THE 6 a.m. bus from Sarajevo racketted through the countryside, pulling into Tuzla three hours later.
This is a young town University students shout at each other across the street, lounge in the cafes, throng the bus stops.
It is also an old town. People have been living here for the last 6,000 years. The Illyrians, the Celts, the Romans - all made a base here, attracted largely by, the salt mines. It was the Turks that gave the town its present name (Tuz means salt in Turkish). In the 1800s, the Austro Hungarians started up other salt related industries.
Today Tuzla is a town pleased with itself for it has survived the war - at great cost but it has survived. Its symbol is a goat. The story goes that an order went out, during empire days, that all goats be destroyed as they were damaging the forested hills. The citizens of Tuzla complied - but secretly kept one goat - which provided cheese for the whole population.
Fed on the milk of that goat, a visitors' leaflet reads, we found the strength and the pride to fight the snake. Aggressor is the cover all word they use for today's snake which, during the war, pounded the town's railway, cement works and power supplies.
In 1995, a shell killed 71 people - the largest single atrocity in the whole war.
Like Sarajevo, Tuzla prides itself on its cultural makeup - Croat, Serb and Bosniak live together peaceably and 25 per cent of marriages in the town are mixed. It is no surprise, therefore, that when the barbaric events in Srebrenica took place, 70.000 people from that town sought and were offered refuge in Tuzla, the town with the big heart.
Friction at first
There was some friction at first. The Srebrenica people felt that Serbs still living in Tuzla should be forced to give up their homes to the refugees since it was their people who had caused the exodus. The person, who nailed that on the head was Mr Selim Beslagic, Mayor of Tuzla and holder of among others, the UN Sean MacBride Peace Prize.
"The Serbs here are our friends," he told the people. "They fought with us against the aggressor. We are all one."
The lamp posts of Tuzla are festooned with pictures of Mr Beslagic. He smiles down from the walls of shops and cafes. He appears on television. He is the town's Number One man. He holds them all together.
Young people sprawl on the grass in the sunshine close to the municipal offices. Mr Beslagic's car draws up. He shakes my hand, bounds up the steps, disappears through the doors and runs up the marble stairway, followed by officials, petitioners - and me.
Energy bursts out of him like dangerous electricity, ideas like star bursts. One idea caught fire. The custom in Bosnia, when building a house, is to build the ground floor and occupy it while the second floor is beings built. Last to be done are the doors and windows upstairs, left until the cow calves or money is sent home by migrant workers.
When the refugee problem presented itself, Mr Beslagic looked at the Danish offer of help and came up with a deal - the Danes would install doors and windows on all the unfinished houses. In return, the owners would accommodate a refugee family upstairs for one year.
Mr Beslagic is square shouldered, bluff with the voice of an amicable bull. He has a masters in technological science and once worked in the local concrete factory. His tie is exuberant. He shouts down the phone, eyes roving restlessly around the room.
Questions are answered with speeches. Bosniaks married to Serbs, Croats to Bosniaks? He, can't see the problem - if you like or love someone... Next question.
Sean MacBride? He has a run at the strange vowels, stumbles, carries on. It's clear he knows little about MacBride. There are other things on his mind - like getting Tuzla back on its feet.
The bridge across the Sava - blown up by the Serbs - must be repaired. It was Tuzla's link with Zagreb and the rest of Europe - once it's repaired the cement factory can get back to full strength.
Respectable showing
There's also the matter of next year's municipal elections. The party which he founded and presides over, the Union of Bosnia and Herzegovina Democrats (USBD), part of a coalition of five known as the List, had a respectable showing in the September elections. It opposes Mr Izebegovic's ruling party and has links with smaller opposition parties in both Croatia and Serbia.
The dominance of one ruling party is not Mr Beslagic's idea of democracy.
He glances at his watch and I remember my manners: "If you ever come to Ireland
But he's up, out the door and, like the White Rabbit, disappears round the corner.