by Amela Piric

Created on: April 20, 2009   Last Updated: May 18, 2011

Bosnia was in a crisis even before this big world crisis. We never recovered from the war and its consequences. Our industry never got restored. However, just like in other parts of the world, we have those extremely rich people and then the poor people. Our middle class seems to have gotten lost almost like in America.

So, while certain people are really worried as to where their monies for groceries will come from next month, others are throwing away food in the trash containers and overspending.  There is no middle line or middle class any longer.  Poverty levels in Bosnia are extremely high.

There are many old people, young people and middle-aged people who live on the poverty line. There is a whole army of unemployed people and they are usually the youngest ones in our nation.  They never had the opportunity to start working.  It seems like their jobs were already eaten on the trees by former generations.

There are also those who work for minimum wages and are struggling to get the food on the table for their children each month.  They are not even sure for how long they will be able to keep that minimum job wage.  They are well aware that they could be fired already tomorrow under the auspices of economic recession.  Those who are lucky to be working are experiencing more stress and uncertainty each day sometimes even more than those who already lost their jobs and are devoting themselves to agriculture and land cropping.

People are starting to engage in agricultural activities like never before if they live in villages and countryside. Whoever has some good land is starting to sow certain product so that they wouldn't have to depend on buying all the groceries in the store.  Folks in Bosnia
rarely go out and eat. They mainly cook for themselves or eat at work. This saves them a bit of money. Those minimum wage workers usually get free lunch at work while the state civil employees get financial reimbursement instead of lunches at work.

My neighbor got a loan from a micro-credit organization and purchased three cows. She is getting milk that way out of which she makes cheese.  She sells these milk products in the market and gets cash for them.  She will always have calf to sell as some sort of a family capital.  While these agricultural workers are just trying to survive, micro-credit organizations are becoming richer every day and their employees are driving more and more expensive cars. That's the unfortunate reality.

My cousin who is a teacher goes to his weekend house to grow some crops to help his family budget out.  He does it together with his wife.  People realize more and more that they have to be getting creative in order to survive even though they may have "secure" state job as a teacher. 

Due to rising food prices, everybody except for the extremely rich have to find additional venues to earn or at least grow his own crops. Many of us have fruit trees in our yards. We take good care of them in the fall, so that they would have lots of fruits during the summer. We are all looking forward to these fresh and healthy fruits so at least we won't have to be paying as much cash for the fruits.

We are somehow getting by.  The war experience taught us how to survive in difficult times.  We always think that if we had survived the war, the economic crisis can not do much more harm to us.

Learn more about this author, Amela Piric.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.