May 9, 2005
By Jim Schlosser
News & Record, Greensboro, NC

The ceremonial cap and gown procession into the Greensboro Coliseum on Friday will seem all too brief for Sanela Kalender compared to that walk in 1995 across the bridge splitting Sarajevo in the former Yugoslavia.

She knew Serbian snipers watched and tracked her through rifle scopes. One shot and the then-16-year-old girl would be wounded in a city that Serbs wanted cleansed of Muslims.

"It was the longest walk I have ever taken," she said. "It seemed like a couple of hours."

"It actually takes about 20 seconds to walk across," said Almir Kalender, Sanela's husband, also from Sarajevo.

Ironically, she escaped Sarajevo with help from Serbians -- neighbors of her family, including a Serbian army officer, who "looked after us."

Serbian troops were to let her cross the bridge. Still, she was terrified.

She went to Belgium to live with an uncle.

Meanwhile, Almir Kalender, his brother, Armin, and their parents had been living with a relative in Munich, Germany, since fleeing Bosnia in late 1992.

Sanela returned to Bosnia after seven months when the Dayton Peace Accords ended the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia. Almir and his family came back in 1997.

Almir and Sanela met at the University of Sarajevo, fell in love and married.

Even with the peace treaty, fear and tension squeezed Sarajevo. Serbian war criminals and their supporters, who had tortured, murdered and raped Bosnian Muslims, remained on the loose.

Sanela, Almir, Armin and the brothers' parents decided to immigrate to the United States. In 2000, the Kalender clan settled in Greensboro, with help from Lutheran Family Services.

Almir and Sanela found jobs with Quaintance-Weaver Restaurants & Hotels, which owns the O. Henry Hotel, Green Valley Grill and Lucky 32.

Sanela and Almir also enrolled at UNCG, joined by Armin Kalender.

The three will graduate together Friday at UNCG's commencement.

Sanela's mother and brother, a law student, are coming from Bosnia. So is the uncle in Belgium with whom Sanela found haven during the war.

Sanela, 26, Almir, 29, and Armin, 22, seem guarded when they talk about the war. At least one family member was killed -- Sanela's 80-year-old grandfather. He was tortured and murdered even though he was old and posed no threat to the Serbians.

Sanela found it hard to fathom that before the war, Serbians and Muslims lived as neighbors in Sarajevo. They worked and socialized together. The breakup of the communist nation of Yugoslavia, however, unleashed old ethnic hatreds between Serbs and Muslims.

During the four-year war, families were wiped out and thousands of Bosnian women were traumatized by Serbian soldiers who used rape to humiliate the Muslim community.

"That something like this was happening in the late 20th century -- and in Europe -- was hard to believe," Sanela Kalender said.

The couple and Armin said they won't forget the horrors of Bosnia, but they won't dwell on the past, either. The three are young, forward-looking and, they said, grateful to be in "a great country and have great jobs."

For sure, peculiarly American actions astonish them, such as during the 2004 presidential election when the U.S. president was called a liar and coward. But at the same time, the couple smiled. Where else in the world could people speak that way without fear of ugly consequences?

Even in democratic Germany and Belgium, Sanela and Almir said, they did not feel as free as they do in the United States. In those countries, not being natives made them feel like outsiders.

In the United States, they said, they feel accepted and as though people want them to succeed and become Americans. With college degrees, Sanela and Almir will assume increased responsibility with Quaintance-Weaver.

Sanela, who majored in finance, works in accounting in the company's West Wendover Avenue office. Almir, who majored in information systems, also works there on the company's computer system.

Dennis Quaintance, the company's co-founder, said Almir will be heavily involved in the company's next major project, the Proximity Hotel, to be built on an undetermined site.

Quaintance describes Sanela as cheerful, a quintessential professional, an immaculate dresser and such a keen listener "that you feel like she has radar."

"They are so continental," Quaintance said of the couple, laughing, "that I feel like I need to dress up a lot nicer when I'm around them."

The Kalenders exude the energy, determination and dreams that immigrants have displayed for generations. They took their college studies seriously. They were sometimes surprised that American-born students often didn't ask questions in class or meet with professors afterward.

At the University of Sarajevo, professors rarely dealt one-on-one with students; Sanela and Armin found that UNCG professors welcomed it.

But the couple means no offense to fellow students. Sanela and Almir were older students, and "first-generation immigrants appreciate the freedom and opportunity of America more, I believe," he said. "You don't take anything for granted."

Assimilation is not a negative to them. They enjoy American food and entertainment. They've been back to Sarajevo, where Sanela's father is retired and her mother, a banker, is helping the city recover pre-war prosperity and ethnic tolerance.

"I wish my parents were here," Sanela said. "That's the only thing I miss about Bosnia."

The commencement ceremony falls on what's supposed to be one of the unluckiest days of the year, but which has turned out to be the luckiest for the Kalenders.

They arrived in America on a Friday the 13th. They will graduate on a Friday the 13th.

Another major milestone looms for the Kalenders: Later this year, Sanela, Almir, Armin and the brothers' parents will raise their right hands and become U.S. citizens.

Home | Menus & Wine List | Get Lucky & Go | Hours & Call Ahead | Cary Restaurant |
Greensboro Restaurant | Recipes | luck-E-news
Gift Certificates | More About Us | Careers | Contact Us

Looking for a Greensboro Hotel? Or another great Greensboro restaurant?