MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2000
Bosnian brings music, realities of war to TU
By Cathy Willoughby
Staff Writer
Bombs and grenades threatened lives, forcing children to attend school in basements. Snipers bullets meant walking seven days to a safe rural village.
These were some of the "snapshots'' of the war in Bosnia shared by Enver Lugavic, 19, a Bosnian singer-guitarist, with Tiffin University students Sunday night. A guest of TU's Director of Vocal Music Brad Rees, Lugavic was a member of the World Vision Youth Ambassadors last year.
This year, he was a member of the Balkan Youth Link Voices. He was part of a group of nine Bosnian youth, from different backgrounds, brought together to both perform and learn about each other. They spent a month in New York City, performing before the United Nations Millennium Summit and the State of the World Forum.
He shared his impressions of his homeland during the war with a group of TU resident advisers. He will be visiting other Tiffin University classes and speaking at Hopewell-Loudon school this week before leaving for home Saturday.
Lugavic is from a rural town in northeast Bosnia called Banovicei. He has graduated from high school with a degree in electrical engineering, yet would like to attend a university to study the English language. He said he is hoping to find scholarship money to study in the United States.
Part of a band in Bosnia, called "Bad Time'' because it was created during the war, Lugavic plays the guitar and "sings a little bit.''
He made his Tiffin debut at the Village Bean Barrel Saturday night. "We play some rock and roll, funk, jazz and everything we like,'' he explained. "We even have our own songs to record, but there are not the opportunities to record. It's a bad situation in Bosnia.''
He explained to the students what his country was like, and his perceptions on how the war began. "Bosnia is at the heart of the Balkans, as I like to say it,'' he said. "Geographically, it is on the border between the east and west, and all through the ages, people from different religions have lived together.''
"We are unique,'' he added. "Yet in Sarajevo maybe it is the only town where you could hear Catholic and Orthodox church bells ringing, and a mosque preaching at the same time, in maybe a 100 meter radius. That was how much diversity there was.''
"Some people were hungry for political power and they took advantage of the diversity and of everything positive. They tried to destroy the country.''
The war, which began in 1992, left people without the basic necessities of life. "It was really hard,'' Lugavic said. "You could be without food for a few days, living a life not knowing if you would survive, or if a bomb would fall on you. There was no electricity, so no TV, no radio, no lighting at night. There was no heating; people were cutting trees from the woods to heat themselves.''
He lived in an apartment building with his family, and night time often meant waking up from sleep to travel to the basement due to bombing raids. And in Sarajevo, Lugavic said having no source of water brought people into the streets to search for relief, only to have snipers gun them down.
He told a story of a friend, whose town in the east was occupied by the Serbs for over three years. "The Serbs were occupying the town, taking over where the Muslims were living, they were killing so many people,'' Lugavic explained. "Those who managed to escape, had to walk through the woods to free territory. They were walking through big snow, with no shoes, and used clothes, without sleeping, no food, no anything.''
Grenades and bombs were falling, because the Serbs were bombing them as they tried to run away.''
He said although war is hard, people do not realize how strong they can be until a war surrounds them. "When the war started, I was 12 years old,'' Lugavic said. "Before that I learned about World War I and World War II, but I could not imagine what it would be like to be in a war. You realize how life needs to be valued by everyone. You realize and appreciate everything when you know what it's like to be in a terrible situation.''
Although his country is now peaceful, the economy is poor and the political situation is corrupt. Lugavic wishes to study in this country, hoping to increase his opportunities for the future.
He is thankful for the United Nations troops, keeping the peace in his country. "Around my town, there are a lot of American troops and other countries troops keeping the peace,'' he said. "A lot of people have lost the closest part of their families, so they still have bad feelings; that's why we need to have the troops.''
He has hope for the future of Bosnia, after his generation takes the reins of power. "The young people of Bosnia are trying to get involved and connect with each other,'' he said. "We don't care about a lot of those differences, because we are not really different. Everyone wants the same goals, a better future, a better life for young people in the future in Bosnia.''