VIEW FROM THE TOP – BY JELENA ROZIC

Mountain air can clear your views, breaths and therefore your soul as well. Mountain air was the first thing that splashed my face when I opened my eyes yesterday morning at 7. It was the dawn in Lukomir that you would be able to see in your imagination if you tried to picture nothing less than fairy tales. We were up early because we started the day with a hike to the mountain top called Obalj, which is just above Lukomir. After coffee and breakfast, led by kind and hard-working climbers, we became the fresh air conquerors. The Fronterra team gave a symbolic note to this hike and called it – A journey to the top.

These kinds of journeys are always the same – there were parts where we had to deal with sweat and heavy breathing. We were reaching for somebody’s hand, helping somebody else, moving faster, stopping for breaks, watching the ground move under our slippery feet and rerunning the whole path in our heads like a video tape. Each of us wanted to give up at some point, but you could see us not stopping and grabbing that grass with our feet and our hands, you could see us biting the wind that was swishing our faces and you could see us using our last atom of strength to conquer the highest mountain top. When we finally got there, the mountain air rushed through our lungs and suddenly all of us forgot that it took ninety long and rocky minutes to get there. And it was definitely worth it, because it tasted like success.

After going down through the woods and the mud, after several falls and more prevented ones, we came back to the village just in time for lunch. Because of the busy schedule we took coffee and sweets with us to the Lukomir meadow, where the coaches presented the so called Business Model Canvas to the participants. After that, the participants were organized in teams they had previously formed. The hangout continued on colourful blankets all around the meadow and the ideas were flying out like bubbles from an opened Coca-Cola bottle. The notorious beginners’ enthusiasm was hushed down with realistic questions and situations that all of these future entrepreneurs will be faced with.

Two hours of training and a four hours’ drive later we arrived in Mostar. The best part of this trip is that, refreshed by the mountain air, we didn’t say farewell. We just waved each other a quick goodbye, because we didn’t part. We knew that we were going to continue our Fronterra journey the day after, and the day after that and long, long into the future. Over the fairy tale dawns, mountain tops and muddy forest paths of all kinds.