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bonjan is only 4 km. far from Sibenik by sea, where a cold, silent war was held, and the worse enemy was passivity. People dwelled in 11 barrack houses, where up to six people could live in 12-15 m 2 rooms, and in «provisional» (for at least 2 years) military tents, in which there was even more people and worse sanitation, since there was no floor and were flooded in raintime. Initially, that island hosted summer camps, with a capacity of 400 adoles cents; it has come to lodge about 2000 refugees, with the subsequent prob lems of water and food supplies, as well as all sanitaries (I insist, planned for 400 kids in 4 months periods), that were all broken.
vM,nYCrDenYMLe They woke us up at 7 a.m., a little «toilette» (cold shower in best of cases) and breakfast: a cup of tea and a piece of bread. After, refugees dedi cated to let the time «pass by». Lunch was a highly spiced soup (to fake the rotten taste) and if you were lucky, you’d get a piece of meat or fish in side; single course. Dinner was same soup with some more water and
¾�ÉÆáÍ £ÊÎËÄÏÝÇ È àááË ÄÉ ÏÃá ÂÍÊ�Éà boiled potatoes. My work there as a medical student was done together with other foreign medical students and two local nurses, no doctor around. We dealt day-to-day cases and most serious ones were evacuated to Sibenik. Many refugees faked illness to get out (al ways with our company and a soldier), and buy some things at the black mar ket in Sibenik. We were surprised at the enormous passivity of refugees, just sitting, watching the time go by. We also tried to stimulate them to some activity, like in other camps, to occupy their time in that «transitional» situation. We had to hide packs of clothes from humanitarian aid, to avoid from grow ing the «dirty clothes cemetary», they wouldn’t even wash their clothes. Anyway, we learnt their great ability to laugh by crying, «njema problema», they’d still say. The toughest plague we had to fight was local «maffia», through which, on ex change of some favours, some families could get extra packs of food and a cer
J. I. GARROTE
tain position and respect among the oth ers. Sad to see what some ladies had to do in order to get milk for their babies... Those among the dariest, fished on the seaside, to sell most of it in order to get coffee, cigarrettes and wine. Alcoholism in such a small place, full of people and loneliness, was a common thing. Some body, I don’t know through which favours, managed to open some time later a bar (I missed that period in there, and I could notice a «before» and «after» the bar opened, and its consequences on the re
«It’s easy for you; you only spend some months in here... the most you can lose here is your own life» ±ÊÇ�Èá ¤ÎÎ�á É�ÈÞáÍ