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| Our last night together in Mostar at Mateo's house for a pool party. |
Saying goodbye is always hard to do. Knowing you have some amazing new friends halfway around the world makes it a little easier though!
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| Before the party I had a chance to finally meet Nikola's parents and uncle at the cafe they own/operate. It was great meeting them and hope to hang out with them more the next time I'm back! |
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Our last night in Mostar was spent at Mateo's house, where we had a pool party with the friends we've made through this exchange from INTERA Technology Park, the University of Mostar, and the University of Džemal Bijedić.
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| The students got Ana a painting from local artist Alića to say thank you for everything she did to put this trip together. |
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| Ana got me a picture of the bridge after the end of the exchange in Dayton, so I got her a picture of Dayton to remember us by! |
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| Pool party fun... |
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| We had ćevapi and other cookout food from the fire... all of it was great. Thanks to Mateo and his family for hosting! |
The next day was our last one. We spent the morning getting packed, then went out for a few more excursions before heading to Dubrovnik. The night before at the party Ana asked if there was anything left we wanted to see, and Bri mentioned that she'd like to see the city from the perspective of the giant cross on the hill overlooking the city, so we started there.
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| It's a lot bigger in person when you get to the top. The Stations of the Cross line the road leading up to the top. |
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| The view from the top... |
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| ...with us in it. |
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| One more selfie at the top! |
I wanted to take the kids next to Blagaj, a small village where you can find a huge spring that is the beginning of the Buna River, which feeds into the Neretva. There's a house there that sits right next to the cave where the spring comes out from under a mountain, and it's one of the most peaceful spots I've ever visited. We went into the tekke, or Dervish monastery house, and walked around a bit.
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| The Dervish tekke used to be the seat of power for the region when the Ottomans were in power here. It's still active, and the first night we were here we arrived too late, but were there in time to hear the call to break the fast for Ramadan that day. It's still a practicing monastery. |
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| We had to cover up and take off our shoes before heading into the house. |
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| It's easy to see why people would choose this spot for introspection and prayer. |
Our last stop for the day was at the school where everyone in the group attended high school. We didn't actually visit the high schools (Croat, Bosniak, and United World College) schools housed here, but instead stopped at the
American Corner, an extension of the State Department that is open to everyone in the community.
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| The Mostar Gymnasium is the building that houses the three schools I mentioned above. There's an interesting article from Balkan Insights about education in Mostar if you're interested in learning more about what makes this school unique within Mostar (and BiH). |
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| Heading into the American Corner... it's pretty evident that they have a lot of great student work! |
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| Some cool quotes and projects, including a photoshop project where students put themselves in spots all over the US. Still waiting for some of them to visit Dayton some day for a real photo! |
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| The students checking out the STEAM tools and books at the American Corner. |
The director, Inga Kotlo, gave us an overview of the programming at the center, which is open for students and people of all ages. They have a book club and are going to have a discussion about Americanah soon, which my book club here in Dayton just recently read. There are a lot of opportunities to collaborate too, so I'll have to talk to Jenn and Pablo about some of them over the summer!
Unfortunately after the visit to the American Corner it was time to leave to get the van loaded and head to Dubrovnik. Saying goodbye was really hard and there were lots of tears, but I'm sure we'll all see each other again!
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| It was hard holding back the tears! |
After saying our goodbyes, we got to stay with Ana and Mateo a little longer as they took us to Dubrovnik, where we were staying for one more night before beginning our journey home. We spent one last night on the town for food and shopping after making sure our luggage wasn't too heavy (we got just a few souvenirs while we were there!) The next morning we had a pretty uneventful and smooth journey home, where all of our families greeted us at the airport around midnight.
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| Stopping for pizza in Dubrovnik. |
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| We all sat in one row on the way to Finland, unbelievable! |
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| We had a little more adventure in Finland during our three-hour layover, which included some reindeer pizza and pasta and some raw haddock. All of it was really good! Definitely a change from the food in BiH though... |
Today when I got back Amanda and I took a ride over to the Holbrook Plaza. I'd definitely recommend checking it out, although I have to admit it has a new significance for me knowing all of the friends we have now in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Hopefully you'll visit as well and see what makes it such a special place!
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| Go take some time and check out the history at the Holbrook Plaza, where you can see a piece of the original Stari Most bridge! |
Making this entire experience possible wasn't easy, but there were so many great partners, supporters, and sponsors who helped in both countries that worked together to make it possible. I'll do my best to thank them (and I hope I don't leave anyone out)!
On the Dayton side, we had help in a variety of ways from the following organizations:
Ascend
Carillon Historical Park
City of Dayton
Cubester
Corner Kitchen Takeaway
Dayton Downtown Partnership
Dayton Council on World Affairs
Fronana
Liftoff Entertainment
Material Resources LLC
Mile 2
Nucleus Coshare
Obi
Pedal Wagon
Proto Build Bar
Raj Soin College of Business at Wright State University
Real Art
POCCO
Second Street Market
Southpark Pizza Tavern
South Slavic Club of Dayton
The Deli
The Entrepreneurs Center
The Rotary Club of Kettering
The Dayton Art Institute
The Dayton Society of Natural History
The Wright Cup
Wright Brothers Institute
On the Mostar side, the following organizations helped out:
AirRec
Alfa Therm
Bljesak
Center for Technical Education
Ćićak
City of Mostar
Faculty of Economics, University of Džemal Bijedić
Facutly of Economics, University of Mostar
FAEL
Four Game Studio
EZ Training
Guma M
INTERA Technology Park
Minores
Paintball Mostar
Reunion Magazine
Telemach
In addition to the organizations listed above, there were also many families and individuals who helped out in many ways, including by taking us on tours, purchasing food, taking our students to various locations (in both countries), supporting us financially, and even housing our students in Dayton and in Mostar, including the following people:
Ana Bogdanović and family
Arch and Tammie Grieve
Carolyn and Mike Rice
Ernest and Omalee Agnor
Gorana Coric
Liam and Jackie Anderson
Lori and Bob Parks
Mateo Ćubela
Matt and Irena Joseph
Mayor Nan Whaley
Merle Wilberding
Mladen Kostic
Monica Schultz
Rich Hopkins
Rod and Martha Darrah
Sara and Michael Collins
The Campos Family
The Kelly Family
The Saliwanchik Family
Vedran and Jelena Šimunović
Vesna Lovrić
To everyone who was involved on an individual and/or personal basis, we would like to say a huge THANK YOU for making this experience possible!
*Update at 6:46PM, check out this story from the Dayton Daily News about our internship exchange!
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| Thank you to everyone who helped make this trip possible, both in Dayton and in Mostar! |
If you are interested in helping to support this experience next year, please contact me at arch.grieve@wright.edu to learn more about how to get involved, including through making a tax-deductible donation, hosting students, or by providing in-kind support!
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