A Bosnian Experience

By: Jelena Jovic

      If you don’t know my country, listen to this and you will know more about Bosnia .  In Bosnia there are high mountains surrounded by beautiful green trees, lakes full with fishes swimming in it. Spring in Bosnia is very beautiful, hills have their green color and warm rain is falling.  Fall is rich with new plants; winter is covered with deep white snow, and winds are cold and clear.

    In Bosnia there are a lot of cities.  Some of the cities are Sarajevo , Mostar, Tuzla , Zenica, Banja Luka , Doboj and others.  In Bosnia there are a lot of schools, Colleges, big shopping malls, in Maglaj there is the biggest Paper Manufacturer, and in Monstar there is a company where they make airplanes.  People have everything they need in order to live.  People are very happy and very friendly.  They have great music, and they can dance very well.  People work hard, and they travel around the world.  In the summer everybody goes to the beaches for vacation.  One of my favorite places to go to the vacation was Porec.  Close to Porec there was a tiny island where my family likes to go and it was called Sveti Nikola.  It is the favorite destination of those who love beatiful solitary beaches.  Many claim that this island launched Porec into the era of modern tourism.  People in my country always have time for friendship and fun.  Children could play all together outside and their doors would be always unlocked, because they do not have to worry about somebody breaking into their homes.

    A lot of people live now without an arm, a leg or an eye. There is no more music people would listen together, now everybody has their own music.  There are now graves of young soldiers and people who were killed during war.

    “Please God don’t let there be war anywhere.”  People went all around the world to search for their new homes. My family is very lucky because they came to the USA .  It was spring when we came to America .  We had to live in an old house that was not as nice as our home.  A lot of people welcomed us in US, and they were very helpful.  They would take us out to show us their houses, also they would take us shopping with them.  They were teaching us English and they would talk to us, but we didn’t understand what they were saying.  In the beginning everything was very hard for us, we did not communicate with other people and we didn’t know a lot of people.  Now three years have passed and we learned how to speak English and our life is great now.  We know a lot of people from Bosnia and other countries.

    We found a house that we really like and we now live in it.  I have a lot of friends who I really like and who are very nice to me.  Now we help people who come to the United States and we try to welcome them like other people who welcomed us.  I am very happy that I have my family together with me, and that my new home is here in America .

VIETNAM :  NOT JUST A MEMORY

 By Thu T.V. Pham

To all the people who have had to leave their homeland in search of a dream.  Follow your dreams, but cherish the inevitable bond with the land that nurtured those dreams.

     Almost a decade has gone by since I left Vietnam to seek refuge in America .  My life has changed drastically and the bittersweet memories of my twelve years in Vietnam have faded.  And the hands of time will continue to turn, but the rice paddies of South Vietnam where I first learned to spread my wings will never be forgotten.

      “Do you want to learn how to fly a kite?”  I remembered my older brother asking one summer afternoon as we were walking along the vast, harvested rice paddies that encircled our grandparents’ house.  I have always loved these paddies, where I spent many afternoons watching the sun slowly retreat behind the mountains and many evenings catching fireflies under the moonlight.  Within each bundle of straw on that rice paddies embedded a memory of my childhood years in Vietnam .  My brother handed me a brand new hand-made paper kite and instructed me to watch him.  I climbed onto a nearby bundle of straw as he skipped across the rice field, dragging his kite by its cord.  Moments later, he started to run with the kite floating just a bit behind and above his right shoulder.  Like trained bird at its master’s command, the kite went up with little hesitation.  It went higher and higher as my brother slowed down and gradually came to complete stop.  He headed back to the bundle where I sat watching.  I turned to look at my brother, and for a moment, it puzzled me.  Leaning comfortably against the bundle of straw beside me was a boy not yet six with a glow of pride expressed on few other faces: His head was tilted back, his mouth slightly opened, his hands firmly gripped the cord, and his eyes… they never left his kite.

      “You will never know what it is like to fly a kite,” my brother told me, “until you fly one yourself.”  With that comment, he called me down from the bundle, and the flying lesson began.  When I showed a beam of discouragement, “Just close your eyes,” he whispered, “and imagine that the kite is you.  It will be you who flies, not the kite.”

    I sat there on the bundle beside my brother looking at my kite riding the winds and realized what it meant when he said, “It will be you who flies, not the kite.”  I looked at my kite, above was heaven, below was the earth, and promised myself that my kite will always fly so long as the sun will shine and the days will still be bright.  From that point on, I spent many afternoons on the bundle of straw flying my kite, and the rice paddies where these afternoons took place became a part of me.

      It was long ago since I last stepped foot onto those rice paddies.  America is now my home and I love it no less than my homeland of Vietnam .  Here, too, memories are created and cherished.  But I am forever in debt to the land I first called home.  Wherever I may be, my heart will never deny the bond that ties me to the rice paddies where I learned to fly.

MEMORIES FROM KURDISH CITIZEN

By: Zhinow Irfan 

    On November 1997, a convoy of Kurdish citizens from the northern part of Iraq, had arrived to Guam Island in the Pacific Ocean.  I was one of them with my family.  

   When we arrived, a group of high-ranking officers received and welcomed us and prepared our documents.

  We stayed in that marvelous Island for almost four months, then we were transferred to Harrisburg in Pennsylvania.

  Harrisburg is a beautiful town, it has wonderful views, I love this town, and it reminds me of my hometown Sulaymanya.  It has clean air, beautiful trees; the only difference was those large buildings and the residential system.

  The education system in my high school, here is systematically and completely different compared to my high school in my former hometown, Sulaymanya.  The students are being treated, the educational system, the free school lunch system, the free medical care and transportation are really great.

  I lost something very big behind me, and that is my nation, my friends, my relatives and my memories.

  I was really wondering when I first started my education, and asked my-self, what shall I do?  How to communicate with my teachers, students?  I don’t know the English language!  Several times, repeatedly, I asked my-self this question, it was really a very big question mark, that frightens me and causes me some panic.  Finally, I decided to struggle against this feeling and decided to learn the English Language promptly.

  Now, I am glad that after a very short time I succeeded in completing high school, and going on to college and my parents are proud of me.

  A New Country

By: Vadim Kevorkov  

    My name is Vadim Kevorkov, and I was born in Baku, (the Capitol of a republic formerly part of the Soviet Union), on February 2nd 1986. In 1991, I was five years old. We came to the U. S., that same year in the fall, because people were killing each other, and we were afraid. Even when we had just arrived, I could tell that this was a completely different place.

      When we arrived in Harrisburg, we barely had anything.  It really didn’t matter to me.  I didn’t know what we were going through.  Not at that age. We couldn’t afford to live in an apartment, so we had to live in a big house with about 6 or 7 families.  It was difficult for all of us.

      A couple of months later, my Mom found a job, and I started to go to school with my brother. It was so difficult for the two of us. Neither of us spoke any English. I would get teased and made fun of, so, I would come home crying to my Mom and Dad. The same thing would happen to my brother.

      Almost a year passed by, and by then I was in the first grade and I had just started to speak a little bit of English. My dad had also found a job and started to work.  Then after a couple of months, we bought a car.

    In 1993, my English was becoming better, but I still couldn’t understand some things. I had made some friends, and my parents were still working. I was proud of them. My brother now spoke very good English, even better than me. We still went through hard times, but we pulled through very well.

    Now that I am older, I can really appreciate what a great place this actually is. I am in a great school, and I am doing very well. I love to play football, especially for my school, and also because it makes me feel so American. Things are very different here, but I think I am much happier here than if we had stayed in Baku. Top