blockade

From that day things got worse. In the way people from Banjaluka were lucky because army swarmed the streets that morning. No fights broke inside the town. But in the town's vicinity real war started.
The major power plants that supplied the town with the power were around hundred kilometres to the south of the town, and unfortunately on territory where Croats were majority. So power was cut.
The Banjaluka is located in sort of shallow canyon. Water supply centres lay near the riverbed, low. And several largest residential quarters were located on surrounding hills. This meant that water needed to be pumped on those heights and for that electricity was needed, electricity which now was cut from the town.
So we did not had bullets and bombs flying above our heads, but we also did not have electricity or water supply.
Instead in library, learning, I spend that spring and summer going everyday to the nearby well and waiting for hours in the line for water.
Around month after war started food supplies dried out. My family was lucky. Mother found out about some distant relative of ours who worked in local ministry of defence. He put my father to serve in a military kitchen for the air force. So he started to bring home tins and other supplies for us to eat as well.
At that time I stopped being vegetarian. It was at the end matter of survival, so if there was only canned meat to eat then I ate the canned meat.
That year my brother ‘finished’ the high school. He normally would had one whole more year to go, but since he was ‘old’ enough to go to the army he successfully graduated, along to the rest of the young boys who were in last years of the high school education.
My parents were panicking and mother spent days trying to ensure he’s not put on the front line. She succeeded at the end. My brother ended up as logistic worker on the local military airport.
Then one of my friends was attacked. She was going home alone in the evening. Few male teenagers attacked her and tried to rape her. In the way she was lucky because some adult male came along and helped her. At the end she was just bruised, not raped. But regardless to that she was terrified and she did not dare to leave house for whole three days. After that she would leave only during the daylight and never alone.
And we lived in the same neighbourhood. That could easily be me instead of her. So to help myself I went to a local martial art centre to learn some self-defence.
That did wonders for my figure. Insufficient food and strong exercises melted me, but there was no alternative. Fear did not allow me to stop learning martial arts and food, well simply there was not enough of it.

At that time I actually learned that adult human body is not by nature made to digest milk. There were not any for months so my body stopped producing enzymes necessary to digest it. Even today I have problems with dairy product as a consequence.