interview by Rebecca S. Cohen
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What’s left of an apartment building in Sarajevo |
Sarah Chenven lives in Bosnia-Herzegovina. How did this happen to a child of comfort, if not outright privilege, a 1989 graduate of Austin’s McCallum High School, a product of the me-first Eighties?
For a number of years, first in New York City and then in Europe, the dark-eyed, vivacious daughter of a local physician/administrator and his novelist wife has worked for the International Rescue Committee (IRC), a 63-year-old relief and resettlement agency working in 25 countries around the world. It is the leading nonsectarian private voluntary agency assisting refugees worldwide (according to agency sources), which helps victims of racial, religious, and ethnic persecution as well as those uprooted by violence.
During Chenven’s short holiday visit to Austin, filled with family obligations, doctor appointments, and partying with old friends, she allowed some time to talk about the turn her life has taken, to explain � to the extent possible � the complexities of life in the former Yugoslavian republic.
We visited on my back porch, with my portly mastiff at our feet. “You see all these pets running around in Bosnia,” she said, petting the dog, “and so many dead ones by the side of the road. People can’t afford to care for them. You can explain to a person what’s happening, but you can’t explain to an animal.”
I wasn’t entirely certain she could explain the politics of that Bosnia to me, either, but she gave it a try.
Austin Chronicle:So you live in Banja Luka?
Sarah Chenven: Yes, I moved four months ago from IRC headquarters in Sarajevo to head the field office there. There are five field offices in the country, one in Banja Luka, Tuzla, Gorazde, Bihac, Jablanica.
AC:How about a quick geography lesson. There used to be Yugoslavia?
SC: And now there is Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina (made up of the Republika Srpska and the Muslim-Croat Federation), Serbia and Montenegro (the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia), and Macedonia.
AC:And when was the last time you heard gunfire?
SC: The war has been over for three years.
AC:So you don’t count Albania? Kosovo?
SC: Kosovo is in Serbia [not the Republika Srpska, which is where Banja Luka is located], although there are Kosovo refugees sprinkled throughout the country. People who fled their homes and were hiding out in the forests and hills of Kosovo are called “refugees” by some, but they’re really not, because they haven’t crossed an international border.
AC:Excuse me?
SC: They’re “internally displaced persons,” not refugees. The jargon can get ridiculous. In Bosnia it’s hard to make the distinction. But IRC’s mandate is broad enough to help anybody who’s been impacted by the war. Everybody, basically, needs help, although the people you assume are the most vulnerable are really not. Refugees being expelled from Germany, for example, might come with [money] the German government has given them, and they’ve been working for four or five years. While next door, somebody who stayed throughout the war may have nothing and live in a chicken shed. It’s hard to target assistance to the most vulnerable. When you do a housing project, it’s not just reconstruction of a house, you have to find out where that person is from, is somebody living in their home, does that person want to leave.
AC:Do you put refugees or displaced persons back where they came from or where they want to be?
SC: Where they want to be is called “relocation.” We’re not in the phase yet where a person has the opportunity to make a free and informed choice about whether they want to move back to their pre-war home. It’s still being talked about by the donors [governments and individuals who contribute money to the IRC and other relief agencies]. Most people are not making free and informed choices. The idea now is to move them back to pre-war homes.
AC:The way things were before Yugoslavia dissolved?
SC: Which is impossible …
AC:How did a girl who grew up in Austin come to know so much about Eastern Europe?
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Sarah Chenven |
AC:Why not?
SC: I was a doctor’s kid. I watched people come up to my father on the street and say, “You saved my life. Thank you.” I idolized him as a child. I wanted to be able to do something for people � whatever that meant � but I couldn’t articulate it then. So I graduated from college, and went to France to teach English in a French high school. I worked with the kids of immigrants. It was so fascinating to me. Then I came home and had a crisis.
AC:An early midlife crisis?
SC: Exactly. I decided I wanted to be an administrator like my father, so I applied to grad school. I wanted to do something in the non-profit world that was internationally oriented, and I chose NY University because it had a program that allowed me to work during the day and take classes at night. I got a job with the IRC in the fundraising department. Six months later I moved to a full-time position working in the overseas program department. After I got my degree, I was ready to go overseas. A job opened up in Sarajevo and I snatched it, and nine months later I got offered the Banja Luka position and took it. It was the best decision I ever made.
AC: What do you do?
SC: We help reconstruct houses, repair public infrastructure � sanitation, electrical, water, schools. We also help persons with disabilities, create public works projects to put money in people’s pockets, and next year, if we get funding, we’ll help reactivate factories that are still viable. There’s also NGO development.
AC: What is NGO?
SC: Non-governmental organizations.
AC: How long will you stay there?
SC: My contract is through next June. I anticipate extending through the end of 1999.
AC: And then?
SC: And then I really don’t know. I don’t know if I want to come back to the U.S.
AC:What do you miss most?
SC: Big Gulps from 7-Eleven. It’s pathetic, I know.
AC:Who do you hang out with in Banja Luka?
SC: With other internationals. There are a lot of Americans in Republika Srpska now. We barbecue, have parties every once in awhile. [But] it’s a city that’s easy for couples and families to live in. A lot of internationals have families or significant others. There are nationals I’m friends with, but they live either with their own families or with their parents. You don’t go for a frozen margarita or chips and salsa after work.
AC: Do your Bosnian friends anticipate a long-term peace?
SC: Any local person will tell you, as long as the UN stabilization force is present, there won’t be war. Each additional day they’re there extends the peace. If they stay on another five or 10 years, you never know. … The important thing now is for the economy to be reactivated.
If you talk to anybody, they say, “Before the war I wouldn’t have known if my neighbor was Bosniac [specifically Bosnian Muslim], Croat, or Serb. I didn’t pay attention to it.” People on all three sides will say that to you. So why did this happen? The longer I’m there, the less I understand. It’s not really based on religion or economics. It’s about power. Nobody won and everybody lost, so nobody will take any responsibility for what happened. No side feels compelled to sacrifice or compromise.
AC: What do you think will happen?
SC: I totally view everything with an American bias. The biggest problem there is that nobody feels empowered to change anything. You ask, “Why don’t you vote for somebody else, someone who represents your views?” And they say, “All politicians are the same, they just wear different shirts. My vote doesn’t count.” The young people say, “Fuck this, we’re not going to participate. What’s the point?” They look at me and say, “You’ll never understand.”
AC: You deal with both Bosniacs and Serbs, is that right?
SC: Yes. The most interesting thing is to watch my Serb staff interact with other staff, Muslim and Croat, from across Bosnia. On an individual level, these people get along like nothing ever happened. But if you bring politics into it, they can’t live together � maybe side by side, but not together. It’s very peculiar.
AC: Bosnia is such an abstraction to Americans. You hear about rape and murder and all kinds of horrible things, but they happened so far away. Do you talk with people about their experiences during the war?
SC: Yes. Some of the women who work for IRC have come from a bad situation. If you were in the wrong place at the wrong time and were the wrong ethnic group. … A lot of the men on my staff fought in the war. People are surprisingly open about their experiences until the point where you ask, “Did you kill anyone?” Nobody will ever go there � ever. Most people say, “I will not go through this again.” On the other hand, they’re not actively changing things. But who am I to talk? They have families. They have to feed their kids.
AC: Do you live in a dorm or a house? Does it have a burglar alarm?
SC: No burglar alarm. I live in a house with lots of neighbors, and lots of neighborhood children who’ve learned to say, “Hi, please give me candy.” The house is owned by a Muslim, who fled Banja Luka during the war. IRC has leased it since late 1995.
AC: Will he come back to reclaim his home?
SC: No, he’s making money, earning rent. And he’s secure that the house won’t be ransacked and that a displaced Serb family won’t live in it.
AC: The neighborhood is Muslim?
SC: Yes. You can still see the Turkish influence. There are four-sided roofs. Everybody else has two-sided roofs. And you can tell because the most damaged houses are usually those where minority populations lived.
AC: This past September your parents came to visit, and I know they were concerned about your safety � and their own � before they left. The war is over, but do you feel you’re ever in physical danger?
SC: No. When NATO was threatening to bomb Serbia because of Kosovo, we were evacuated to Sarajevo. Once I was driving (the cars are well-marked and have special plates) and somebody bumped me from behind on purpose, but I just drove off. I’m more nervous on a day-to-day basis in the U.S. The random violence in Bosnia is nil, but here you start looking around when you leave the supermarket.
AC: Are you happy to be American?
SC: I would never choose to be anything else. I am so happy to have the bias I have � that there’s always the potential for things to be better. This is a real democracy. There’s a stable political environment, the Bill Clinton bullshit aside. The major difference is we have political and legal recourse that a lot of people, certainly in Eastern Europe, don’t have. I feel more vulnerable to the world now than I did.
AC: How old are you? Are you losing your youth to Bosnia?
SC: I’m 27 … 28 next March. I’m still pretty young for where I am professionally, vis-a-vis my counterparts in Banja Luka. Most of them are in their mid-30s. But I have noticed that time goes go by faster the older you get. My youth is intact, but I’m an old spirit.
AC: Are there times to laugh in Bosnia?
SC: [Laughing.] We have a lot of fun. We go out to bars, to clubs. We have a great time. People there are just like us, as modern and as hip as we are. They watch MTV. They watch CNN. Old World meets New World. It’s so bizarre. They’re on the Internet. They have Web pages. A lot of the young people who speak English work for international organizations. You have young, young people supporting their whole families. Talk about losing your youth! How many Americans would be able to get up and go to work every day and speak in a foreign language? I really admire the people I work with. They’re amazing.
AC: Do you speak their language?
SC: I speak a little Serbo-Croatian, a little Bosnian. It’s the same language with subtle differences, like Australian, British, and American English.
AC: Admirable.
SC: No, what I admire is how these people can pick up and restart their lives. There’s a tremendous baby boom. All anybody wants is to have a decent chance at life. Hopefully it will work out.
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Grafitti in Sarajevo says it all |
This article appears in December 18 • 1998 and December 18 • 1998 (Cover).