However,
Violeta Jelić,
program coordinator, Civil Rights Project in Sisak – in addition to her
work with Rotary – told a story to which most American Rotarians won't
relate.
Violeta was one of
four people on a April 2004 car trip to price and survey a proposed new
home construction site.
Heading home in
between two villages,
the car got stuck in heavy snow
on the main road through the town of Kuprs, Bosnia.
Violeta
stepped out and off the road, while a colleague searched for something to
give traction under the tires.
The colleague
found a metal plate in the snow, and when it was pulled out, they saw it
was a minefield warning sign.
"We knew where
we were going
– that there
was danger," Violeta said. "Somehow I lost that idea in my head. I
expected the sign to be more visible."
Violeta had
a contact who works in landmine clearance, whom she called and found that
she was in the middle of one of the most mine-suspected fields in the
country.
After
nearly half-an-hour standing terrified in one spot, Violeta decided she
had to leave.
Stepping
back into the same footprints she made getting there, Violeta returned to
the car, and her party got back on the road.
A landmine
disaster can face even an educated mine clearance fundraiser around any
corner here
– Kevin C. O'Brien.
