Only fifty kilometers from Bihać is the returnee village of Očijevo. Today, only about twenty households live in it permanently, while at least as many want to return to their homeland. However, without electricity, which has been absent for almost three decades, returning is almost impossible. It was on Ilindan, when the locals traditionally gather in their village, that we visited Očijevo, where the holiday is welcomed this year with candles and flashlights.
They have water from a well, they are cut off by bad roads in the winter, and the solar panels they received are only enough for a few light bulbs during the summer. They say they knocked on every door, but they are still waiting for an answer.
Life under candles and flashlights
In most homes, darkness only lasts a few seconds. In Očievo for more than twenty years.
In the 21st century, this switch means nothing. The darkness here is not interrupted by electricity, but by the flame of a candle.
For years, Mile Rodić has been coming and going from Očijevo, waiting for the promise made to the first returnees to be fulfilled. His father believed that electricity would arrive very soon. So much so that he told him to buy a TV for the day the lights in their house came back on.
“And I brought that TV to my father, and unfortunately, he died 10 years ago. He lived for about 17 years without electricity, waiting for that TV to turn on, he never experienced that moment. My mother lived another 10 years after my father, and she didn’t get electricity either,” explains Mile Rodić, a returnee to Očijevo.
Everyday life without basic conditions
Without electricity, they can’t turn on a washing machine, water heater or refrigerator. They manage as best they can and must.
They have to eat the food they cook the same day, and many drive seven kilometers to their friends in Martin Brod for food that can spoil.
“It’s simply a lack of concern for people. Is it possible? Martin Brod has electricity, Boboljušći, Trubar, Cvjetnić, Očigrije, Ruborski naslonac, it’s all around here,” adds Mile Rodić.
Returnees do not give up on their homeland
Luka Tankosić is entering his tenth decade of life this year. He says he has lived in big cities, but he wants to spend his last years right here, in his hometown.
He says he no longer believes that electricity will come.
“I’m not sure, I think, I’m objective. Knowing all the circumstances and situations, how it goes,” says Luka Tankosić, a returnee to Očijevo.
“In the 21st century, you live under a lamp”
In a house where water does not flow from the tap, and the light bulbs serve only as a reminder of some other time, every day begins and ends in the same way. How much it hurts is hard to describe in words.
“What kind of civilization is this? You live under a lamp in the 21st century. For me, it’s like someone has put a sentence down my throat,” describes Ljubica Tankosić, a returnee to Očijevo.
Ilindan is still celebrated despite the darkness
However, the customs are not interrupted. Ilindan is also celebrated this year in Očievo.
With candles, flashlights and some light bulbs, and battery-powered music. Friends come, the table is set. They say it’s easier to bear the dark when you’re not alone.
Electrification is still awaiting implementation
Many of the first returnees who carried the burden of returning did not receive electricity. Today, the second generation continues their struggle, more determined and organized.
They wrote to Elektroprivreda BiH.
“The estimate of that investment is about 2 million and 400 thousand KM. As for electrification, the procedure is defined by the Memorandum of Understanding and Cooperation in the Electrification of Returnees”, says Dženat Pjanić, director of the Bihać Elektrodistribucije Subsidiary of the BiH Electric Industry.
When we first filmed the story in Očievo six years ago, the electrification of this village was estimated at one million and three hundred thousand marks. Today, that amount has almost doubled.
The years pass, the estimates rise, and the population decreases.
