My brother was born weighing more than an average baby and he had quite a good appetite. He had very dark hair and an incredibly red face. Our differences certainly did not end with the stark contrast in our health as infants; it continued when he developed a personality, which was (and still is) very different from mine. Even now as young adults, we still do not always see eye to eye. He already had a great sense of humor when he was only a few months old, something that I could not have developed when I was that age, because of my many ailments then.  At the time when I first saw him, I was a happy kid as well, but there already was a sense of seriousness and maturity about me.

            When my brother was four months old, we all went to Hungary one last time. (We had gained Croatian citizenship at that point and had the necessary papers.) I was scared as we reached the border, but then relieved when the officials allowed us to pass after they checked our passports. There is very little that I can remember about my last three-month period of therapy at Peto. I simply recall having watched a lot of German satellite TV, along with some MTV music videos and a few tennis matches.

 In terms of more important things, it was the first Easter I remember. That was no doubt due to the fact that my parents had grown up in an atheistic environment in former Yugoslavia and that their families had different religious backgrounds as well.  These religious differences were used to divide the people in our home city of Mostar, which was no doubt another reason my parents did not go out of their way to explain religion to me. The Institute, however, celebrated the Easter holidays, as did the German TV networks with their special programming. All I want to say about religion is that while I do not necessarily subscribe to any major faith, I do believe that all of the world religions are essentially good and right when they are not corrupted by politics and twisted in order to justify one ideology or another (which they sadly often are.). I also believe that having survived the medical problems early on, my life is more than a pure accident.

My father was the first of the four of us to go to Germany. The father of our German friends’ family then came back for the rest of us. He even gave us the passports of his wife and kids. However, thankfully the officials at the border just let us through when they saw the German car. He and my mother were understandably relived at that.

Initially, my father worked hard on-site construction jobs, while my mother worked the reception desk at the hotel in which we lived upon arrival in Germany. She put her language skills to use there. An elderly gentleman and his much younger wife owned the hotel. The funny thing was that she had had an affair with a man who was her age and everybody knew about it except for her husband.

The hotel was located in Odelzhausen, one of the larger villages in the area. It is not far from Munich, in the county of Dachau. My parents found an apartment in the smaller village of Pfaffenhofen a few months later, however. I do not remember much about the place, besides that it was tiny. I was still seven years old then and it was high time for me to start school. In Germany, children with disabilities usually go to “special schools” that do not offer much of an education. I was quite lucky in that my parents had befriended a locally influential couple that was well acquainted with the principal of the regular school of the area. He had an open mind about me enrolling there and he invited me to take some tests at the school.  I do not remember anything about the content of those tests, nor how I was able to understand them, given the fact that I was still leaning the German language at the time. But whatever the case may have been, the teacher who administered the tests was apparently satisfied with my performance and I was admitted into the school. There were around 600 students enrolled there around that time. It was a grey building, with several colored stripes on it. Inside, the bottom floor was made up of mostly offices. There were a few classrooms there as well. One of them was a handicrafts classroom, another was a special music room, while a video room and a kitchen were also included.  On the first floor above there were the main classrooms for grades one through four, and the top floor had the same for grades five through nine, as well as a computer room later on.

I started first grade in September of 1993 and everything was planned for me. The local Catholic church helped the school come up with a schedule of people who would drive me to and from school on certain days (my father was working at the time and my mother never needed to learn to drive until we came to the United States years later). For transportation into out of and especially within the school building, two ninth-grade boys were given the task of carrying me. It was all a tremendous display of human kindness. All that Bavaria--and probably Germany as a whole--lacked in teams of educational opportunities for children with disabilities, these people more than made up for with their collective determination to make my early schooling possible.

Another significant occurrence took place in my life around that time. It may seem trivial in comparison to starting school, but it shaped who I became and who I am today to an extraordinary degree. It was my development of a passion for soccer in general, and for the club Bayern Munich in particular. For those who have not experienced it, soccer fandom is like a drug. It overpowers people and once it has taken hold of them; usually it never lets them go. Despite the fact that soccer was the most popular sport in former Yugoslavia (and still is today in arguably all of its newly-formed republics) and highly popular among most men in my family, I did not discover it for myself until we moved to Germany. I liked tennis and was a big fan of Croatia’s legendary player Goran Ivanišević.  I also liked basketball, which two of my cousins played (and now my brother does as well). My father spent his childhood supporting his local soccer team, Velez Mostar. He says they played the most attractive brand of the game, in a then highly competitive Yugoslav league. Nevertheless, their greatest successes were some second- place finishes as well as winning the national cup. In any case, the breakout of the war ended all of that, and as my father says, the waving of flags became synonymous with nationalism and hatred, rather than with the Beautiful Game. When we arrived in Munich and saw Bayern fans happily waving the club’s red and white flags (the same as the colors as Velez), he was reminded of his youth. He once asked me whether I would watch a televised Bayern game with him and I agreed. I was immediately impressed by the sport and the atmosphere. My fascination with this simple, yet intricate game has only grown since then, as has my love for Bayern. Supporting such a big club ,with a worldwide fan base, makes one feel as part of a global family of fans and also makes one feel part of something much greater than oneself.

Going back to more serious issues, there was an opening for me in the spring of 1994, to have surgery in the Orthopädische Kinderklinik in Aschau, Bavaria. The doctors there examined me and came to the conclusion that a lengthening surgery of my adductors, as well as under my knees, would be beneficial. The only problem was that the surgery alone was going to cost 25,000 German marks and rehabilitation cost extra, and insurance would not cover it. However, I benefited from the truly incredible kindness of the community in this case too. The school in particular organized soccer matches, concerts, and other events to come up with the money. They not only managed that, but also came up with enough to cover the costs of the rehabilitation and a walker, as well as other items I will get to later on.

I looked forward to the surgery with great anticipation, as did everyone around me. I was unaware of what it all meant for the future. I was also too young to understand and appreciate the support of not only my family, but also of the entire community. Looking back on it, I regret not having expressed gratitude to the people who made it possible. The only time when I really took advantage of an opportunity to show the principal my gratitude early on was when a local radio station visited classes to ask students to say something nice about him. The kids in my class mostly made general comments about his likability. Before the radio hosts left, I raised my hand and told them what he had done for me. My teacher later said to my mother that I had saved the show.

Next Chapter: Aschau