We worked the same schedule as the newspapers here, which means six days a week. In this Muslim country, of course, Thursday is our day off and the equivalent to Saturdays at home. Friday, the equivalent of Sundays, we work but few others do. Most people are in prayer from 12:30 to 2:30 and it can be hard to find restaurants or shops open even afterward.
Businesses, embassies, everything is open again on Saturday and Sunday. All this is weirdly confusing. You call or send an email home and get no response. Then as you are furious with impatience you realize, oh, it’s Sunday, nobody is at work to see it. Don makes it harder because he refers to Thursday and Friday here as Saturday and Sunday.
I find I’m not really sure what day it is till I check the bottom of my computer screen.
In the summer of 2012, I'm back in Sarajevo working with people who are good journalists and after all this time also good friends. My language skills are no better, alas, but I hang out with natives and internationals in the know. So I'm planning in this space to tell Bosnian stories to American readers, with my Bosnian friends free to call me out on errors or wrong headed interpretations. This is a fascinating area of the world and these are interesting times.
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