Participants Blog

About a friend

3. Tell a story about a person with whom you have a special relationship during your placement - it can be the same person as the previous question. Choose a story to share that highlights how you think this relationship is affecting this special person.

We are sitting on the school steps at night. The usual: a little gossip, a smoke, some music, and watching couples walking by with the sounds of the river Vrhbas behind them, adding to our own. Out of nowhere, a firecracker goes off, and I jump. No one else even notices, no one reacts. I have heard that sound many times here, but it still strikes me everytime. So she starts laughing. “We are children of war”, she says, “these sounds are nothing for us”. And I, cannot even stand the sound of a balloon exploding. When I tell her that, her eyes get big and curious, as if she is trying to picture what my life must have been like without the reality of war. Maybe she would be more fragile like me if she was not born here, but another place, where life carries out its normal course, nothing too loud, nothing destructive, everything as it should be. Maybe she would jump at the sounds of balloons or firecrackers, like me. Even though she was lucky enough not to grow up in war, she was born before it ended. So I realize, maybe then war makes people stronger..Their minds and hearts and personalities, everything. And although I cannot put myself in her place, I can keep her stories and words in my mind to remind me of some of the best and worst realities of this town. Most of all, she taught me to communicate and try my best to break the wall that existed between us just a few months ago. From the day I first came when she broke down because she couldnt talk to me, until now where we can speak for hours, she opened up a whole other world for me. And for her, I read in her face, her posture, a new confidence and excitement since I first met her. Yes she was always jolly and warm and energetic, but there is now something more, she trusts herself almost wholly, wants to learn something new every day just by talking to me. She is more inspired, more artistic, more positive and cries less often for little things. Maybe this is a bit of an exaggaration but I think with her I really witnessed someone growing up, more and more, day by day.. By the time I come back again I know that she will amaze me even more.