Jasmina Korkutovic is originally from Bosnia and has been living in Canada since November 1999. She is married and has a five year old daughter. She is learning English and wants to improve herself as best as she can.

Far from Eyes, but Close to Heart

It was May 1, 1992 when war began in my country. On that day, we heard the first explosion and started to believe that war was coming. Every second day was worse than the day before.

In September of the same year I left my home, because of the war and for my safety. I left my parents, siblings, friends-- everything that reminded me of my childhood. I went to Germany, a country which showed a lot of humanity in helping us refugees. In that time, one of my sisters was living there with her family. She was my first and big help in that foreign country. Foreign language, people, culture, and food made my days harder and harder. It took me a long time to get used to living there and think of the future. What future? There was still a war going on. That dirty war. Where were my dearest? At that time, my father was sick, and that made my life more difficult.

After one year, one of my brothers came to live with me and shortly after that, his wife arrived with a child. My other brother arrived in 1994, so my life was getting better. In 1992, I met my husband, and we got married in December 1995. We had a daughter one year later, and my life began to turn out differently. There was still a war on, but we found our second home in beautiful Germany. When my daughter was two years old, the German government decided to send us refugees home, even though it wasn't safe to go back. We had to look for another country, or go back to a war. So we applied to come to Canada; we weren't very happy about that. How many times would we look for a new home?

Arriving in Montreal was my hardest day, and I will never forget that airport and strange people. Where to go? How to speak? Do we know anybody? Nothing positive could come of this - just tears. Why did this have to happen to me? Why did we have to leave the warmest and loveliest country, our homeland? This was all because of some crazy ideas from leaders who are probably still alive, dead, or paying for their foolishness in jail. We were innocent and looking only for peace, but instead it took us from our home.

We can travel around the whole world, and try to find something similar to our native home. Maybe we can find something that would make us a little happy, but we can't ever find a real home in a strange country.

Jasmina Korkutovic