The Candy Man Can Because He Mixes it With Love

I mentioned in the last post that some of the kids from english camp asked me for my e-mail address. Well one of the boys who asked stopped by the center this week looking for me. I had never talked to him because he was in a another group, I did not even know his name, but he said he wanted to hang out. I met him outside the center and he introduced himself, he is only ten years old but taught himself english from watching tv. He has been giving me tours around the city, he seems so much older and sometimes it seems as if he is treating me like a small child. For example he showed me the walking bridge yesterday, he doesnt know that I have walked across it close to 300 times since being here, he also explained that the bubble gum marks on the sidewalk were bubblegum. But he is really fun to be around, he took me inside the mosque which was very interesting and also pulled off a sly move by paying for mine and my roommates ice cream today at a cafe when we thought he was in the bathroom. It was very nice of him but it just seems wrong for a 10 year old kid to be buying guys in their twenties ice cream. Haha he just spreads cheer to everyone, he bought a bag of cappuccino flavored candy from the grocery store and was giving it out to people on the street, I could not help but feel like I was walking with a real life Willy Wonka. On a serious note,he is very inspiring to me. Today he showed me the exact location where his grandfather was shot six times by the Serbs stationed in the hills with sniper rifles (it happened to be about a one minute walk from where he lives). His other grandfather had his neck sliced and was thrown off a bridge along with 2000 other muslims in Visegrad, Bosnia. And when I think that my bedroom on the second floor is too hot to sleep, I think how he has lived his whole life on the 6th floor of a high rise apartment. I dont understand his fascination with me, or why he wants to hang out, he is a much more interesting person that I am but I am glad I got to meet him. It was sad today though when I told him I might not ever come back to Bosnia.
I went kayaking for the first time today down the river. It took us over four and a half hours to get back to our destination but it was a lot of fun. We would stop along the way to get out and swim, stretch our legs, use the bathroom, and empty the water out of the kayaks. Haha as if being splashed by the freezing water was not bad enough, when we would hit the really rough spots, the kayak would fill up with water and then you had to sit in it until you found a place to get out. I did not go swimming in it today, because I think I got sick from swimming it the river a few days ago. A friend of mine wanted to try to ride from the rock island to the bridge on a blow up pool raft that would cost 5 dollars at Wal-Mart. Was not the smarted idea ever but I gave it a shot. Needless to say we flipped it and had to swim for shore. The water was so cold I had trouble breathing. And then that night I woke up the chills and body aches. I hope I am not getting sick because tomorrow I am going to try to catch a bus across Europe and end up in Paris. My roommate is going saturday to Hungary to visit family, and another couple is leaving saturday to visit friends in Germany. I am excited for next week when we can all talk about how the trips went and see pictures. I decided on Paris because it is the farthest place the bus goes, takes about 2 days. Should be an adventure, picked out some books today that I am going to bring with me, I will need them for the ride, especially since my ipod is no longer working.