Bosnia-More+Stories

= = =          = =Bosnian Refugees Find a New, and Satisfying, Life in the Heartland¹= = = Bosnian refugees move to the Iowa and the American Midwest to get out of the war in Bosnia. Many Bosnians staying in Waterloo, Iowa work in meat packing factories and slaughterhouses because many white Americans living there don't or won't work there. Although the culture in America is a lot different than Bosnian culture, the refugees are making the best of it by keeping their culture and religion, mostly Islam, alive in their families. The children of many Bosnian refugees are quickly becoming "Americanized", adopting American music, clothing, and speech. For them it is not as hard to get over the situation in Bosnia and to get used to life in the United States.

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=Pictures of Bosnian Refugees Returning to their Homes from 2000-2002²= = = http://www.bosniaaftermath.com/refugee.html# Below is a picture from the Bosniaaftermath website showing a few young refugee children living on the street in Bosnia.

=Germany Expelling Thousands of Bosnian Refugees³= [|Link] After the war in Bosnia, the German government allowed Bosnian refugees to come into Germany and live there. However in 1998, Germany decided to expel many of the Bosnian refugees that were staying in Germany. The German government began depriving Bosnians of jobs and work permits. Later the German government threated German employers high fines if they continued to hire or employ Bosnian refugees. The Bosnians who were expelled were expected to head back home to Bosnia, however many came to the United States after former President Bill Clinton signed for Bosnian refugees.

=Bosnian Refugee Dances to a New Life⁴= [|Link]

= = = = = = =Bosnian refugees Ismir and Sanin Mirvic form a fast-growing furniture business⁵= [|Link]

Bosnian refugees Ismir and Sanin Mirvic form a great new life in the United States after leaving Bosnia because of the war as young children and then growing up as soccer loving school kids in Germany. In the United States the brothers played soccer professionally for the Seattle Sounders and later got jobs at Microsoft as software testers. After working at Microsoft, they took management positions at various California based technology companies such as Sonic Solutions. But business management wasn't the brothers' dream, they wanted to start their own company. So they founded Ferdinand Furniture to import solid-wood dining room products from Bosnia and leather goods from Asia both of which they sell online.

A Wedding in Bosnia⁶
(the following is an account of a Bosnian Wedding from a journalist)

Today was Saturday, so today was a wedding day. Meliha Hadzihasanovic (say //that// three times fast), one of our Tuzla office's finest lending associates, married her fiancé Mirze today. In all cultures, old like this one, or young, like our own, there are rites of passage and rituals involved in the most important events of human life: birth, puberty, marriage, and death. The union of two human beings is for the biological purpose of continuing the species, and the social purpose of strengthening the community. In Bosnia, where traditions run deep, today was a wonderful experience for the Americans who were honored to have been asked to be there.... The women in the Tuzla office, working as lending associates for a large U.S. Government-funded project to assist Bosnian businesses after the war, asked me some days ago why Americans got engaged and then waited for, at times, more than a year to actually get married. This made no sense to them. Almira queried, "If you know you want to be married why do you have to sit around and wait to get on with your lives?" Sensible, these women. So I explained that a year was frequently necessary because Americans had built a culture of fanfare and consumerism, and that weddings were a huge industry, employing millions. There had to be gilded invitations (addressed in calligraphy), caterers, flowers, dresses, bridesmaids' dresses; and the halls, churches, temples, restaurants, golf courses, cruises, honeymoon packages, etc. had to be booked. People spent months deciding on menus and seating arrangements (because everyone had family members who simply "could not be seated together at the same table at the reception, God forbid..."), not to mention the hotel for the out-of-town guests, transportation for everyone involved, gifts for the wedding party; oh, and let's not forget the rehearsal dinner, after the wedding rehearsal.... It was then that I stopped because they wouldn't have been able to hear me over the gales of laughter. Rehearsals? You //rehearse//?!! If they had needed any further proof that Americans were nuts, that was it. Hmmm, sounded as if I needed to find out what to expect when attending my first Bosnian wedding. I turned the tables and asked them to tell me what it was like here, and today it came together just as they described.... The day began for Meliha with a breakfast (her "last" at her mother's house), and probably a few visits from friends and family members. At around noon, she had her chestnut locks swept up in a bun at the hairdressers' (who left a few strategic strands around her ears to be curled), and then she put on a simple but beautiful gown, and waited. At about two o'clock, Mirze and a couple of his closest friends came by the house to "purchase" her. It would seem that the Ottomans haven't completely left the Balkans. Apparently the men came knocking and said that they'd heard there was a girl of marrying age there. They ran through the flat and brought out a woman (not the bride) and the groom said, "No, no, that's not the one I want; I want the best one in the house." They went back and got Meliha, and the groom paid her mother (these days, a token deutschmark or the like), took his bride, and off they drove for a 2:45 wedding in the center of town. While this was happening, all of the couple's friends and siblings gathered in front of the town hall. I am told that there are very few mosque or church weddings, and almost all of the Bosnians I asked had never been to a wedding other than at the justice of the peace. The parents of the bride and groom, as well as the older generations, do not attend either the wedding or the reception/meal afterwards. They stay at home and host family parties in honor of the wedding. While the chattel was being "purchased," we could be found shivering in the gray flurries, outside the town hall, watching the 2:30 wedding party driving off in their caravan of flower-covered cars, honking up a storm with the emergency lights flashing. At 2:40, our wedding party arrived, also in flower-covered cars, honking as they came piling into the town hall lot. All thirty of us hurried through double doors which opened into a long, narrow room. At the front end of the room, a large Bosnian flag almost covered the back wall. Two women sat at a little table facing us. There was a long couch facing the women, and little else in the entire room. The guests all stood behind the couch, and the engaged couple made their way through the crowd and sat on the couch (best man and maid-of-honor on either side - she by the groom, he by the bride!). The women behind the table began to speak. The guests, all crushed up behind that couch, leaned forward so they could see, and hushed their chattering so they could hear. Since my Bosnian language skills are not at a level where I might understand something as complicated as, "Here, sign this paper and you're married," I had to guess that what actually followed was ten minutes of a lecture on the virtues of marriage, a few questions ("Do you, Mirze, take this woman...."), some brief document signing, and a couple of lovely kisses. There was a video photographer and a few cameras, but this marriage was like a one-stoplight town: blink and you've missed it.. Immediately following the ceremony, a brief and rather unorganized receiving "line" formed, with the guests all taking a turn to kiss and congratulate the newlyweds. Then everyone hurried back outside (gotta get out before the next wedding at 3pm!), the couple stepped out, and the bouquet was tossed.. The woman who caught it had to fight it out of the hands of a skuzzy gypsy girl, one of a pack hovering outside the town hall to scrounge for the candy or coins (instead of rice) tossed at the exiting couples as they left the hall. Unfortunately, nothing was thrown for our friends since the candy and coins that had been brought for this wedding had been carried by a woman who was accosted by the gypsy kids upon entering the church. They had grabbed at the bag and broken it, and the contents had barely hit the pavement before disappearing. We all piled into the cars, and the great wedding procession began. We were eighteen vehicles in a convoy, crawling slowly through the drizzle and fog, emergency lights flashing and horns blaring. Tomo, our driver, explained that the wedding procession typically covers two objectives: to drive by the house of the bride's family, and to circumnavigate Tuzla (so the world would be informed). As we passed Meliha's mother's house, all of her guests piled out on the balcony to wave and acknowledge that indeed her little girl was married. While we finished our procession around town and then took our seats at the tables in the restaurant, the married couple visited the groom's family, shared a coffee and some good wishes, and then came back to join their friends. The meal was all cold: cold meats, cheeses, and salads to start, cold bread with cold lamb and baked meat- and cheese- filled phyllo rolls. One of the more interesting meals I've had in a long time - not too often you get to surreptitiously scrape the cold white coagulated fat off the meat you are about to ingest. Standard beverage selection: Pepsi, mineral water, beer, white wine, and brandy. Tomo managed to finagle a bottle of red wine. The meal was accompanied, with very few breaks, by four hardworking musicians playing guitar, mandolin, bass fiddle, and accordion. The music seemed very Mediterranean, probably as a result of the whine of the accordion, and by quizzing Almira, who sat next to me, I discovered that these were all traditional folksongs. They were clearly familiar tunes, and although the men sang them with much more gusto, the women obviously knew all the words as well. The one thing that did strike me was that every one of these songs was the tale of some awful tragedy: the poor old bachelor who tells us, "she left me at the altar"; the playboy who sings, "I ran away with another woman"; the soldier on the line who tells his family and his love that he will never see them again; the young lovers who are dying because their enemies have poisoned them; and, finally, the young woman who is ailing and asks for a quince, prompting her lover to journey to Istanbul to find her one, only to find upon his return that she has died. Just the thing to be sung for the happiest day of your young life. At one point the bride and groom opened the few gifts that had been brought, and at another point two of the women friends circulated with a tray. The tray was covered with paper and wire boutonnieres that were to be "bought." Actually, they were pinned on everyone, men and women alike, and the amount of the "donation" was at each person's discretion. There was some dancing, and this occurred at whim, and usually in strings, snaking around the little restaurant tables so we all could watch. I could imagine what this might have been like had the guest list numbered sixty instead of thirty, but I was suddenly thankful that it wasn't loud and rowdy because the more tranquil setting was easier to leave gracefully. Meliha and Mirze will spend their first night together as a married couple in their own new apartment. She has already mentioned that she may have to take some time off in a year or so, when they begin to have children. No matter where in the world they take place, weddings are still joyous, and brides are still the most beautiful women in the room. I hope it was the happiest day in her life, and everything she hoped it would be - I'd be willing to bet it was. Do you think she missed the "rehearsal"? -Rachel Peterson
 * In Bosnia, there are very specific things that are done on the weekends. Saturdays are for weddings and Sundays are for cleaning rugs - and hanging them over the balconies to dry or air out. Of course, that's only if your apartment complex allows this sort of behavior (the rug hangings, not the weddings!).

//Rachel Peterson, an international development specialist with a particular fondness for storytelling, spent two years in Bosnia: first as a training manager on a broad USAID-funded economic reconstruction program, and later as country program manager for a U.S.-based NGO there. She met her husband in Bosnia, they married in Florence and they currently live in Jordan, where she administers an extensive USAID-funded public health reform project. The couple maintains a large personal website full of travel tales and photos.// ||

Bibliography:

¹ Landphair, Ted. "Bosnian Refugees Find a New, and Satisfying, Life in the Heartland." __News VOA__. 13 May 2005. 19 Apr. 2007 <[|http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2005-05/2005-05-12-voa47.cfm>.]

² Terry, Sara. "Bosnia Refugees." __BosniaAftermath.Com__. 21 Apr. 2007 <[|http://www.bosniaaftermath.com/refugee.html#>.]

³ Schwarz, Peter, and Marianne Behrent. "Germany Expelling Thousands of Bosnian Refugees." __World Socialist Web Site__. 16 July 1998. 22 Apr. 2007 <[|http://www.wsws.org/news/1998/july1998/bos-j16.shtml>.]

⁴ Nakao, Annie. "Bosnian Refugees Dance to a New Life." __SFGate.Com__. 9 May 2007. San Francisco Chronicle. 22 Apr. 2007 <[|http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/05/09/DD36239.DTL>.]

⁵ Dietrich, Heidi. "Bosnian Refugees Ismir and Sanin Mirvic Form a Fast-Growing Furniture Business." __Seattle.Bizjournals.Com__. 11 Dec. 2006. 19 Apr. 2007 <[|http://seattle.bizjournals.com/seattle/stories/2006/12/11/smallb1.html?t=printable>.]

⁶ Peterson, Rachel. "A Wedding in Bosnia." __Talesmag__. 1996. 7 May 2007 .

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