Stranger Kindness – Sanela Ramic Jurich

…but there are some amazing people in this world too. Let me tell you.
As you can imagine, the news about Tomašica mass grave in Prijedor is hitting me hard. Not just me, but every other Bosnian I know and come in contact with too. Tomašica is bringing back some horrible memories, so in order to keep sane, I, sometimes, force myself to think of the good things that happened to me in those troubled times and I’d like to share two of those experiences with you today. Plus, a friend suggested I should start a blog, so let’s give it a try.

The day I left Prijedor was August 21, 1992. I was in a convoy from which the Serb army took out over 250 men and boys, killing them in a place called Koričanske Stijene on Mount Vlašić. The rest of us were taken to the other side of the mountain and thrown onto the field of mines. We survived, obviously… (Read Remember Me).

The walk down the mountain was very long and tiring. My mom tripped and fell so many times… I had to pee so badly, I could barely walk. When it got dark out, we weren’t allowed to turn on any flashlights because if we did, the Serb army could see us. They were already throwing grenades over our heads, trying to guess where exactly we were. I remember some guy lighting a cigarette and three other men jumping up and tackling him to the ground. The cigarette was going to give our whereabouts away.
To make my long story short, we got to Travnik safely. We slept in some school’s gym for a few nights until we could get transportation to Pula, Croatia where we had family.
I forgot to mention this before, but when we left home, we had nothing. No money and no belongings. My mom borrowed a hundred German Marks from a friend, but the Serbs took it when they robbed us inside the convoy.
In Travnik, however, the Red Cross gave us some coupon that was suppose to pay for our bus fare from Travnik to Split, Croatia.
The day I left my home country forever was August 26, 1992, my sixteenth birthday.
Now back to the happy part of the story…
Once we got to Split, we had no idea how we were going to pay for a bus to Pula. We sat on the ground at the bus stop in disbelief over everything that just happened to us. Plus, we suddenly became aware of the fact that we were now homeless. We started to talk pondering over how we were going to get to our family in Pula when, just out of the blue, some guy knelt down next to us and handed my mother a hundred Deuche marks. He overheard our conversation and just gave us the money that paid for our transportation to Pula. Not a day goes by that I don’t bless that guy.
And another time…
We just moved to America. I was seventeen and spoke zero English. About a week or so later, we received food stamps from the government to help pay for food. We lived on north Spaulding back then. Not a very nice area to be in. My mom and I walked to the closest grocery store to buy food. I asked her to buy me some shampoo that smelled real nice and she replied by reminding me that we didn’t have any money and we couldn’t pay for shampoo with food stamps. We were speaking Bosnian, confident no one would understand. A few moments later, some man walked up to me. He took my hand and placed ten dollars into it.
I refused, of course, but the man insisted I take it. He was a Bosnian, born in America.
I think about that man, every single day.
Isn’t it just amazing how no matter how hard life gets, we can always count on some wonderful people to cross our paths? Those people are true angels walking the earth among us.

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