After I had wrapped things up at the office and rushed off to buy the few last things I needed for the trip (somehow, as a rule, I always leave this to the very last minute), I began to realise that I was going to attend Basic Training in Peace Building organised by CNA. Finally! I say finally because I had been planning to apply for the training for ten years. It would be silly to go into all the reasons behind why I had not done it earlier, because ten years comes out to a lot of little reasons!
When the mad dash through Sarajevo’s rush hour was over, I finally arrived at the bus station where I was to meet two other participants from BiH. We started exchanging our thoughts on expectations and why we were there, and I started getting a sense that this experience might very well turn out to be one of those that lingers on long past its official ending…
The journey through BiH, Serbia and Macedonia was marked as a unique experience with an overcrowded bus and a driver who required the support and instructions from the entire busload of people when it came to getting in and out of Macedonian towns. Straight away, we had an opportunity to practice team decision making with the other passengers. We somehow reached a consensus on the route and thirty minutes later we arrived in Skopje to meet up with most of the other participants. We then continued on our merry way to Mavrovo by organised transport.
There, we were welcomed by a team that had been busy in the previous few days making plans and setting the stage. We got settled into our rooms, went for lunch, and then a tour of the town. In the evening, we continued socialising and getting to know each other. The participants were a motley group: there were people from different countries of the region, but also with different interests and professional backgrounds. The range covered activists, students, members of youth wings of political parties, teachers… I went to bed thinking about how great it was to have a day to adapt to a place where you would spend the next ten days working.
The training started off quite intensively. During the first morning session of introductions, I got the impression I was among a group of people taking this training quite seriously. I was struck by the sincerity of certain individuals; mostly because I often find it easy to discuss the most sensitive and ‘taboo’ subjects freely and openly, but I have a tendency to sweep personal matters under the rug. Emotions and such. Now, as I write this, I am grateful to them, because their honesty ‘obliged’ me to be honest in return, both with myself and with others.
I cannot say that after all of that, it was easy to open up and delve into difficult topics, but this beginning of complete openness was very helpful. Given that I have been keeping up with CNA for years, and that I have been working as technical support there for the past seven months, I did have some insight into their work concept. I knew that at the training we would not be listening to lectures or studying theory, but rather that we would be re-examining our established concepts and narratives. I was even slightly afraid my expectations were too high and I would end up being disappointed with the training…
As we went through the days, topics and exercises, dealing with communication, teamwork, conflict, violence, prejudice, gender, national identity, facing the past… it was interesting to observe how this encouraged me to start re-examining matters leading to subtle changes that affected my perception and energy. It was important for me that the first topic we dwelt on was teamwork, something very dear to me. For years, I have been fascinated with the idea of how to allow myself to be a truly free individual with my own ideas, creativity and desires, while at the same time retaining my ability to perceive the people around me, to recognise and respect their needs. How to be what you are, but at the same time contribute to the team. I was also very impressed with our work dealing with prejudice. Although I consider myself an introspective person, this training made me aware that my understanding and empathy are reserved to a degree for those groups that I can agree with or understand in ideological terms. If I have already formed an opinion of a person/group and if they do not fit into my ideological-value system, it is difficult for me to truly hear and see these persons. This was quite a wake-up call for me, someone who considers herself open to differences. As the days passed and we went from workshop to workshop, I felt a new sensibility awaken in me, and my perception of the group and of myself slowly change… On the topic of gender, for the first time I faced my prejudice and subtle default expectations I as a woman have of men, something I had not even been aware of… My national identity was something infinitely complicated by my having grown up during the war in BiH as a child from a mixed marriage (mother “one denomination”, father “another”) in a small town with a majority population of the “third denomination”. I had to become mature in order to define my identity, and then needed some more time to start feeling good about it. At one point during the training, we were supposed to write about prejudice against our nationality. After I had looked through the offered options, not finding myself in any of them, I decided to create a separate group under the name of ‘my nationality’ and a minute later I was joined by another participant with the same national identity, something that happens very rarely: I was not alone! Before I started working for CNA in December 2011, I had thought the days of my peace building activism were over and done with. However, as I plunged ever deeper into CNA work and especially after I had the opportunity to re-examine myself in relation to peace building at this training, I realised this subject still holds considerable relevance for me. All the topics we tackled helped me systematise my thinking and, in some cases, articulate what had until then been only a vague feeling.
The training started processes within me that will be active for a while yet. As one of the best moments, I would pick the last day when with a few of the other participants I sat in front of a Mavrovo hotel and we simply shared our personal impressions of our situation in our communities, our lives and our convictions. I felt how wonderful it was to speak comfortably with people who had dispensed with most of their masks after ten days of intensive work on particularly important and sensitive topics.
Apart from all the launched processes, knowledge gained and transformations undergone, what I came away with as the greatest gift was the inspiration lent to me by open people prepared to change and to thus help their environments also change. After this experience, I am even happier to be where I am, and if there is a need to send a message from this training, I would tell everyone: ‘It works!’