Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Magla

I am fascinated by weather. I think I inherited that from my dad- in every conversation he asks me about the weather in Sarajevo.
As a kid he taught me how to recognise an upcoming weather chance- behavior of birds and shape of clouds are good indicators. Those indicators seem quite useless here: I did not see the fog, Magla in Bosnian, that is covering Sarajevo for the last three days, coming.
In Holland there is fog, but not as dense as the Magla. Magla seems to absorb all light; the city is brownish-grey. It is as if life is slowing down because of the Magla (just life, not the traffic- taxi drivers keep on racing, no matter what...).

The part of the city that is affected most by the Magla is the area around the airport, called Butmir. On bad Magla days, mostly in November and December, the view from the airport is less than 50 meters. As a result the airport is closed for days.

A lot of people in Sarajevo wonder why the airport was built where it is. The area has always been know for its morning mist and Magla. It would have been better if it was positioned in the direction of Visoko, on the mountainplateau around town. According to Nenad the Neighbour it is located where it is because the owner of the plot of land was a well-connected guy who made an arrangement (i.e a bribe) with the city council to sell it to them for a profit.

All kind of rumors for the closure of the airport buzz around town. Some people say that the French peacekeepers took the radar for blind landing with them when they left the Sarajevo area a few years ago, others say that the right radars are there there, but that the combination of mountains and Magla make it impossible to take off.

Be it as it may, currently no planes land in Sarajevo. And god knows when this might change. In December 2004 the Magla stayed for 17 days on a row.....

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Is this your way of making me nervous? I wasn't until now but it works, thanks a lot... You have 10 more days to get this Magla off the airport or find other means of transportation. So don't just sit there and write stories, FIGURE OUT PLAN B!!!! x

4:39 PM  

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