Mass arrests, torture, rapes, ethnic cleansing, rivalry, refugees, and war may come to mind when someone mentions The Balkans. As I was about to start journalism school in the early ’90s, I closely followed events occurring in the disintegrating former Yugoslavia. Beginning with Slovenia and Croatia, its republics were fighting for independence. Ultra-nationalistic leaders used their positions of power for their own interests. Serb Slobodan Milosevic—known also for the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo in 1999—was doing everything possible to keep Yugoslavia together and create Greater Serbia. On the other hand, Franjo Tudjman—the first Croatian president and the father of Croatian Republic—was trying to attain independence for Croatia and drive the Serbs out of the territory. Squeezed between Serbia and Croatia, predominantly Muslim Bosnia and Herzegovina were trying to defend a multiethnic country, and they probably paid the highest price in casualties and destruction during the war.

 More than four years of bloody fighting and ethic cleansing campaigns in the Balkans left thousands of hundreds dead and displaced in the heart of Europe. It was something no one imagined would happen again after World War II.

 I visited Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina 10 years after the end of the armed conflict. I imagined I would see war-torn countries trying to rebuild themselves from ruins. Some places were like this. But what riveted me was the unexpected kindness, openness and optimism of the Balkans’ people—whether they were Catholic Croats, Muslim Bosnians, or Orthodox Serbs.

 These are some of their stories.

 “Where are you from?” a young Muslim girl asked me at the entrance of an old mosque in Mostar, southern Bosnia.

“I am from Venezuela,” I responded.

She jumped up, gave me a big smile and started speaking Spanish very fast. She had learned the language in the four months she spent in Spain.

Her name was Mirna, and she was 22 years old. When she was not in class, she worked as a tour guide at the mosque, but business hadn’t been so good.

“Not too many tourists come here! I don’t remember meeting any Spanish-speaking tourists in a while. At least, no one from South America!” Mirna said with a thick accent from Spain.

 Surrounded by green mountains and wooded forests, Mostar was a war zone in the early ’90s when the Serbs targeted it in 1992 and Croatia targeted it in 1993. Although part of Mostar has been renovated, the scars of the conflict remain in constructions in ruins and hundreds of bullet holes dotting the Turkish and Austro-Hungarian buildings that are still standing.

Small shops with Turkish souvenirs, old mosques, colorful markets, artisans, and cafés fill the cobbled streets of Kujundziluk, the old part of Mostar. The Stari Most, or Old Bridge, built in 1556 tumbled under attack in 1993. –Now, it stands renovated over the emerald Neretva river, dividing the Muslim and the Croat sectors of the town, wearing a sign that says, “Never forget 1993”.

  With her bubbly personality, it was hard, if not impossible, to imagine what Mirna has gone through. At the age of seven, she almost died with her mom and sister. As we walked the cobbled streets, she slowly opened up about her experience.

 “I still remember. We lived in the basement of our house for several months. We didn’t have electricity or much to eat. The UN Peace Forces rescued and fed us.” Mirna’s dark eyes watered, and her voice started to break.

 “I am happy to be alive. To have my family alive,” she added, showing a bit of a smile.

 “Are you still afraid that tensions between the groups could resurge?” I asked.

 “I hope not. I believe there are good Serbs, good Muslims, and good Croats. I don’t hate anyone. It is not good to generalize. A lot of people lost loved ones in the war. I only want to think of the future.” A glow of optimism replaced the tears in her eyes.

Mirna insisted she was no longer afraid, yet she kept a low profile. Although a Muslim, she didn’t wear the veil, saying that “covering too much” could make other people uncomfortable.

“Could I take a picture with you?” Mirna asked as I took shots of the old bridge and the emerald river. “I would like to have one to show my family.”

“Of course!” I responded. I asked her for her email address so I could send the photo we had just taken.

“I am sorry. I don’t have an email. It is too expensive for us to afford. Would you send it to my home?” she asked.

 When I assured her I would, she said, “Next time you come to Bosnia, you’re welcome in my home. Thanks for coming to Mostar. God bless you.”

 No far from Mostar, in the southernmost point of Croatia leaning toward the Adriatic Sea, the old seaport town of Dubrovnik looks as if the war never touched it. Although Dubrovnik tumbled under the Yugoslav Army’s attacks in 1991 and 1992, the city was rebuilt when the fighting ceased, the reconstruction efforts executed carefully to preserve the city’s architectural heritage. Now, the scars of the armed conflict are imperceptible in its architecture—but its inhabitants are still healing the wounds from the violent past.

 “Bésame, bésame mucho, como si fuera esta noche la última vez.” A flirtatious accordion player serenaded me on bended knee with the Croatian version of Consuelo Velasquez’s “Besame Mucho.” We were on a boat cruising the turquoise waters of the Adriatic Sea and island hopping in the world-famous Elaphite’s Kolocep, Sipan and Lopud. Other passengers—mainly elderly people from Germany and France, sighed and giggled as the Croatian musician sang his lungs out to the only woman under 50on board. I was flushed with both embarrassment and delight.  

 As the boat approached the shore, the accordion player and the other two members of the small band on board took a rest. The flock of elderly tourists followed the guide. I sat on a bench near the harbor with my Moleskine notebook and pen in hand, just about to write when I suddenly felt someone approaching.

 “Zdravo! Do you mind if I sat with you?” asked the accordion player in fluent English. Before I could even respond, he had already sat next to me.

 His name was Zoran. He was 37 years old, but he looked a bit older. Gray hair had almost replaced his straight blond locks. Deep wrinkles surrounded his hazel eyes. Days on the boat had tanned his fair skin. Zoran had worked as a music professor, but he preferred to perform for crowds. He made a living by playing with the band on the cruise during the day and on the streets of Old Town at night. But what was most important to him was to save enough money to have what he had before the war: a home.

 “My house was destroyed! I was in Slovenia during the attacks, and when I came back, I had nothing,” he said. His eyes and cheeks both got red.

 I tried to change the conversation to a lighter topic, but I wondered if Zoran had been forced to join the army during the conflict. He would have been 27 then.

 It was time to go back to the boat to visit the next island.

 “I will take you to a secret sandy beach on the next island; only locals know about it,” Zoran said with a smile.

 When we arrived in Kolocep, he led me away from the crowd. I usually don’t go anyplace alone with local men, but I felt I could trust Zoran. I also felt that there was a story he hadn’t told me yet, and I wanted to hear it.

 We walked down a narrow, dark wooden path. The green trees and bushes surrounding it allowed only a few rays of the sun to reach us. “I am an Orthodox, but a Croatian first!” Zoran explained. “I am not religious!”

 Most Orthodox people in Croatia are Serbs, but Zoran was born and raised in Croatia, so he didn’t think of himself as a Serb like his parents did.

 “This is the Balkans, you know. Some stupid people were fighting for their religion. If there is another war, I will leave to Slovenia.  I don’t want to be part of that nonsense.”

 The Serb-controlled Yugoslav Army had burned his home, even though he was a Serb himself.

 We had finally reached the secret beach Zoran had talked about. Unlike most of the pebble beaches on the Adriatic Sea, this one was indeed sandy. We sat on the soft sand and continued talking.

  “My dad and I are working hard to rebuild our destroyed house. It is going to be bigger and more beautiful!” Zoran said, showing his white teeth in a glowing smile.  “I hope my new home will be ready in three years!”

 When we returned by boat to Dubrovnik, Zoran said, “Daniela, come tonight to the café. I will be playing, and I would love to see you again.” He gave me a goodbye kiss on the cheek. That night, I walked along the glistening white cobblestone boulevard known as Placa, the main street of Old Dubrovnik and the center of this medieval town’s nightlife. With so many cafes and so many artists on the street, I couldn’t find Zoran. I could only hope he did well that night and every night so that so he could have back what the war took from him: a safe home.

 Although Mirna and Zoran had no resentment toward any ethnic group and simply wanted to put the past behind them, the distrust and fear of the Serb majority in Banja Luka in the Republika Srpska—one of the political divisions within Bosnia and Herzegovina—were still present.

 Although the city seems pretty ordinary nowadays, in the ’90s, it was a living hell.

 “Banja Luka, the largest Bosnian City controlled by Serbs and the darkest of the places in the darkest of the worlds. To be a Muslim or a Croat in Banja Luka in 1992 was nearly as frightening as being a Jew in Berlin in 1942,” says Peter Maass in his book Love Thy Neighbor: A Story of War. 

 It took six hours by bus from Sarajevo to Banja Luka in the Republika Srpska. As we rode north into the heart of Serbian land, high green mountains gave way to grassy slopes, farms, and cornfields. The calm and lush scenery was dotted with red-roofed houses that still had bullet holes from the war. Despite the destruction, it was still hard to imagine the brutal killings that took place every day on this road in the ’90s.

 As we approached Banja Luka, the signs were no longer in the Roman alphabet, but in the Cyrillic alphabet. Instead of mosques, Orthodox churches dominated the landscape.

 On the bus, I looked around, wondering how many of the passengers were Serbs, Croats, and Muslims. But they were simply all Slavs, indistinguishable from one another.    

 A delicate blond girl was sitting next to me. She didn’t say a word throughout the ride, but once in a while, she gave me a smile.

 We finally arrived in Banja Luka. It turned out the bus station was three kilometers from the city center. I needed to find how to get there, but everything was written in the Cyrillic alphabet. The people I asked for directions didn’t speak a word of English.

 I stood in front of the signs in Cyrillic and tried to decipher the text.

 “Can I help you? Where are you trying to go?” the blond girl who sat next to me on the bus asked.

 “I am going to Hotel Bosna,” I said.

 “I am going that direction. Come with me,” she said.

 Her name was Svjetvana. She was a 26-year-old Serb girl who lived two hours north from Banja Luka. She was studying geography and in town to take a test.

 As we jumped on another bus, Svjetvana said, “It is very brave of you to travel alone.”

 “People are very kind here. It has not been difficult at all,” I responded.

 Svjetvana asked me where I had been. I told her how much I had enjoyed Mostar and Sarajevo, the other two places I had visited in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

 “I have family in Sarajevo, but I don’t like going there,” she said.

 “Why is that?” I asked. “It’s a beautiful city.”

 “I don’t like going there because when people in Sarajevo hear my name, they know I am a Serb, and they look at me differently. It wasn’t like that before the war. Everyone was happy then. No one cared. Now, it is just different!”

 Svjetvana was 16 during the war, yet she couldn’t remember those days well. I wondered if she just didn’t want to remember. She said her family was fine, but that some of her cousins died during the war.

 “I don’t care about other people’s religions. It is just sad that now there is hatred between people of different religions that didn’t exist before,” Svjetvana explained in despair.  

 When we got off, Svjetvana offered to walk me to the Bosna Hotel to make sure I got there.

As she walked away, I felt sorry for her. She had nothing to do with the war, yet she was paying the price.

 Even the Bosna Hotel played a role during the war: it was where both Serb leaders and international journalists covering the conflict stayed. Rumors said that people were kept in the attic of this hotel to be taken to the Luka Camp, where killings happened every day.

 Just outside the hotel, an Orthodox Church stands. The Presidential Palace and the Republika Srpska Art Gallery are nearby. On the edge of the emerald Vrbas River, a large Roman castle from the sixteenth century stands preserved but tourist-free. Besides these few sites, there is not much left in Banja Luka after the Serb attacks in 1993 and an earthquake. All 16 of the city’s mosques were blown up, including the Ferhadija Mosque built in 1580. Now, it is just an empty plot.

 On my way back to Sarajevo from Banja Luka, I met Sanjic. He was the perfect example of the Bosnia and Herzegovina melting pot. His mom was half Orthodox and half Catholic, while his dad was Muslim. Sanjic was born and raised in Banja Luka, but his parents left in 1994 because they were afraid of what would happen to him as the child of an interracial marriage. He now lives in London where he works as an IT, but he was in Bosnia and Herzegovina visiting relatives.

 “During the war, the army called up most men. My dad didn’t want to go, and that’s another reason we left,” he said.

 Sanjic told me that 80% of the people didn’t want to join the army, but there were not many options: you either joined the army, or you lost your job and your home.

 “I respect all religions, you know. My own family celebrates the holidays of the three faiths. But I didn’t like that Muslim law they tried to implement in Bosnia that would allow men to marry more than one woman.”

 I wondered whether an attempt to implement such a law in the ’90s was a fact or just a rumor to create fear in the population, just as Serb Slobodan Milosevic did as the head of the Serbian government, insisting that Muslims wanted to apply the Islamic law or Sharia to all Bosnia-Herzegovina.

The Muslims in Mostar or Sarajevo seem far from being extremists.

 With hundreds of souvenirs, carpets, jewelers, and coffee shops, the cobbled streets of the Old Turkish Quarter in Sarajevo had a very “Oriental” feel. More women—some with fair skin and blue eyes—covered their hair here than in Mostar or Banja Luka, but just as many women flaunted their thick locks and dressed in casual clothes.

Wandering around a labyrinth of the tangled lanes in the Old Turkish Quarter, I came to appreciate the multicultural essence of this town. While exploring this relatively small area, I stumbled upon places of worship for the four main religions: a neo-gothic Catholic Church, a Jewish Synagogue, an Old Orthodox Church, and the Gazi-Husrevbey Mosque, all standing near each other. Outside the Turkish quarter, mosques contrasted with large and old Austro-Hungarian buildings, some of them still damaged from the war.

Although the war has been over for more than a decade, the United Nations Protection Force soldiers weave through the city’s crowd, and green NATO busses still stand in the roads.

Not far from the Old Turkish Quarter, Sarajevo’s Markale market still busily functions. I was there on a Sunday morning, as dozens of locals picked fresh fruits, vegetables, and flowers.

“You are standing exactly where the bomb exploded,” a man in his forties told me.  His name was also Zoran, and he had a fruit stand in the market.

On 5 February 1994, a shell blast killed 68 people and wounded more than 100 in this market. This was one of the bloodiest events in the Bosnia-Herzegovina war. At the time of the massacre, international media showed images of mangled bodies and limbs scattered all over the open-air market. Serb forces besieging Sarajevo were blamed for the attack.

“That is the memorial.” Zoran pointed to a wall inscribed with the names of the victims. “You see those names? The victims were not only Muslims. Serbs and Croats also died there. You can tell by the names.”

He continued, “I am a Serb, but I fought on the Bosnian lines to save my city. The Catholics and gypsies also fought to defend Bosnia. I am thankful to them.” During the war, Zoran almost lost his life. He was shot in the back, and the bullet penetrated his lung. Another time, a grenade landed at his feet, but it didn’t explode.

“My family is okay, but I lost friends. I don’t know what happened to us. We lived in peace!” Zoran said.

From one day to another, Serbian soldiers began killing the Bosnians with whom they had once been friends. Even those who had never shot a gun before suddenly became soldiers, either to join the Yugoslav Army or to defend Bosnia from the Serb-controlled military that got its instructions from Belgrade, the capital of Serbia.

The Serb snipers opened fire, and shelling on Sarajevo left over 11,000 dead and 50,000 wounded. Criminals of that war such as Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic remain at large, which leaves an open wound among the population.

“I had to become a soldier. I didn’t want to, but I had to protect my family. All we Muslims, Croats, and Bosnian Serbs fought together against the Serbian forces,” Salem, a Muslim man in his fifties told me. He owned the guesthouse in the Turkish Quarter where I stayed while in Sarajevo. Although it was tourist season, I was the only guest. He gave me the largest suite at not extra cost. “You come from far away. You are special guest! I am happy you love Sarajevo!” he added.

The day of my departure, Salem offered to take me to the airport.

On our way there, we stopped at an overlook with a panoramic view of the entire city.

 “You see there, Daniela? That’s where the Serb tanks and snipers were in the mountains. They surrounded Sarajevo!” He pointed to their exact location.

 When Serb forces with tanks and artillery besieged Sarajevo, the only way out was through what is now known as “The Tunnel,” an 800-meter stretch constructed under the runway of the Sarajevo airport, which was supposed to be a neutral zone controlled by the UN. Supplies such as food, fuel, newspapers, and weapons got into Sarajevo through this tunnel during wartime. Many contend that this tunnel saved Sarajevo.

 “That’s a Muslim cemetery. My brother is buried there. He died during the war. The day of the funeral, we were trying to bury my brother, and the Serb snipers were shooting at us! You couldn’t even mourn your loved ones during the war,” he said, eyes watering. “During the siege, we didn’t have food, electricity, or water. It was hard in winter, but we survived.”

Despite how much the war changed his life, Salem didn’t hold resentment toward anyone.

“Before the war, my neighbor was Serb. Now, he lives in the Serbian part of the country. I tell him to come back to Sarajevo where his house is, but he hesitates. I would love him to come back. I always have coffee with him when he visits,” Salem said. “Here in Bosnia, we have always been welcoming to all people, from all faiths. We never had a problem before the war.”

As we continued to drive to the airport, we passed a neighborhood severely affected by the shelling. Entire buildings were covered with holes from grenades, bullets, and tank fire.

 “How can someone live in those buildings?” I asked.

 “If they are still standing, people will live there.” Then he pointed out one building in particular.

 “You see that one?  In there, Muslim girls—some just seven –years –old—were held for several months and raped almost daily by Serbian soldiers. When the girls or women were pregnant, the soldiers released them so they could have Serb babies.”

 As I listened to the story, I became nauseated. Many of those teenage girls would be my age now.

 “What did they do? Did they keep the babies?” I asked.

 “Some girls kept the babies. Others gave them up for adoption. A Japanese TV crew interviewed one of those girls, and when the reporter asked her if she loved that baby, she responded ‘How wouldn’t I?’” Salem said.

 “Salem, how can these girls live with that trauma? How do you cope with the past and what you and your family and your friends went through?” I tried putting myself in the shoes of Salem, Mirna, Zoran, Svjetvana and the other people I had met throughout this journey, and I wondered if I would have been able to live a normal life, be an optimist, or forgive the ones who tried to kill me and my people. I wondered if I could smile as they did if I had gone through the same experiences.

 “It is simple: we are alive! We survived, Daniela. The past is past. Now it is about the future.”

 As I walked inside the terminal, a mix of emotions took over me. For the first time, I burst into tears at the airport prior to my departure. I thought of each of the kind people I had met—Catholic Croats, Orthodox Serbs, Muslim Bosnians, and everything in between—and their stories of survival and hope. Their kindness, their courage, their power to forgive, and their optimism changed the way I live my own at life. Sometimes, we take life and freedom for granted, forgetting how fortunate we are.

 As the plane took off, I looked through the window and saw the green mountains that surrounded Sarajevo. My heart felt as if it were shrinking. Perhaps part of it stayed here, in the Balkans with the people who had touched it so deeply.