BOSNIA -- to me, the name meant danger, tragedy, horrific destruction and unspeakable human rights violations, and almost impossible complexity.

Arriving in Vienna, I joined my fellow Americans and internationals from all over the globe. We signed our first waivers, received our badges and initial pay, and spent our last night in the relatively familiar comfort of the Austrian capital. At the crack of dawn, we anxiously gathered at the airport where we boarded chartered aircraft for the trip to Sarajevo. I was struck by the beauty of the land beneath us – ridge after ridge of mountains. As we approached the airfield and caught our first live glimpses of the scars of war, we were numbed into silence.

A sign announced "Sarajevo International Airport ," but we found ourselves amid military troops, barbed wire, sandbags, and the remnants of buildings. Another waiver was to be signed. Then we were separated—some heading out on busses for the city and the surrounding region. Before they left, we bade them farewell and wished them safety. Then the rest of us headed over to board a C-130 Hercules troop transport plane which would take us to a place called Tuzla. The flight was uneventful, save the noise of the unpressurized interior (earplugs were available and recommended.) There was a feeling of anxiousness and anticipation, seated as we were, knee to knee in two long rows running the length of each side of the plane. With no "window seats" we could only imagine what we could not see. There was evidence of bonding as the RPCVs among us discovered each other, and those who were not began to learn RPCV-speak. (There were some absolutely wonderful non-RPCVs on the mission .)

Suddenly we landed and were greeted by a military brass band! Bizarre! We were at Eagle Base – the primary U.S. base in Bosnia. Refreshments followed as we mingled with U.S. troops – all of us there to promote peace. We were assigned partners and sites, then the work began. Cram courses (mandatory) were presented on health & disease prevention, radio communications & safety, and most sobering, "mine and UXE (unexploded ordinance) awareness." (Bosnia is littered with millions of land mines and UXE remaining from the war.)

Then it was time to go. We were driven about 22 km. down a dubious road, passing haystacks, endless fields of corn, and red tile-roofed houses. Horses pulled carts laden high with rough logs, and people walked along the roads between villages. The smell of smoke was heavy in the air. Then we spotted what looked like cooling towers for a nuclear plant – the Tuzla Power Plant. We were assured that it was not a nuclear plant, but photos were forbidden.

"Tuzla" is derived from a Turkish word meaning "salt " which has been mined there for centuries. Once controlled by the Ottoman Turks, Tuzla remains dominantly Muslim, although it promotes itself as being multiethnic and multireligious; the place "Where Reason Prevails."

My partner, Jay, was an RPCV and a trial attorney from Oregon. Each team was assigned an interpreter and a driver and car. I had expected to be traveling in a land rover. Instead, our vehicle turned out to be a 20+ year-old "Zastiva, " which featured gas fumes, a severe water leak in the back seat, no seat belts, and frequent break-downs. It was almost a disaster. But it came with its owner, Hazim - possibly the best driver in all of Bosnia. He would proudly say on our last day, "My car passed all the tests!" It got us where we wanted to go. Barely. Hazim had worked eight years for Citroen in France. He spoke the language comfortably, and always thought I could understand him. Fortunately for me, he also spoke German as a third language. This was his first paid job since the war began. Hazim had a son, Izak, who had fought in the war. Divorced, he had remarried, gained a step-daughter and his second wife was expecting. Any moment. They had riveting stories of their meeting and surviving the war.

Seyo, our interpreter, was recently back from a year in Covington, Kentucky where he attended a Catholic boys high school. His girlfriend, Myrna, also an interpreter, had spent the previous year in Colorado in school. Missing each other and home, they had recently returned. While we were there, they took the entrance exams for medical college, which had recently reopened in Tuzla.. She scored #1.

As Seyo’s mother is a judge, we were able to get an invitation to meet with the President of the Court and numerous other judges of the Tuzla Court. We were told that at every trial, there are 3 judges; a Muslim, a Croat & a Serb.

I soon gave up any pretensions of vegetarianism, as eating meat was virtually unavoidable. We were astonished at the restaurants in Tuzla and variety of food, clothing and other items available in regular shops and in the market. Amid our training sessions, we were advised to see the sights, go to the market, and relax because soon we would be heavily immersed in our work. The first couple of days, we did just that: guiltily sitting in cafes, sipping kava (coffee), sampling Tuzla beer under umbrella-sheltered tables at the lake, and feasting at a resort in the mountains, as we ventured out of town. "But, isn’t it dangerous?" We all had heard that before we left. A check of RPCVs revealed that most had encountered reactions such as "Are you nuts?!" from family, employers, and non-RPCV friends. Our hosts kept saying, "Is this what you expected?" It wasn’t.

However, it was dangerous: primarily due to the landmines which continue to threaten indiscriminately, and traffic accidents caused by roads in terrible condition, unsafe vehicles and drivers. My driver’s first English words were "slowly, slowly!" We soon discovered that although we had been warned to "stay on the pavement!" – this was not always possible. We just held our breath, said a lot of prayers, and tried not to dwell on it. We found devastation – especially on a trip to Sarajevo. En route, we passed villages where every single house had been destroyed. In the city, the scenes we had all seen on television lay before us in stark, shocking reality. Yet, amid the destruction, we many signs of rebuilding, determination and hope.

The war damage in Tuzla was more subtle, except in the very heart of the city. There across from the most popular café, in the place where young Tuzlans defied this war and continued to try to live their lives, it is unmistakable. The jagged hole in the cobblestone street bears witness to the horror of May 1995, when 71 people, mostly young students, were murdered by a Bosnian Serb shell. Candles, flowers and wreaths continue to mark the site. Their families decided to bury all those killed together - irrespective of their ethnicity or religion. The funeral was held in the middle of the night, for fear of further shelling. The cemetery above the city is flooded with flowers, Christian and Muslim symbols and pictures of the victims.

Because we were posted in Tuzla, my teammate and I had only a little contact with Bosnian Croats, and virtually none with Bosnian Serbs. Our Muslim teammates took us to see the beautiful Serbian (Orthodox) church, and we visited the oldest mosque in the city and heard the call to prayer. We also went to the Croatian (Catholic) church, where we met an English-speaking gentleman who introduced himself as "a Deputy Minister of Education, a university professor, and an old communist." He introduced us to the Franciscan priest, after which we were invited to the priest’s quarters. There, we were soon joined by an American diplomat, other election supervisors, and some Croatian candidates from two different parties. Coffee was followed by the local plum liquor, and a fascinating afternoon of conversation about Bosnian history and politics.

Our home was on the second floor of a communist-era apartment building. It consisted of a kitchen, bathroom, and two bedrooms. (Clearly one of these was normally a living room.) The kitchen plumbing did not work, so dish washing became a complicated procedure. Water had to be boiled for safe consumption. Running cold water was generally available for several hours per day, (in the bathroom only) and on most days, there was even hot water for a brief period. Unlike some of the Tuzla election supervisors, we did not live with a family, but did see the owner every few days, when he brought us groceries for breakfast, picked up dirty laundry and returned clean wet laundry. The latter was hung on an outside balcony, where it took days to dry.

We arrived in hot summer weather, which quickly gave way to early fall temperatures, then plummeted into cold weather – unabated by the luxury of heat. (Our landlord did appear with a plug-in electric heater towards the end of our stay.) Our building had no central heating, but we were told that those which did would have to wait to Oct. 15, the day the government turns the heat on. By the time we left, deliveries of the coal ration were beginning. Rain was to become a feature of nearly every day. Heavy, incredible downpours flooded streets and made difficult roads worse. We were constantly warned about mines. It was so cold, we began piling on layers of clothing, and still were freezing. Luckily we found "BosFam" – a project started in a warehouse where refugee women produce all kinds of handicrafts from gorgeous carpets to sweaters and socks. We were their best customers. There were an estimated 90,000 internal refugees or ("displaced persons") in Tuzla, swelling the population to around 290,000. The U.N.’s World Food Program occupied the flat across from us. The staff told us that at the height of the war, over two-thirds of the people in Tuzla had been on food assistance. The city has several "D.P. collection centers" housing refugees, and two orphanages.

Work began in earnest after several days of intensive training sessions in which we were introduced to the election procedures, rules, and the complexity of the process. We worked with IFOR (the Peace Implementation Force (military troops), IPTF (the international police force), and the Tuzla police. Each Election Supervision team was assigned a number of polling stations (we had 6). Although most of us had hoped the international force of election supervisors would be mixed up, nationalities were largely kept together. We were pleased to have a small group of Poles intermingled with us.

The number of internationals in the area ( military, police, and civilian) was staggering. On a trip back out to Eagle Base, I ran into some Nepali police and greeted them with "Namaste!" (They were delighted and very familiar with Peace Corps.)

It was frustrating not knowing the language. We had to rely heavily upon our interpreter. Our team was fortunate in that our Chairwoman was very experienced and skilled in coordinating the polling station committees under her supervision. Most of the members had worked on the 1991 elections. Our primary work was to meet with the Chairwoman and subsequently the teams and establish a relationship of trust. Together, we surveyed each polling site to assess the suitability of the buildings, get a sense of the surrounding neighborhoods, and try to anticipate any problems which might develop. There were number of issues that had to be mediated. At times, the discussions were intense. But always, the meetings took place over shared kava. (One particularly busy day, I had no less than ten cups of the strong Bosnian brew-- needless to say, I didn’t sleep much that night.) The most difficult thing was the smoke. Nearly everybody smokes.

One of our sites was a small community reading room. Two polling stations were to share this location. Political posters covered an adjacent wall, and a huge banner of the area majority party was strung across the street. We carefully negotiated the removal of the posters and the transfer of the banner to a less intimidating site, although the polling station chairmen had insisted that the rule said nothing within 50 meters and the banner was 51 meters from the polling station door! We worked with the chairs of the two committees first, to try to get the site changed, and failing that, to come up with a mutually acceptable division of the room, and a plan to accommodate the flow of expected voters.

Our other four stations were housed within a large school. Here, there were few problems, other than the Director’s surprise when we first advised him that the facility was to be not only one but four polling places. Visiting several classrooms in session brought on an intense sense of deja vu ! The students’ artwork was everywhere -- much of it depicting their feelings about the war. The Director told us he felt their art was therapeutic and he felt it critical to the childrens’ self-esteem that their work be seen. Among the Tuzla victims, there were several from Skola Krega. Seeing their schoolmates’ wrenching pictures brought tears to all our eyes.

Prior to election day, we all worked together to inventory the boxes of "non-sensitive" election materials which were to go to each station. Missing items had to be replaced. There were some significant problems to be resolved. The issue of absentee polling stations and ballots was critical. This involved "displaced persons" who had registered to vote in their former communities, as provided for in the election procedures. The plan was for them to be taken by busses across the border from the Federation (Muslim/Croat) into Republika Srpska (Bosnian Serbs) – and vice versa. Easier said than done. Voters in our area would be casting four ballots: choosing a President, and canton, assembly and parliamentary representatives. OSCE decided to postpone the riskier municipal elections. As the day drew nearer, huge political rallies were held in Tuzla,. Vehicles decorated with banners and playing loud music barreled down the streets, carrying people with bullhorns, exhorting the crowds vote for their candidates. As things heated up, we were warned to be off the streets before dark.

The O.S.C.E. and the Bosnian Provisional Election Commission established the following procedure for voting: the voter would enter the polling station where the "ink checker" would use a battery-operated ultraviolet light to check the person’s index finger for evidence of ink. If none was found, the voter proceeded to the voting list checkers. These persons would ascertain that the voter’s name was contained on the voters list. If found, the voter would then go to the "ink applicator." This person would spray invisible ink on the voter’s (left) index finger, around the cuticle. The voter would then be given four paper ballots, and directed to a voting booth. When finished, the voter would deposit the ballots in four cardboard ballot boxes. These would be emptied into plastic bags and sealed.

On election day, our major problem (aside from voters’ names missing from the lists) was no electricity at the reading room site. Voters could not see the ballot and refused to vote. People were starting to get angry as they had waited outside for nearly an hour for the polls to open. The stations had to close until it became lighter, and we had to make a trip to see the mayor to plead for electricity to be turned on for the evening hours. It was. Persons whose names were not on the list had to be turned away. They were instructed to go downtown to city hall, where they were to obtain authorization to vote, and then to return to the polling station -- a difficult, if not impossible task. As election day drew to a close, a rainbow decorated the sky.

When the polls closed, ballots were transported back to the regional counting center. This process, too, demanded mediation, as party officials and polling station members sometimes disagreed on who would accompany the ballots. There was an incredibly complicated procedure for checking in the four sets of ballots and the return of elections materials for each site. Ultimately, some polling stations were opened after election day to accommodate voters who had been unable to cast their votes. So, the count was delayed.

Initially, only the Bosnian teams counted ballots, while we acted as non-participating observers. In the end, everyone counted - in eight hour shifts around the clock. (Ultimately, a recount of some areas was done, although I’m told this did not include Tuzla.) The inclusion of our young interpreters and drivers in this process (while originally unintended) was remarkable. The historic significance was not lost on them. Some of them will be future leaders.

There is so much more to tell. Many things we could not photograph, but just keep in our minds. Endless stories of suffering and destruction, but also countless stories of courage, dignity and above all, hope. We could not have been welcomed more graciously. We were thanked for coming again and again.

An Italian circus came to town. The first time in five years. We and the IPTF collected money among ourselves to take orphaned and refugee children from Tuzla to the circus and arranged for the showing of a movie at the newly reopened theater. People welcomed us into their homes, and treated us like family. The kids hugged us as dear friends. We shared their delight. It felt like Peace Corps all over again. I left committed to returning, and strongly believing that we must be there, and the troops must remain in Bosnia, if peace is to have a chance.

Postscript: A 17 year old Bosnian student is now living in my town, attending school here for two years. Improbably, Emina is from Tuzla. More incredible, she knows several of the people I worked with, including Sejo and Myrna, our interpreters. Tuzla is a city of 200,000 people, plus 90,000 displaced persons. It’s a very small world we share. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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