How the yellow pages destroyed community

Bosnia & Hercegovina | OM International

One thing that I've never gotten use to here in Bosnia is the lack of a local Yellow Pages. I mean how do you find a plumber or a mechanic or a doctor? Ahhh, that's one of the many secrets to understanding the Bosnian culture. The thing is here, everything that you would need or want you can find from a friend or a friend of a friend. For us foreigners it takes one more step. We have to find a friend that has a friend who knows someone.

Our landlord had promised to put in a floor in the dinning room when we moved in. Until now it's just been some old worn linoleum floor that looked horrible. So this month our landlord put in a nice new hard wood floor. So when the workers came to put in the floor we got to talking and I found out that they are good friends of the landlord and live in the same town where our landlord is from -WHICH IS 3 HOURS AWAY from Sarajevo where we live. So this floor was a 2 day job which meant that these guys drove 3 hours one day to work on this floor and then drove 3 hours home. The night before they came happened to be the same night as the first big snow in Bosnia which made the trip even worse. Then the second day they drove another 3 hours to finish the job. Of course at this point their car broke down and one of the workers spent the day at the mechanic's to get it fixed (I'm still wondering how he found a mechanic in a town that wasn't his). Just so that you remember we live in the capitol city which means that there are plenty of people qualified to put in a wood floor, but the point is the landlord has these friends.

Here in Bosnia friends are not just those you have coffee with, they are the network through which you get everything done.

Credit: OM International
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