November 16, 2006

The Bosnian word for guest is “gost,” pronounced almost exactly like the English word we use to describe an unsettled spirit. This is a word you hear a lot as a visitor to Bosnia and Hercegovina because as guest, you have pride of place in whatever household you might be visiting. You will get the biggest coffee cup, the largest glass of juice, the choicest piece of meat, and an extra serving of anything sweet. Before I learned the word, though, it was a bit unnerving to hear myself described as a ghost. And now that I do know the word, my experiences living and working at Bosfam have led me to conjure up an entirely different set of images than I previously did when I heard the word pronounced.

This morning began as every morning does at Bosfam, with work, talking, and preparations for coffee. Then the doorbell rang. I can hear it from the part of the office where I normally work, but am too far away to see what is going on. I did notice that shortly thereafter, I could not hear the women talking while they sat at their looms, as I normally can. Beba went to see who had arrived. After a while she came to tell me that it was two men from ICMP, the International Commission for Missing Persons. This is the organization charged with locating and identifying victims of the war so that their relatives can be informed and their bodies prepared for burial. They had come to take a blood sample from one of the women at Bosfam. This means only one thing: They need her DNA to help identify someone whose remains have been found.

I don’t know what transpired when then the researchers arrived. I have no idea whether they asked permission for the sample, or instead demanded it. Being a lawyer, I was horrified at the prospect of people being able to turn up at a workplace and unceremoniously request something so intimate as a blood sample. And then I realized what a luxury it was for me to focus on such procedural issues. If I had been waiting 11 years for news of my family members, I can’t say that they would be at the forefront of my mind.

Uncertainty is a constant companion for many of the women at Bosfam. And the uncertainty of not knowing what happened to the people they loved is compounded by the uncertainty of never knowing when someone will turn up to request a DNA sample, reopening wounds where they were able to heal at all. Uncertainty hovers like a ghost on the periphery of daily life — sometimes discernable, other times fading into the background, rarely disappearing altogether.

My colleague said that if she had to receive a visit from ICMP, she was glad it happened while she was at Bosfam, in the company of others. Today for lunch we ate èevapæiæi, a delicious Bosnian dish consisting of small grilled sausages served with onions on grilled homemade bread, and her favorite. Of course, this was no coincidence. Beba ordered the food so we could share something good, to help mitigate in small part the morning’s events. If Bosfam did not exist, this kind of support would be completely unavailable to these women, and that is simply not an option.