Milk and Minefields

Good Morning everyone! So I have been waking up at 7 am on the nose every day like clock work, so at least one thing is seemingly consistent. Today I experienced something that really changed my paradigms about things. But more on that later! Woke up again in the Gerber's house to a wonderful breakfast spread of toast and breakfast meats, I am going to miss this when I am living on my own in the city! I have gotten quite use to my accommodations here, I have been quite spoiled :) As soon as we finished breakfast me and Zvonco set out to obtain me a new phone! In Croatia they have similar service packages to the US but this is not as common as getting a prepaid phone, which is what I got. I bought a Nokia and 100 kuna or roughly 20 bucks worth of talk time, this should last me the month! All in all it was interesting to see how the stores here operate. We had a very long line behind us and were clearly holding up the line yet no one was upset or getting grumpy. They all seemed use to standing in a long line like this, at least in comparison with how Americans would have acted. This says something about the people here. They value each other and understand that other people deserve their time to shine. I don't know is this is good or bad for business? I will ponder on this in the upcoming days as I learn the city.

Getting my phone at one of the many kiosk. 

So after getting my phone set up, we headed back to the house, it was only 9am and at 12 we were going to see the front lines, the place where most of the fighting during the 90's took place. Here is a link to brush up on the basic history if you are confused about what I am talking about Croatian Homeland War. In the mean time I watched a movie called Liquid Sky, one of Zvonomirs favorites. It is a movie with a Russian director, and let me tell you it is far out there. I love obscure and random movies but a day later I am still soaking in the craziness. It would be compared to an off Hollywood Clockwork Orange. Funny thing about the movie is that is shows a quasi futuristic punk scene and all the outfits look EXACTLY like Lady Gaga's. It was pretty wild movie.

As soon as the movie finished it was time to go, but Nada or my Cro-mom would not let us leave without a good meal! It was what we prepared the day before, Peppers stuffed with meat that was stewed in a paprika tomato soup with a side of mash potatoes and fresh bread. My mother prepares a version of this dish but the freshness of all the ingredients made the flavors seem less homogenized. You could taste all the individual ingredients working together in this dish. It was really tasty, which is what I am learning to expect from such a wonderful cook! Then it was off to the battlefield, So I know its been a boring read so far but I promise now comes the juicy parts!

So we hopped in the car and set off for the battle field. What took literally one minute, we were only 2 miles from their home he starts telling me about the battles that took place here. Mind you, this man is not telling this from a refugee camp or having run away, he is telling me the stories from first hand accounts about what was going on. The first building he points to is a brand new milk farm. This he tells me was one of the major outpost the Croatians used during the war. He then points the the houses that are outside the fence of the rebuilt farm, it was but half a football field, that was where the enemy was. They constantly took and lost this middle ground of houses he tells me and takes me through the town. We stop at a building that I am told was a school house during the war. This building is completely ruined, a large hole from where a bomb blew through the side of the building brings up sobering images of the cruelty of this war. Inside is graffiti from the students who went there, now covered by modern graffiti but you can still see the scribbles of the children writings saying "God Save Croatia". Imagine going to your elementary school a day after a bomb blew your old school room apart, the same school room you were sitting in not a day before and writing on the walls "God Save Croatia"... While the fighting was still going on... This is the insanity of war....  

This was a school house that was attacked and left devastated.

We then continue our trip down the road you see houses on the left and right marred by bombs, some buildings nothing more than charred bricks that sit in a field. As we are now 3 miles from our starting point we pass just common fields of grass and Zvonomir tells me that they are mine fields. Last year a man stopped to pee on the side of the road and was found the next day a few feet from the road blown up by a land mine that was in the ground, no more that 5 feet from the edge of this road. This road is not by any means off limits either, this is one of the main roads out of Karlovoc, a large city in Croatia. 

A few feet either way off the road and you
are playing a game of life and death.

A short ways down the road we came across an out of commission de-mining machine. De-mining is an expensive and dangerous process. Not all mines are made from metal so metal detectors do not work always. Many mines jump up to face level before releasing a second charge that shoots ball bearings out in every direction faster than a rifle bullet. This means using multiple methods to clear a mine field than one cure all method. But even after a field is swept it still is not guaranteed to be mine free. See because many mines are heavy they sink in the summer when the ground is wet. But during the thaw and freezing of the ground mines can get pushed down deeper into the ground or resurface after years of being buried in the ground. This is the reality that the people here must face. A war fought twenty years ago still is claiming victims, yet it is not soldiers but innocent people that played no part in the war. What is worse is that tourist to the area have stolen all the signs that say what areas are mine fields and what areas are not. This makes knowing what is safe even more of a struggle for the people that still reside here.

We finally arrive at our destination, a war memorial that is known to the locals as Hotel California. This is where much of the bombing of Zvonomir's city took place, a small hill overseeing the city. Arranged around the grounds are a few howitzers and other ordinance that Zvonomir says was more to deter the enemy from attacking because the repercussions from a large attack would be these guns firing at them. They were used more as place holders than actually attacking.The town we are in has always been of strategic place in way. The town name is called Turanj which means tower. This is for the building that is on this site that was built long ago when this land was first cultivated and served as a stronghold for the empires of old. Now that building is nothing more than bricks in a field, the background for these weapons of destruction. 

Hotel California

Zvanco looking out from the inside of Hotel California, the war from 20 years ago
playing out inside his head as he retells his story to me.

Our last stop is the building Zvanco's company use to housed at, a property they still own but is essentially useless now. It was a location overlooking the river and once was a proud building Now it is a mere skeleton of what once was. Completely burned and empty of the prosperity this building brought to the area. Zvanco walks the ground and shows me where shelling destroyed the company he built so hard to build. We walk in the shadow of the buildings he worked most of his life to build only to be taken away. It is eye opening to see how affected his life was by this war. Yet he did not give up. He rebuilt, he used his business to restore work to the devastated town. Using is not only benefit himself but the people from where he heralds from. This is a business man that truly is a good man also. On the car ride back our conversations drifts from topic to topic we land on talking about architecture and where it is today. One thing that sticks with me from this is he said "these houses that are built with giant glass windows or skyscrapers that are all glass are silly to me, only on mortar round and it would be completely ruined. This is something I have never known to fear nor even to think of when considering a building. Think of the many so called "million dollar homes" and how would they fair when even a small round from a mortar landed next to them... I definitely was given a new perspective form our trip. Zvanco says he will show me more but it is too cold now to continue our ventures.

Looking down the road to Zvanco's old  company building.

Back at home Nada welcomes us and offers us some home made coffee cake. I mull over the things I learned as I enjoy her food. We sit quietly as their grand daughter plays around us. It all is very surreal to think of what has taken place in these peoples lives and the greater strength it takes to carry on after so many friends were lost to this war. Yet that to me is what makes us human, we do not lay down and die, we find the good and life and hold onto that as long as we can. We carry on and survive, carrying our scars with us as a reminder of the past. The buildings carry the scars, the land, the people, but buildings are rebuilt, the land renewed and new life is made. I appreciate things more now, and that makes the cake all the better.