1st day of Ramadan in Sarajevo

The smell of Ramadan is definitely in the air. Sarajevo is buzzing with excitement right now. The night has fallen, Iftar has passed and the smell of freshly baked somun (the type of bread we eat during Iftar) has swift away over the candle lit hills.

The city is in a canyon, a valley with high mountains surrounding it.

As soon as the cannon on the top of the Eastern hill sounds at Iftar and the prayer starts you can see the tops of the Minarets light up one by one and the sound of the prayer contributing to the warm atmosphere of the homes filled with family, joy and love.

Sarajevo – even though it has a population little under half a million, it has almost 100 mosques. With most of it’s population being Muslim (even though the rest of Bosnia and Herzegovina is split into Muslim, Catholic and Orthodox majorities as well as a big Jewish community in Sarajevo – the capital).

Sarajevo is popular for its coffee drinking culture and the numerous café bars which are opened day and night. The one thing which changes during Ramadan is the number of people sitting in these café bars and actually drinking. Some people do sit and order something but do not drink just chit chat over a cup of coffee they cannot sip and a packet of cigarettes they cannot light up. It is very interesting.

Life has not changed much, not at least during the first day, but then again I am still preparing myself for fasting, somehow today wasn’t the day for that, specially when you have meetings with high officials from international agencies who wish to discuss matters ‘over lunch’ .
Even they have forgotten that it is Ramadan… but it is just the 1^st day. A whole month to go…