"Zbunjola" Moooo...

Bismillah

Date : 14th April 2011

Time : 8.12am

Location : My desk, Supply Chain Department, Teloptic

I am having my breakfast as I'm writing this down. I'm having my favourite milk chocolate drink "Zbunjola", one of my company's best product. :) and Nestle Fittness cereal bar. I bought them at the company's cafe which only cost me about 1.10KM. Cheap, right? Hehe

Basically, that's what I eat for breakfast if I did not manage to have it at home before I leave the house. Im going to miss my lil fat cow Zbunjola after this. =(

By the way, tomorrow will be my last day here. And I am worried and nervous and i don't know, there are so many things that I feel right now. But one thing that I am certain is that I'm going to cry tomorrow. Hopefully I don't embarass myself much. You know, i hate it, (that's very hard word) to bid goodbye. I mean to say goodbye when you know you will never see him or her or them again. Everytime I am about to say goodbye, in just a second, all good memories that I had with him/her/them come swirling in front of my eyes. And those pictures of good memories seem to be blurry and the next second I realize my eyes and cheecks are wet from tears. I have this strong feeling it's going to be exactly the same tomorrow. 

p/s: Macam mana ni? Hari ni pun dah rasa sebak-sebak je =(

The feeling of a cup of coffee

Bismillah.

There is another four weeks left before I go back to Malaysia. But another two weeks to be spent in this office. My very first office, my "Teloptic d.o.o." Honestly speaking, I don’t want to leave this office, nor this Sarajevo. It’s not that my life here is perfect or flawless. No, it’s not. My office life of intern is not perfect. There are hard times. I guess every place has its own disadvantages. That is something I have to deal with. I guess. So, I take that as a challenge. Alhamdulillah, I managed to sustain to four months now. =D  I guess, that is the bitter part, I called it as the “coffee powder”.

Coming to Bosnia probably would be my last place to visit. That was the idea before I came here. After four months, I feel ashamed to admit that. It’s funny when the last place you would want to visit turned out to be your top place now. How, then?

I never thought that I would get the opportunity to live abroad. I almost gave up when I didn’t get to further my study abroad. And I like to travel. To see thing beyond from where I stand. I want to look at them with my bare two eyes. Until this miracle thing happened in my life. Alhamdulillah. I got to live abroad. I have got to see so many places which I never have imagined to go. I have got the chances to improve soft skill and language. I had once prayed to Allah, to let me live abroad, so that I would speak English better as well as getting the chance to practice it constantly. Because I only have the courage to write and I don’t have one when it comes to speak. Even though Bosnia is not an English speaking country, generally English still plays an important language as a medium of conversation. You know how environment can really get you to speak, I mean, the right environment would force you to speak. You have to speak to get direction, to ask for help. To make a few mistakes of grammar or accidentally using inappropriate words to describe won’t hurt as the important thing is to get the message across. Along the way, you will gain confidence. You know how good it feels when you are confident. And now, Allah heard me and gave me this overseas internship.

To live abroad as a student, experiencing different culture and weather, to be independent on travelling matter. All in one. I am learning so many things, business ethics here, Bosnian language, culture and local celebrations, and most importantly to learn how to take care of solat. With so many things differ, to take a full responsibility of solat won’t be any easier. Now, I am taking this as a challenge. I always think that,

Allah has given you this dream of yours, so, why don’t you give back to Him? 

There is so many ways to show your gratitude to Allah. One of them, is to obey or ta’at to Allah. I would feel so bad to abandoned solat, not to cover aurat (body part which is forbidden to be revealed to public eye) or being dishonest or to disobey other obligation when Allah has given you countless gift, such as a healthy body, loving family and a house to live in. I feel ashamed if I was not able to fulfill the obligation as a slave to Allah as He has given me so much. So, I’m trying my best here to be a good Muslimah. Let us all be a better Muslim and Muslimah. J

I feel like I am living my dream right now. I mean for this intership period. Now, this part I called the “sugar”.

Therefore, this two substances that I mentioned earlier, coffee powder and sugar, could make good and aromatic coffee. You have to face hard time in your life. It’s normal. You have to have that bitter, but do not emphasizing too much when there are so many great things to see apart from that, which is the ‘sugar’ part.

Look at the bright side and that brightness will make the bitterness disappear. Sip the coffee, one sip at a time. Swallow the bitterness as in the end you will feel the pleasure of drinking it. Like when you sip Bosnian coffee. =)

Oh, Allah. How would I thank you for giving me this chance? =’)

Syukur, Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. I love you, Allah.

p/s: Sekarang ni dok pening fikir macam mana nak bagi ole-ole dari Malaysia yang terhad kat kawan-kawan Bosnia yang ramai ni. =L

The Real Winter

Bismillah.

Maybe this looks so waaahh, cool

Remember that everything comes with two things, the pro's and con's. You might like snow, wanting to play snow fight, build snowman, and excited when you could see fog comes out from your mouth each time you exhale. Okay, I can say that's what I did when it was winter. But, let me tell you another story of winter or snowing. The so many other things you need to do to be prepared for the winter:

1. You have to get yourself a winter boots.
2. If you have a car, you will have to change the tyres for a winter tyres.
3. You need to wrap fire hydrant (pili bomba) so that the water in the pipe won't freeze.
4.  etc...




The street would be dirty...see the brownish snow on the road..



At first we walked very slow in this snow as we afraid we might slipped off and were wondering how fast Bosnian walk in the snow. Maybe they are used to it. And usually during this season, do not expect your shoes to be clean okay because it won't be.

Careful as this might be slippery.

You can hardly recognize your vehicle

And also, when you enter any shops, you will find that it is dirty and wet especially at the door or entrance.

Some fall at the entrance because of this . It was really hurt when I fall at the company's entrance door. Ouch!

That was just a few disadvantage of winter. There is more.

So,do you still want to be in snow?

Welcome Spring

Bismillah.

It is officially spring now. Actually, it started yesterday, 21^st of March for every year.

But, looking around, yesterday was still snowing. Lightly. Today, it is predicted to be snowing again. I checked on the weather forecast for the week, next Sunday will be snowing again. It’s not that I am tired of snow. Just that I can’t wait to see how spring would look like. Afterall, I have got only a month and a half more here. So, please please. Let the flowers blossoming. Let the field green. Let everything be colourful.  Let the dark, gloomy day past.

Srebrenica, cry from the graves

Bismillah.

Last weekend, we went to this unforgettable memorial in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Srebrenica Memorial.

This place is located in Srebrenica, about 3 hours driving from Sarajevo. Actually, I have been waiting to go to this place as they said this place gathered about eight thousands or more graves of Bosnian Muslims which had been killed by the Bosnian Serbs just in a week in 1995.

I was told told that, during the war which started in 1993, Srebrenica is the only place which is considered “safe area” by under United Nation (UN) protection as they made an agreement with the Bosnian Serbs not to ‘touch’ Srebrenica as other villages around Srebrenica are being constantly attacked. But then, in 1995, Serbs broke the agreement. They attacked Srebrenica and carried out the mass killing. They separated the male Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim), from the old man to the young children of the age of 15, military or civillian, prisoned or not, killed them all. They put them in a building and shot them all. Sometimes they put them in a building and bombed down the building with living human in there. They also raped the women and killed babies. Some women were raped in front of their family members and other people who were in the same concentration camp.

The Serbs also caught UN protection forces.

Women lost their husbands, sons and fathers. A woman lost his husband and three sons of age 19, 17 and 15. She even has hard time to remember if she had sons.

You see the last three names of Saranovic? The Saranovic is the family or surname. The person's name who died is the third. The word in the middle referring to each of their father. The years is when they were born.

After they killed them, those bodies were buried in mass graves. And the worst part was, when the Serb thought that the war was going to end, they exhumed the graves to somewhere place secretly as an attempt to conceal evidence of the mass murders.

NATO launched a bombing campaign in Bosnia and Herzegovina to undermine the military capability of the Army of the Republika Srpska which threatened and attacked UN-designated “safe areas” in Bosnia. This bombing campaign lasting from 30 August until 20 September. The war ended after the effective Dayton Peace Agreement in November 1995.

How tragic it was to see how human can do such inhuman thing to other human =’(

Their graves at the back.

With the systematic killing of the men, the entire family lines were simply erased. The Serbs killed the man since that is the only way to erased the Bosniak. The family name won’t get to be passed down to new generation since the male family members had been all killed.

As another result of the removal and reburial of the bodies, making it difficult for the forensic investigators team to positively identify the remains and analyse DNA since some parts of the body were separated like 30 km away from other parts. This gives the Bosniak difficulties to find their family’s corpse and subsequently make graves.

Serbia = Aggresion = Genocide =Dayton Agreement = Republik of Srpska.
Also means that the existence of Republika Sprska in Bosnia and Herzegovina today is the result from this genocide.

How is the respond of the Serbs to this memorial of Srebrenica? I was told that the Serbs are denying that the event was a genocide or ethnic cleansing. They claimed that it was just a crime. I personally don’t think by killing up to eight thousands people were just a crime. And because they planned to kill all the men makes it clear to me that this is some kind of massacre or ethnic cleansing.

Now, they built this memorial as to remind the world on the ugly and terrible event that happened to them and that this is NOT to be forgotten, forever.

~AL-FATIHAH~