SARAJEVO
It says more about this city and its inhabitants than many more grandiose war stories. “Honored” by particularly heavy sniper fire, one residential section of Sarajevo experienced famine before it hit other parts of town. No one dared to stick his nose outside, much less venture out to the bread truck, for fear that the hyenas and their twins would indulge in a bloodbath.
Then someone had an idea. First, one person managed to get up on the roof of the building in which the sniper had installed himself, and lowered a plastic bag containing a loaf of black bread past the side of the sniper’s window down to the next level, where another person attached a rock to end of the line and managed to throw it to a neighbor waiting behind an open window in the building across the way. As soon as the line had been made taut between the two buildings, probably to the astonishment of the sniper who must have been watching, the bread bag was slid down along the line. Witnesses said that at one point it got stuck on the branch of a tree, but unexpectedly a long pole appeared out of a nearby window and sent the loaf on its way again. Finally understanding what was going on, the sniper opened fire, hoping to hit the bag or the line or whatever he could, but by then it was too late: the loaf had reached the window it was destined for. Deafening applause, shouts of joy, and a few shots rang out from the surrounding buildings.
SARAJEVO, A WAR JOURNAL
by Zlatko Dizdarevic
p. 28
This is why Umbau is going to Sarajevo to set up a studio and do projects in Bosnia. It is because we have so much to learn from them.