When the River Runs Dry, the Rubbish Remains

A Glorious Evening by the River

It was one of those evenings that reminds me why I love living here. The sun was beginning to drop behind the hills, the air had softened after another brutally hot day, and I was standing on the banks of the River Turjanica, about two and a half kilometres from our house.

The walk there is beautiful. It takes me through fields of maize, with views across the valley towards Laktaši and the River Vrbas beyond. Birds were moving through the trees, and for a while it felt like the sort of peaceful rural Bosnia I so often talk about.

But the river itself had almost disappeared.

When the Water Is Gone

The Turjanica runs for more than forty kilometres before joining the Vrbas, but after weeks of extreme heat, this stretch was little more than a dry riverbed. A tractor had even driven straight across it and into the fields on the other side.

Low water reveals things. Stones, branches and the shape of the riverbed become visible. Unfortunately, so does everything people have thrown away.

Within minutes, the beauty of the walk was replaced by something far less comfortable.

Surrounded by Rubbish

There were torn plastic bags, animal-feed sacks, wine bottles, old food tins and newspapers. I found the red front cowling from a car and even a small beer keg from Germany. Broken bin bags had spilled their contents across the bank.

And then there was the smell.

It stank. There is no gentler way to put it.

This was not one isolated bag that had fallen from a passing vehicle. The rubbish was everywhere. It had been deliberately brought here and dumped beside a river in the middle of otherwise magnificent countryside.

Why Do People Do This?

What makes it more difficult to understand is that we have regular household rubbish collections. There are also organised collections for larger unwanted items during the year.

So why drive into the countryside and leave waste beside a river?

I do not have an answer. Perhaps it is habit. Perhaps it is indifference. Perhaps some people simply believe that once rubbish is out of their sight, it is no longer their responsibility.

But somebody always has to live with it. The land does. The river does. The wildlife does. Eventually, all of us do.

Loving Bosnia Honestly

I often share the beauty of Bosnia and Herzegovina because there is so much beauty here to share. But loving a place does not mean pretending that everything is perfect.

Bosnia is not paradise on Earth. No country is.

This walk along the Turjanica was still beautiful, but it was also upsetting and frustrating. Both things can be true at the same time.

Sometimes the stories I tell are not happy or positive. They are simply honest. And on this particular evening, the dry river had exposed something we should not ignore.

Together, we can surely do much better than this.