Our dear friends in Nove Travnik

Our dear friends in Nove Travnik are Muslim, and found them selves engulfed by the war. Nove Travnic was important for the factory that made tractors. This was the cover business, but from the time of Tito, it was mostly used to produce cannon, tank, mortar, and rifle barrels. The factory was pretty much destroyed, but Nove Travnik remained a front line for most of the war. Their town is predominately Croat and Bosniak, (Muslim), and after a period of united fighting against the Serbs, they divided and fought each other. This was how it went across Bosnia. Somewhere a small group of pare military nationalists would commit some unspeakable massacre, it would get splashed across the TV news in graphic detail, and the fear would spread, fueling hysteria and revenge. Sometimes refugees were created as the minority in a town or area fled, or in larger or strategic areas, the populations simply separated. We would walk through town for coffee, or to pick up some bread, and the stories would flow. "This was the front line, snipers were in that building, I lost a friend over there, there used to be an apartment here", and on and on. Our friend was a nurse before the war. When the fighting broke out, he became a first aid Medic on the front lines. He was essentially the chief medical officer in the region. We passed a house on our way to the near by mountains for a May 1st picnic with his family where he said he did most of his field operations on the wounded. This included men, women and children. He lost 363 people out of more than he could possibly count. He was a very important man during the war, very few people in his community were not directly or indirectly impacted by his care. Now he is with out work, and needing to do many hours of volunteer work at the local hospital and pass new tests in order to go back to nursing, for which there are no jobs. His story is common although extreme. His wife just found a gray market job in a clothing store. She earns the average wage in Bosnia, 300 KM, less than $200, a month. She works ten hours per day, six days a week, with no benefits or security. Her boss is a very typical example of the black marketers during the war who made fortunes, and now are investing in businesses that will launder the money they made, and are often still making in various illegal activities. She is at his whim and has no recourse for anything he may ask of her as an employee. Even quitting is tricky to do with out being marked and not hired again by others. More on the black market later or in future stories...