Alienation
Driving past those apartment blocks in Travnik (see previous post), bullet holes and scars from mortar shells in the walls, patched up with bricks but not rendered, still smoke blackened. To my eyes it looked like a vision of hell and like a forgotten place. How do the people feel about it that live there? Are they being reminded of the war daily?
Previously, I wrote about the ‘utter self-containment’ in which the three of us exist since we have left behind friends and family. I now wonder whether this is not the case. Travelling and living in our campervan means we live in a space that is neither personal nor public; the space that is the fine line of separation between the internal and the window world of the places we pass through.
Sometimes I feel that the outside is crowding in. Is it better to embrace it and not to resist it? It is easy when parked up in a nice forest, but not so when spending time a place like Travnik. But this would not be true to the reality of those living there; they are living there, and temporarily, so are we. At times I can’t shake off a feeling of alienation.
My medicine (as per usual) is the camera.
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