14/01/2021
“Drvo!” The words reverberate through the empty rooms and corridors of the Dom Pensionera in Bihac.
The Dom Pensionera is a remain of Bosnia's socialist past. A retirement home for socialist workers but the construction was never finished. Instead of being a place where people look back at their
life, it is now a place where people wait for their life. Since a few years the Dom Pensionera is one of the many empty buildings where people who aim to cross the the mountains into Croatia sleep rough. These days around 100 young men, all from Afghanistan and Pakistan, life in the abandoned building. Crowding together in the empty rooms. Sharing the little they have, and if its just body heat to make it through the freezing nights and cold days.
“Drvo!” “Wood!” is a Bosnian word everyone knows here. With temperatures way below zero, it is a word you will learn fast. So when it is shouted through the building, the young men forget all their good manners. They jump up, rush through the door and run through the empty corridors. Now everyone shouts the precious words “Drvo!” “Drvo!”.
In front of the house a pile of wood is uploaded by a truck, financed through a private NGO. It does not take long until the boys separate the huge pile of wood into smaller piles, one for each room. Their faces are still filled with excitement as they carry the wood inside the house. Bihac, 12.01.21
