Four children in the Milano restaurant on the west bank of Mostar munch pizza and stare at the two Irish people drinking beer at the table next to them. One plucks up the courage to try out his nearperfect English. "Where are you living?" asks Marko. He is 12 years old today.

Paul Gillett, a circus performer with the Irish children's charity Cradle, tells Marko he has moved here from Dublin for one year to pass on his skills to children in Mostar and the surrounding villages. He lives on the eastside, he says. The chatter stops. He might well have announced that he has begun a one-year tenancy on the planet Mars.

Marko adopts a disapproving expression, one he has probably seen his father use while discussing the Bosnian-Muslim inhabited "other side". But curiosity gets the better of him and he asks: "How is it looking over there?"

And so he hears how things are in the area a few hundred metres from where he and his friends sit. He hears of the bombed-out buildings, the bustling cafes, the friends, the poverty, the fun, the hardship. We tell him: "Marko, in lots of ways it's the same as here." There's that look again. He does not believe it.

Since war broke out between the Croats and the Muslims in Mostar in 1993 the once co-existing ethnic minorities have been divided, in a situation that makes a mockery of the Muslim-Croat Federation brokered at Dayton, Ohio, in 1994.

Different currencies are used. Marko and his friends worship the Croatian football team and use kuna to pay for their pizza. On the eastern side of the town, the dinar is used. Different phonecards; separate taxis; even different brands of cigarettes and beer are available on either side. A joint police force has operated since last August but the judicial system, like most things in Mostar, remains split.

And flowing through the discord is the beautiful Neretva River. Hardly anyone is willing to cross the divide.

Last November, Benetton opened a stylish shop in east Mostar. A charming sales assistant hints at life's unpredictability here when she says: "People who wouldn't normally do it come to shop here from the other side."

The situation in Mostar is best reflected in the education system and in the media. Croatian media outlets on the west side constantly refer to their self-proclaimed republic, Hercog-Bosnae. On the east, they are far too fond, for the EU's liking, of publicly naming suspected war criminals allegedly domiciled in the west.

History becomes blurred in the classroom as Croats and Muslim students are taught differing versions of events. The Ottoman Empire's rule over Bosnia, which lasted 500 years, is portrayed in Muslim textbooks as a golden age of culture and enlightenment. Croats claim it was a time of "brutal occupation".

Things move slowly in Mostar. Over coffee, four gardai reflect on their year here with the International Training Police Force. Only one would like to stay.

The others agree with Garda Conor Comiskey when he says that his time in Mostar has been "more frustrating than anything I have ever done in my life".

Jadzia Kaminska, Cradle's founder, has just begun a year in the city to which she has brought aid since the beginning of the war in Bosnia. This time is unlike the others. Also living with her on the tenth floor of the west-side apartment building she lives in are her seven-year-old twin daughters, Liadain and Kasia. They go to a local kindergarten and are settling in to a new life.

Jadzia and Paul are busy setting up arts and crafts and circus workshops, not just in Mostar but also in the Republic of Srpska. They hope these will continue after they leave.

Before she left Dublin, people kept telling her how brave she was: "I don't feel like what I'm doing is particularly brave. It is a natural progression. Much more can be achieved when you are here long term and you never stop discovering new needs which have to be addressed," she says.

Three nights a week a group of Mostar teenagers descend into a nuclear shelter which also doubles as a fitness centre. A lone punch bag hanging from the ceiling is taken down to make room for the 15 dancers. The room measures 10 metres by five and the group's leader, Izet Kozo, stands hunched in a doorway while the rehearsal gets under way.

MOSTAR Dance performs folk dances from all over the world. Tonight's three-hour session takes the observer on a rhythmic journey through war-torn Albania, the taverna of Greece, and the Scottish highlands.

Riverdance is next on the list but, quips one dancer, the tiny shelter could not possibly accommodate any Michael Flatley-size egos.

They have no costumes and the props used by this dance group demonstrate how, almost two years after Dayton, young people in Mostar still have few resources to add a more colourful dimension to their lives.

Twisted plastic bags are used instead of silk scarves. Paper plates are passed around in the absence of tambourines. Graceful and talented young women hold imaginary skirts by their sides.

Tonight, a Spanish soldier with the international peacekeeping force in Bosnia, SFOR, waits patiently in a corner, clapping as each routine is completed. He gets up when The Gypsy Kings blare out from the tape recorder.

Suddenly he is transported back to Madrid or Barcelona or the Basque country. His stout army boots and camouflage gear seem to become as irrelevant as the gun he has gingerly placed underneath a nearby seat.

He takes these young dancers in his arms and begins to teach them flamenco. His flamboyant hipswirling and wrist-flicking, the determined concentration on the dancers' faces, say more about what is possible in Mostar than millions of pounds which the EU have so far poured into the city.

He and Cradle and the other agencies working here embody the one thing that has so far eluded both sides of the city of Mostar, and Marko, too: hope.

If you are interested in supporting Cradle's work in Mostar call 01-6795242