The United Nations peace keeping force in Bosnia included soldiers from nations and cultures that did not know where Bosnia was, or what the conflict was about. Among them was a force from Kenya which included several Samburu warriors. Bosnia Hotel films these warriors after their return to their ancestral land. It shows their present life as cattle herders on the African plain. They tell of their experience in the "white man's war."In many ways, their confusion about what was going on between the Serbs, Bosnians and Croats was not very different from many in the Western world who had full access to news reports. Why were neighbors killing one another, and why were women and children being killed?

By "turning the tables", the indigenous people get to speak of their impression of the white man's civilization... a place where people blow one another up with explosives without "even seeing their faces." If all the people were white, they ask why did they have such differences that could only be resolved in devastation.

The film juxtaposes Samburu practices that are looked upon askance by "civilized" people—animal sacrifice, the ritual drinking of blood from the freshly slaughtered animal, and circumcision of adolescent males—with the warrior's observations of the white man's world in which, though there was much progress, neighbor killed neighbor and many large houses were shattered. The warriors earned money and now have material aspirations, but they still maintain their traditions. Theirs is a society with strong communal ties and deep faith. In the end, one warrior says of Bosnia, "it's a country much different than ours, but no better or worse." One wonders.

"The film is valuable in contextualizing the anthropological subject within a broader contemporary world."
Jon Holzman, Indiana University

Monterey Bay Film Festival, 2001
American Anthropological Association, 1998