How do you live here?
-Average.
Can you explain that?
-I am retired, I have a house, a little garden here, and my wife and myself are here.
Are you satisfied?
-Of course, why not. I am satisfied with myself first, and then with everything else.
And how is the situation around Bosnia?
-Around Bosnia and Herzegovina? It depends from place to place. But there are big differences. I used to live in some cities, where during only one hour one could see more beggars, and not Roma, but domestic [Bosnian-Herzegovinian], more than the Roma beggars you Ā could see before. In some places, I donāt want to say now which onesā¦But in general, people are working in agriculture, in companies, they have the pensionā¦They are surviving like that.
And, in the villages? How do people live there? In rural areas?
-Well, this village is a specific one. People bought properties of 500, 700 up to 1000 mĀ². Ā The people who used to live here before the war were Croats. They had left the place in ā95, and we, who were living there [in Croatia], came here. We bought lots of land, and now we are trying to manage somehow, build houses and so onā¦
What should we do in order to improve situation here?
-What can I tell you. What we need? We need, not just here, but in general: young people.
Young people are leaving?
-No, they donāt have where to leave. Where can they go? Firstly, if you want to go to Croatian seaside you need 100 EUR per day, and for other places, too. But those ones who have 1000 EUR for 10 days, they wonāt go there, they will go somewhere else. But the problem is this: no jobs. That is the biggest problem. No jobs. But people are doing something, some of them are living of agriculture, some have someone abroad, and they are helping, and so onā¦
And around the Balkans?
-Everywhere.
Yugoslavia made one big mistake with industrialization. That brought almost the whole population into big towns. It is like that in Serbia, it is like that in Croatia, Slovenia, it is like that in all places. Villages were abandoned. Nowadays, something is getting back to the villages; it is getting back throughout the credits, donations, subsidies. Something is happening, but as that process started, in EU it was said that crisis started and we felt as well. After all, we are the country which came out of war 15 years before.
We have problems. But in general, people are trying to do something, like producing healthy food in greenhouses, starting small businesses, etc.
People are managing somehow. We, Balkan people, are resourceful people. If others were in our places, I wonder how they would have made it.
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