Ignoring all protocol, a meeting was set up at the medical school without the presence of the school’s president. Landy was asked to meet with the head of research, the head of the psychiatric clinic, and Alma, a psychologist who works in the partial hospitalization and stress disorders programs. Alma, a Croatian, has spent time in Chicago and has fairly good English language skills. At the meeting on Tuesday, Landy learned that they don’t have Forensic Psychiatry in Bosnia and Alma declared that she is not particularly interested in legal issues because it takes away from clinical time. The head of the clinic, however, was quite gracious and seemed to want to learn more about forensic psychiatry. Landy found out later that this psychiatrist is the forensic expert by default in Bosnia although he has not had formal training.
There was some discussion of lectures that might be made to the faculty, but no definite dates or times were scheduled. Then he was shown to his office which contained a table and a chair. There was no computer and there was a printer that was broken. In answer to his question, they replied that no, the facility did not have a wireless internet connection. He was welcome to bring his laptop but could not go online. Bosnia is not a wealthy country, and it was clear that very few resources are available for psychiatric treatment.
He is optimistic about a meeting that has been arranged with a woman from Vermont who is an international judge at the Bosnian National Court War Crimes Chamber and another with a professor at the law school who teaches criminal law procedure.
Tonight we are inviting Patrick Roberts for dinner in our apartment. Patrick is a fellow Fulbright scholar with a background in education and the philosophyof education. Patrick just arrived a week ago. By contrast, we are veterans of Sarajevo. We met him briefly at the Fulbright orientation in Washington DC last August. The menu is Spaghetti with Barilla jarred pasta sauce. They don’t seem to have canned vegetables here – although we recently found a larger and more modern sort of supermarket that has a section with frozen vegetables (!). But the spaghetti sauce in jars is really quite tasty. It has become one of our fall-back meals, easy to prepare and enjoyable. We are trying the locally available lettuce in a salad for the first time. The produce man at our nearby market had to dig down a few layers before he found a head he thought was suitable. It doesn’t appear that lettuce is a frequent guest at our neighbors’ tables. Freshly baked bread is available every day and it’s good – not as good as the bread in Parisian bakeries, but good nonetheless.
