Big White is AWESOME! A Story... Bubba, Slavitca, Sladja and Miki.

Croatian names. Well maybe Bubba just means grandmother; and Slavitca may not be spelt correctly; and Sladja...? Not sure about either the pronunciation nor the spelling (no, I agree, not an auspicious introduction), but I may as well include Miki, maybe Miljeko is/was his full name.

Croatian names, a Croatian family living in Bosnia; during the collapse of Yugoslavia; living in Tuzla, well, a few clicks from the Tuzla airport anyway.

There were other members of the family, Juro - Bubba's husband, but we never saw him much and a daughter, long dead, killed by... Well it doesn't matter how, she and Juro are not part of the story.

I met Bubba et al in early 1995, I, a civilian contractor with the United Nations, was provided local billeting with two other guys - Yam Yam and Dickie Greenwood. Three of us shared this quite large house; Bubba and the four other family members, shared not much more than a garage. Both Yam Yam and Dickie are dead now, I told you about Yam Yam before. Dickie? Ex-Army like Yam Yam and I, but probably destined to die young - he had a minor stroke at 25; and when I met him he was overweight, not obese but big enough, he smoked and managed to avoid exercise... Heart gave out eventually, probably 10 years ago now. Great guy tho, both were actually.

So, the story.
Yam Yam was away, maybe leave and just Dickie and I were home, in the living room, probably not doing much. Well there was not much to do, no internet, mobile phones, computers were just becoming ubiquitous but they did not do much - solitaire and minecraft were the advanced games of the day. Communication? Letters, hand written - pen and paper, no spell chek, (it is intentional) no instant send/receive, there was a phone, of course; it didn't work. There was a TV but limited programming; think one channel, working maybe a couple hours every few days with picture quality so poor that you could barely make it out... And in Serbo-Croat. We had a video tape player, a couple of movies and... we had one series of Blackadder, Blackadder Goes Forth. Awesome!

We watched Blackadder a lot. A lot!

Anyway, despite being Croatian, Miki was seconded to the Bosnian Army, they were kind of peaceful at this point. Miki was not front line but was a radio operator - Remf, you army guys will know. He was not safe safe, but relatively, if you know what I mean. The Bosnians were using the local Croatians as additional 'labor' not quite conscripted more volunteered... 'Freely volunteer for this and we won't volunteer you for the more dangerous stuff.'

This went on for some time, it was not ideal but probably the best of a bad situation.

Lets help!

We started hearing rumours, a new Bosnian General was in control. A new Bosnian General decided protecting Croatian 'volunteers' was not a good way of protecting Bosnian front line soldiers. All the Croatians 'volunteers' were no longer volunteers, they were going to the front line. Miki decided 'living' was a better idea and deserted. AWOL, punishable by firing squad... If, you get caught.

It was a few nights later, Dickie and I were probably watching said Blackadder, it was late, maybe 11:30pm, I was likely heading for bed soon. Dickie spent more time with our adopted family and k
new something was going on, "Wait a bit" he suggested, eventually Bubba came in, Bubba came in all agitated "Ohhh, Dickie, pwroblem, pwroblem... Miki, pwroblem" She was very very Balkan in her pronunciation, well she would be. Long story short, Miki was back, being hunted and needing to get to somewhere to join a Croatian squadron, somewhere across a front line... Can Dickie and I help?

Adventurers...

UN vehicles were given almost free reign, almost free access everywhere. It was not unusual to be stopped at checkpoints but, would usually get through - beer was a popular bribe. Dickie and I had our own UN vehicle... We could help, it could be dangerous, smuggling a deserter destined for the firing squad was not part of the UN mandate, can you say 'International Incident'? But what else can you do? Besides we were young and... let's say 'adventurous', it sounds more romantic than dumb.

We got in the vehicle - Toyota Landcruiser, Dickie driving, me shotgun, Slavitca back seat... Nothing was stopping Slavitca coming with us; her husband, she may never see him again, she was coming. We waited on the drive. Remember this was war torn Bosnia, even if there were streetlights there was no electricity. It was after midnight... dark... silent. We waited.

Suddenly Miki was there, out of nowhere, no noise, nothing, from nowhere Miki was in the vehicle, with a big grin on his face. A big grin - Miki was 'adventurous' too, I guess. And so we were off. Kind of, Miki got himself onto the floor in the space between the seats, and then off.

We didn't know where we were heading but Slavitca did. After about 20 minutes we came to the roadblock, the front line, the temporary delineation between us and them. We couldn't stop, not with our cargo. We drove straight towards them, they were waving their weapons for us to stop, we were smiling and waving back... we drove straight through, and sped off - lots of running behind us, lots of yelling... They didn't shoot. I guess making the call to shoot at a UN vehicle needs higher level
authorization - waking the Commander? Takes more time than us speeding away.

We were through, Miki was safe. We got to the drop-off point, some farm I think. Slavitca said her teary farewell and we headed back.

The checkpoint this time was not letting us through, but that was okay. We were UN staff, and Slavitca, well she could make up a story - it would be all good. We stopped, wound down the windows, we smiled handed over our ID's...

Or Dickie handed over his, me, I stopped smiling, yours truly had forgot his ID... Now, I don't look completely caucasian, people used to think I was part South American, or Moorish, or Spanish... Or Muslim... It's Chinese, I am a quarter Chinese - dad's side, but that is another story. Anyhow... No ID, looking like I do, Croatian woman in the vehicle... that had just 'ran' a checkpoint (they were a bit cranky about this) and on the lookout for deserters...? An interesting situation, they wanted us to go with them, they presented a compelling argument - guns; good enough for us.

We were driven to a distant house, put into a room and we waited.

Obviously we got away, or I would not be writing this; and the release was a bit of an anti-climax. Before Yugoslavia collapsed everyone lived in relative peace, Bosnians, Croatians, Serbs etc. Same villages, towns, friends, schools...

The Commander came to find out who was 'running' through his checkpoint, travelling after curfew without ID, and who was ruining his precious sleep. The Commander walked in the room. The Commander... had gone to school with Slavitca. A smile, a glass of slivovitz all round(the local hooch) a ride back to the checkpoint and a wave goodbye.

When I was in the British Army, you went to jail if you lost your ID. I should have known better eh.

And full circle? What happened to Bubba et al? This is not Hollywood, I don't know. I left late 1996, I do not know their proper names or remember their surname. Miki did reappear regularly before I left, I guess once he was in the Croatian Army, it superseded the Bosnian desertion thing.

Sólido Properties, does less adventurous stuff now (I don't know better, wifey does tho) does not drink Slivovitz (have you tried it? Its' disgusting) tries to write a blog about life at Big White, but sometimes can't think of stuff; so I tell other stories... Manages, owns, and maintains seasonal property... and after the 'adventurous' seasonal staff leave, clean up after their 'adventures'. If you are looking for property management, have actually got to this point, and are thinking "you know, I could use the type of person, that drives around war torn Bosnia in the middle of the night, running checkpoints without ID... whilst smuggling a deserter across front lines..." If that is what you are thinking then you are my type of 'adventurer'. Send me an email. Or visit the Facebook page.

Oh... and if you want to read the Yam Yam story... click.