.
"My friend," pointing at Alec "is a student, too. They've suddenly changed the tram route in the middle of our journey and we don't know how to get back."
"Where are you going?"
"Skenderija and Bascarsija."
"I'm going to Skenderija, too, I'll show you the way, follow me."
I looked apprehensive.
"You, both. We have to change trams at the next stop."
"But we don't have tram tickets for the next tram," I said. Alec nodded in agreement.
"I don't want to go through all that with the tram inspectors again," Alec ventured.
"Do you want to go home? They don't work so late. If they do, just ignore them."

"Well, it's either him or we end up in Ilidza for the night," I whispered to Alec. He sighed, resigned, and we stepped out of the tram with our erstwhile heckler. I walked on ahead as Alec followed on reluctantly.

The three of us boarded tram 3 together. I recognised the place names on the sign as we climbed on. Heaving a sigh of relief, I struck up conversation with our guide. Alec was content to stand at the other end of the carriage.

"I still don't understand why you're here," he said, "there's nothing to see here, nothing to do."
"I teach young children and orphans as well as work with youth to promote ethnic reconciliation. That's a thing or two to do."
He smiled. "I was bored and couldn't sleep, so I'm going to town to have a drink. Do you like this shithole?"
"Not when tram conductors get me." I scanned the tram for Alec to give him a conspiratorial wink, but he had already left. We hadn't noticed him alight.
"Oh those bastards. They're not paid very well. They let Bosnians on for free all the time. The money has to come from somewhere."

We alighted together at Skenderija, outside the post office.

"It'll get better," I said.
He laughed. "All the best."
I offered my hand. He shakes it, firmly.
"Thank you so much for your help. Do take care."
"No problem, good bye."

And I hadn't thought to ask him his name.

leia gwyn at 9.18 AM - Permalink - Comments (0)

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