I visited Ta. yesterday in Zenica, a city north of Sarajevo. Before I left, I asked around about Zenica. According to all, the city was not important except that it had a large steel factory built by the Austrian government during its occupation of Bosnia. The steel employs roughly about 20,000 people out of the population of 120,000. Recently, the workers from this factory were on hunger strike against the management; something to do with their inability to buy apartments using their work credits.
I slept for the entire trip to Zenica. The bus arrived at 7 p.m. after an hour and a half drive. From afar, I saw Ta. She was difficult to miss because of her lean and tall figure, over 1.80 cm and her short, curly, black hairs.
Compared to Sarajevo, Zenica’ landscape was a mile a part with its flat level, green hills, and lack of traffic. In the middle of the city flowed the river Bosna, not amazing impressive but at least looked better than the pathetic “river” in Sarajevo.
Zenica
Ta. took me to a coffee & sweet bar, acclaimed the best of its kind in Zenica. We sat on the balcony, looking over the river, the park, the direction to her flat and downtown. Her sister Re. and Re.’ boyfriend, Se. caught up with us two hours later. Se. was of Dalmatian (the seaside in Croatia) origin, big built, tall, and spoke with a loud voice. He reminded me of a conversation I had with Ta. when she explained to me the accents in different regions, one of which was Split, a city along the Dalmatian coast. “The people from the seaside have this special airs about them which I like very much,” she said.
We headed toward the center where Ta. and her family bumped into friends after friends on the street. Even in Sarajevo, a bigger city, I always bumped into somebody I knew while strolling along the street walk in the center. Now I remember a comment made by one of my colleague, “eventually you will realize that this city is really small.” I acknowledged that fact after a few months in Sarajevo. Encountering acquaintance has become my tool to test the size of a city. Ta. and her family bumped into many people, therefore Zenica was very small. After checking the city, we arrived at a a local bar, frequently visited by Ta., Re., and Se. They liked the bar because it was off the center, thus not too noisy. Before arriving to this bar, we passed a part in downtown full of people drinking, watching the World Cup in addition to the loud Turbo folk in the background. “C., here is your favorite music,” Ta. said. I sorta chuckled.
Ta. is a 4th/5th year music major at the Music Faculty in Sarajevo. Her focus is musicology and aspires to be a music critic. She is the the type of person who has a taste in music and extremely choosy when listenning to songs. Therefore, every chance I got, I threw Turbo folk (a really sleezy kind of music) comments into her face for a few chuckes.
I ordered a dark beer brewed in Zenica. I don’t like beer at all, but it is my custom that I will try the local beer from whichever city I visit. The beer must have been strong or I ate little that day. With only 0.33 liter, I felt light headed and kept sliding down on my seat. Ni., another roommate of mine in Sarajevo, and her boyfriend coincidently entered the bar and joined us for a bit.
The Bosnian Croats
Ta. and her family are Bosnian Croats if tagging the “Croats” after the “Bosnian” is appropriate at all. I guess it is. I have to call them Bosnian Croats because they, plus another friend, are the only Catholic Croats I know in the entire time I was in Bosnia. All people I met and knew were exclusively Bosniaks. Ta. and her sister are ones of those non-nationalists who would not care less whether your name was Lejla, therefore a Bosniak or Claudia, therefore a Bosnian Croats. “After the war though, people start paying attention to that,” said Re.
I guess this is the reason why Ta., a non-political, would-not-harm-any-soul defended Tito strongly every single time I called him a dictator. Normally, she was not interested at all in the political discussions I tried to get her to participate. As a non-nationalist who cares more about economic issue than ethnic and religious difference, perhaps Tito fits her conception of a political leader. After all, under him, her parents had a good life.
I was in Zagreb for a few days, and Tito was mentioned in one of the conversations. It seemed to me that Tito was admired greatly among the young Croatian, at least the educated one. There are two possible explanations:
1. He is simply a great leader.
2. He is Croatian by birth, and the Croatians and Bosnian Croats had it better during his time.
Okay, enough for the politics. I would not matter at all even if I laid into Ta. for the differences in our political view point, not that there was any difference. She and her family are one of the kindest and earnest people I have ever met.
Music has been an important factor in my life. I think that this is why I have always favored musical people. For me, they are more sympathetic and can look at life in different perspective compared to the typica, over-represented rational, practical bulk. Ta., a music major who belongs to a female choir in Sarajevo. This choir has performed in many countries in Europe. So was her sister, a mechanical engineer, who sang in Germany during the war 19991 - 1995.
Ta., Re., and I went back to Sarajevo to catch the ballet “Swan Lake”, performed by an esemble from Russia, on Saturday night, Ta. and Re. returned to Zenica the next morning.
I am leaving Sarajevo for travelling in a few days and come back sometime in July for the remain of my luggage. Hopefully I will see Ta. a few more times before leaving Bosnia.
