With War Over, Kosovar Family to Return Home

Six months after Nuhi Vlashi, his wife and six of their nine children fled the Macedonian border town of Hani I Elezit in the midst of war to become Ventura County’s only Kosovar refugees, they are headed home.

They are scheduled to board a plane today.

In a group interview last week over popcorn and hot tea, family members took their cues from the 55-year-old patriarch. They politely entertained questions but revealed little through an interpreter about their perceptions of Simi Valley, where they spent their first month, America in general or the considerations that went into their decision to return.

“When the war was over, right away I thought about going back,” Vlashi said. “My mind was always set to go back when it was over, so there was nothing really to think about.”

Emrie Vlashi, 23, the most Americanized of the children with her love of hamburgers, pizza, Madonna and the Backstreet Boys, acknowledged that she and her sisters, Nurie, 24, and Feride, 21, had begun taking English lessons. They talked about staying in America, getting jobs, experimenting with a Western future that held broader opportunities than their Muslim town of 10,000.

They considered moving in again with Lloyd and Joan Martin, the Simi Valley couple who had hosted the Vlashis upon their immediate arrival, before an Albanian activist found the family a home of their own in Culver City.

“We were thinking at one time of staying,” Emrie said, bowing her head slightly, “but we decided to go as a family.”

“It’s better,” her father said firmly, “if we all go back.”

Thousands of other refugees still have the same decision before them. Altogether, 13,989 Kosovar refugees have come to America since last spring, according to the U.S. State Department. Of those, 609 were settled in California, about 120 in the Los Angeles Basin. Of the Kosovars in Los Angeles, about one-third are Vlashi relatives.

As of last week, 2,023 Kosovars throughout the United States had returned to their homeland. Nuhi Vlashi’s brother, Ibrahim, and his family went home last month. Three other adult brothers and their families have yet to make a decision, although Vlashi hopes that all will return.

The Vlashis cling to sweet memories of their modest one-story home, built brick by brick by Nuhi almost 30 years ago; of their neighborhood, their friends, most of whom survived; of the sounds and smells, the food and flowers and trees of home, which they cannot describe except to say that they are all different than in America.

Vlashi’s wife, 48-year-old Miradije, longs to see her three eldest sons, all grown. Two, who were studying and working in Western Europe, avoided the Serbian conflict entirely. The third fought in the Kosovo Liberation Army and has begun clearing the family’s ransacked home.

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On their return, the ugly realities of war may bear down with more force than they do now. The day before the Vlashis’ March 25 escape, Serb forces massacred 27 neighboring villagers, including two relatives. Most were beaten and thrown down an empty well, Vlashi said, a bomb tossed in behind them.

With no sizable Serb population in their town, the Vlashis don’t expect postwar conflicts.

But they know they will be returning to a cold and uncertain winter.

Serb soldiers stripped their home of its windows and doors, and they believe many of their belongings were stolen or ruined. They don’t know which personal treasures will be gone. And they’re not sure how easy it will be to replace the satellite TV system or stereo they owned, which connected them to the Western world.

The economy, they assume, is no better than when they left. With his construction skills, Nuhi could have plenty of work rebuilding homes, but there may be no money to pay him. The women will not work. Lloyd Martin, the Simi Valley video post-production executive who opened his home to the Vlashis, said he understands their decision to return.

“We Americans would all very haughtily say it’s a better life [here], but I seriously doubt it’s a better life,” he said.

“This is the land of opportunity, but how often do you see your parents, your friends? Civilization isn’t as civilized as we’d like to think it is.

“Who’s better off? They--who visit all day and knit and crochet and make food for their husbands--or us? I’m not so sure it’s us.”

Nurie and Emrie said their family will be forever grateful to the Martins, who cared for them for their first several weeks in California. During those weeks, the children spent much of their time playing and watching TV while the adults and older children watched the news to follow the conflict in Kosovo.

Lloyd Martin also took the family on road trips to Las Vegas, Yosemite and San Francisco, as well as to an amusement park.

“It’s a big fantasy,” Nurie said.

What lies ahead, though, is reality--a reality in keeping with decades of oppression and survival. Although the Kosovars in the Vlashis’ town have always called it Hani I Elezit, the Serbs years ago renamed it Djeneral Jankovic, after a Serbian military officer. Since the Serbian pullout, the Kosovar name has been restored.

Nuhi Vlashi’s parents lost their name years ago as well. When Serbs took over the territory in 1918, the Vlashis were forced to change their name to Sulejmanovic. It wasn’t until the mid-1950s, under Tito, that they were permitted to use their own surname again.

And so their escape to America, and their return, may be remembered years from now as just another part of their history. “Everything changed,” Emrie said. “But we are happy. It’s all passed.”

’ My mind was always set to go back when it was over, so there was nothing really to think about. ‘

NUHI VLASHI, Kosovo refugee