Nadia, Owen, Oliver and Ocean – The Kralovec Family
The popularity of the social networking web site Facebook (FB) has got me thinking about its role in the learning of students at ISB. I am also pondering our use of technology tools (software / websites) at the school.
I see that I was thinking the same as Stanford University. They are offering a Facebook for Parents course .
This is another good website to get you thinking about the subject. It is my goal to produce guidelines for teachers, students, and parents on using these tools.
We had a nice Sunday as we are in a long weekend. There is no school today due to the National Day of Serbia. Sunday we started the day with playing football and making a snow fort in the yard. We then went to Oliver’s classmate’s birthday party at the Grand Hyatt. Wonderful location as they have a gourmet all-you-can-eat buffet and they turn the bar into a children’s playroom. The kids and adults both had a nice time.
We then went over to the Moynihan’s for a dinner party. Tim wanted to celebrate the newcomers to Serbia making it 6 months! I came home exhausted after chasing around the kids and eating and drinking well. Some people joked that in my black shirt and shaved pate, I looked like the typical Serbian gangster. Nadia and I are pictured above enjoying a little peace and quiet while the kids sleep in the car.
Heading off the basketball practice this morning.
Above is a photo I took last weekend. We were on the way to an open market in New Belgrade. We stopped at the traffic light, and these three gypsies were asking for handouts from cars waiting in line. At the major intersections downtown and in New Belgrade, it is common to have gypsy beggars or window washers. It has been a source of fascination for our family since our arrival. This is my second post (for my first post, click here) on the gypsies and I intend to do more while I am living here.
I recently finished reading Isabel Fonseca’s excellent book, “Bury Me Standing: The Gypsies and Their Journey” in which she writes of her experiences of living with the Romany people of several Eastern European countries for 4 years.
There are over 100,000 gypsies living in Belgrade. They are an on-going social problem in the city. They get little support from the government and have difficulty integrating themselves into modern, Serbian society. The latest news was the government moving (bulldozing) of a settlement in New Belgrade. It seems that no one wants them to live in their neighborhood. There are gypsies that are successful, but most are extremely poor and outside of normal society. Beside hustling for money at intersections, they are also seen collecting cardboard and other recyclable materials or selling junk at markets in New Belgrade.
They remind me of the Aboriginal people of Australia. They have their completely separate culture and lifestyle living right next to a majority “Western” culture. They are closer to the North American Indians, and are more integrated than the Aboriginals, but the same view applies. Like the Slavs, the migrated to Serbia from the east. Researchers discovered they originally came from India, leaving about 16-20 generations ago (approximately 12th century). They stopped in central Asia (Armenia) and reached Serbia and eastern Europe in the 14th and 15th centuries. Their official name possibly dates back to their original caste in India. Fragments of their Indian origin are maintained today in many words in their language and their Hindu-like customs of cleanliness and superstition.
Their original nomadic lifestyle has ended in modern times. Today they are mostly poor, illiterate, living on the edges of cities and towns. There are an estimated 6 -11 million gypsies world wide with most in Eastern Europe. The biggest population is in Romania. Fonseca reasons they were used as slaves in historical Romania and that explains the high numbers there. They have been persecuted since their arrival to Europe. They are the forgotten part of the Holocaust.
The girl above is probably the mother of the baby in her arms. Gypsies have their own cultural norms and one of them is to become a mother as soon as physically possible. What is amazing is many are illiterate with no concept of history, time, and Western cultural literacy.
Ocean is up and I need to attend to her. I’ll be writing more in the near future…
Below are some excerpts from the Rom News Network a website based in Germany that produces news items about the Romany people. I took the excerpts from an article by Olga Nikolic, called, “Life on the Margins of Society” from 2001.
“Romanies form the youngest portion of the population in Serbia – over a half, 62 per cent of them, are under the age of 25, while only 4,1 per cent of them are over 60 years-old. The said age structure is accounted for by experts as the result of high birth and death rates and a low average life expectancy. According to some statistics, the average Romany life span is 10 per cent shorter than is the case when all other citizens of Serbia
Dragoljub Atanackovic, the president of the Romany Congressional Party, claims that 90 per cent of Romanies live in extremely insanitary conditions and that in Belgrade itself there are 60 enclaves with over 90 thousand Romanies living in wretched circumstances. “The social position of Romanies is exceptionally difficult. But three per cent of the population of working age are employed, only 31 per cent have primary school education, the rest are half-illiterate or illiterate. We do not have a single newspaper in our mother tongue or a radio and TV program financed by the government.
According to statistics, the rate of unemployment among Romanies is four times higher than is the case with the country’s majority nation and in the past ten years the negative ratio has doubled. Every fifth Romany of working age is illiterate and every third has merely primary education. A fifth of all Romany families have no earnings whatsoever, while the majority barely survive by doing odd jobs in the black market sector, such as selling contraband cigarettes and similar smuggled goods or by collecting secondary materials.”
The big news this week was Thursday’s snowstorm. We awoke to a winter wonderland after several weeks without snow. As I write this on Sunday morning, it is still coming down. It has been snowing intermittently for the past four days. We measured the snow level in our yard yesterday and it was 9 inches (23 centimeters). We considered school delays or cancellations Thursday and Friday, but the main roads in Belgrade were open. It is a wet snow and the roads are clear. Many of the secondary roads however, are not and it has given some people difficulty in getting around. The city did a pretty good job of clearing the roads. In my hometown of Caspian, Michigan, a place that gets a lot of snow, we have a rule that no cars can be parked out on the street at night. It makes it easy for the snow ploughs to clear the roads. That is not so here, hence the snow on the secondary roads.
We love the snow and took the kids to the tobogganing hill yesterday. We made a few runs, but Nadia and Ocean do not do very well in the snow. I also took the car to the shop to have the snow tires put on. The snow gives the city a whole new look and it is really beautiful.
It is not everyday that I find a message from my administrative assistant like the one above. “Oh, Mr. Kralovec, by the way, the Princess called you twice this morning and wants you to call her.”
Serbia does have a royal family. Princess Katherine married into the Serbian royal family and is from Greece. The crown prince of Serbia, Alexander Karađorđević, married Katherine in 1985 in London. It was the second marriage for both. Alexander’s family goes back to the first Serbian uprising against the Ottomans in 1804. His ancestor was the famous, Black George, who established an autonomous Serbia within the Ottoman Empire. George, like most Serbians at the time, came from typical peasant stock, growing up on a pig farm. Very nice to see that Serbia didn’t import their royals like many European countries did.
Alexander is the “crown prince” and the official heir to the vacant throne. His father, Peter, was the last king of Serbia before Tito and the communists came in 1945 and got rid of the monarchy. Alexander is a good guy, having come back to Serbia permanently in 2001. He says that Serbia must first establish a democracy before they can establish a monarch again. He lives close by in the Royal Palace. Katherine invited the school to come anytime to take tour.
Alexander and Katherine do much charitable work here in Seriba. Katherine heads the HRH Crown Princess Katherine Humanitarian Foundation
and she is working with the ministry of health to improve the health care system of the country. Her current focus is cervical and breast cancer. She had a charity fashion show last night to raise funds for a cervical cancer center. Serbia’s health care needs improvement and it is nice to see her taking a role in improving it.
Princess Katherine called asking if the school would promote the charity show with our families. I was hesitant to do this, because we often receive requests from organizations seeking access to our community. In this case, I allowed it because it was for a non-profit organization dedicated to helping Serbia. It is a chance for ISB to give back to our wonderful host country. I hope to visit the palace someday and meet the Princess in person.
That is a cool thing about living in a small country and working at an international school. I get to meet and work with the leaders of Serbia. If I was working in a school in the USA, that would not be possible. I feel honored and grateful to be a part of ISB.
One of the nice things about living in Belgrade after so many years in the “outback” of Venezuela, is the opportunity to attend cultural events. There are many concerts, plays, exhibitions held in Belgrade. This month Belgrade is hosting the 10th annual Guitar Art Festival. Sunday evening Sting and Bosnian Lutenist Edin Karamozov performed at the Sava Center in New Belgrade. Sting is one of my all-time favorite musical artists. (He ranks in my top 5 with U2, AC/DC, Seal and David Bowie) and I was thrilled to finally see him live in concert. The first half of the concert was devoted to his album, Songs From the Labryinth. This was like attending a lecture on the 16th century music. Sting learned to play the lute and brought back to life, the music of English composer John Dowland. The lute has many more strings than a guitar and the music is much more complex. Sting at his mature stage, is a bit bored with rock music and I am enjoying his growth and changes. The second half of the concert they played some old police songs and some other tunes, like the short snippet of video above, “Fields of Gold.” Sting’s voice was better live than the studio version! He is truly a great musician.
He said that he was going back into the studio to record a new album and I can’t wait to see what he comes up with.
It began with a phone call to my mother two weeks ago. She was a patient at the big, regional hospital in Marquette, Michigan. My dad took my mom to her usual hair appointment on Friday. He then went to help out at the church and when he returned, my mother could not get up from bed. He called 911 and eventually she was transferred from the Iron County Hospital to Marquette. She was there for several days. I talked to her on the phone once and she sounded okay, complaining of pain in her back and legs. My father said there was not much the doctors could do for her and they were looking at transferring her to a nursing home in Iron River. He said the situation was grave so I immediately made plans to fly to Michigan.
My mother was a diabetic for over 20 years. Diabetes runs in her family as many members have it. She received a kidney transplant from her brother over 10 years ago. Diabetes in the long term harms the body’s circulation, eyesight, and other vital organs. Mom was an active person and never smoke or drank. It was sad to see the debiliatating effects of the disease on her.
She kept asking my Dad what day it was and when the boys were going to come home. I live in Serbia and my brother Andy, (on the far left in the photo above) lives in Ecuador. I arrived in my hometown of Caspian, Michigan last Friday evening. On Saturday morning, we got a call from the nursing home where my mom was staying. She told the nurse that she wanted to see us before she passed away.
I went up there with my daughter Ocean. My mom recognized me and called my name. She asked for her glasses so she could see her only granddaughter. Ocean sat on the bed next to her. During the day, we stayed in her room and Dad and I helped her stay comfortable. She asked us to move her because her back, shoulders, and legs were sore. Andy arrived in the afternoon and the nurses moved her to a private room.
Her three sons, husband, and sister were with her when she passed. I held her hand and hugged her in her final moments. We all said goodbye and told her that we loved her. I promised to take care of the her grandchildren and especially to teach Ocean to be a good basketball player. My mother died around 5:00 PM Saturday.
The next few days were sad. It was good that my two brothers, Dad, and I were together to get the funeral organized. We went to the funeral home together to help write her obituary and plan the funeral. We made a large bulletin board of photos as a memory to her.
My mother suffered greatly her final couple of years. There were many trips to doctors and hospital stays. My father spent much time helping her out.
The funeral was really nice. Most of our relatives on her side of the family came as well as people from our small town of Caspian. On the way out of the church, the choir played the West Iron County High School fight song, a fitting tribute to a sporting woman who gave so much to school’s basketball program.
Nadia, Ocean, and I had to fly back the next day. We left Owen and Oliver back in Belgrade. The emails, letters, and words of sympathy from our family and friends, both here in Belgrade and the USA was overwhelming and greatly appreciated. She had a full life and passed away knowing that she had a postive impact on the lives of so many people. We will miss her.
It was also my first time in Michigan in February for many years. It was very cold (-27 C on the day we left) with heaps of snow.
Yvonne Kralovec, 68, of Caspian, Michigan, died peacefully on Saturday January 31, 2009 at the Iron River Care Center in Iron River, MI. It was an end to a long battle with diabetes. She was surrounded by her loving husband and sons, who flew from around the world to be at her side.
She was born on October 16, 1940 at the Stambaugh Hospital, the daughter of Arthur Alexander Heikkila and Silvia Wirtaanen. Arthur was a first generation Finnish-American immigrant and worked in the iron mines in the local area. After the mines closed, Arthur became a private contractor and built many homes and structures in Iron County. She used to tell us stories of growing up in the small town of Caspian with her six siblings and grandmother. They did not have indoor plumbing and used to take a sauna in leiu of baths. She used to get the cow from the pasture located on the slopes of Caspian hill. She had nine brothers and sisters, three died at birth. Silvia died from diabetes at age 51. Arthur remarried after the death of his wife, and eventually passed away from spinal cancer.
Yvonne was a 1958 graduate of Stambaugh High School. She worked at the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, Michigan in the medical records department for six months. She then got a job in Iron River as a receptionist for two doctors. She married Charles Kralovec on December 29, 1962 at St. Cecilia’s Catholic Church and the couple made their home at 508 Baltic Avenue in Caspian. Yvonne converted to Catholicism being raised a Finnish Lutheran. Charlie was her brother Daniel’s basketball coach at the Caspian School and that is how they met.
They tried for many years to have children, as both wanted a large family. This was before fertility treatments. They adopted two sons through Catholic Social Services, receiving Bill in 1967 and Jim in 1968. In 1972 they were blessed with a pregnancy and the birth of a third son, Andy.
Yvonne loved sports! She was an avid fan of all the Michigan and Detroit sport teams. She listened or watched every Tiger baseball team for decades. She was a fine athlete, although ahead of her time as women in the 1950’s and 60’s were not encouraged to do sports. Yvonne won many bowling tournaments in the Upper Peninsula and Wisconsin. Her greatest series was 614 (224 high game) in a mixed doubles tourney in 1969. She won three honor counts (600 total pins for three games) in her career and finished with an average of 70 and a highest ever game of 238. She was an outstanding infielder in fast-pitch and slow-pitch softball. Twice her teams (Gil’s Mileage & Dina Mia Kitchens) won Upper Peninsula titles and were runners-up in the State of Michigan.
Her biggest sporting legacy however is coaching basketball. She coached girls’ basketball for 42 years. She coached at the elementary, middle school, and high school levels. She helped found the West Iron County High School girls’ basketball team in 1974. Later, her son Jim coached the girls team for years. She influenced the lives of thousands of young women through coaching. She had a gentle heart with the kids and really knew the game of basketball. Her teams regularly won tourneys and games.
She is survived by her husband Charles, three sons, William (Nadia) Kralovec of Belgrade, Serbia, James (Michelle) Kralovec of Iron Mountain, Michigan, and Andrew Kralovec of Quito, Ecuador. Also surviving are a brother Daniel Heikkila of Green Bay, Wisconsin; two sisters Ione (James) Condon of Crystal Falls, MI, and Darlene (Bernie) Williams of Oneida, Wisconsin. There are also six grandchildren, Scott Youngren, Tony, Beau, Owen, Oliver, and Ocean Kralovec and numerous nieces and nephews. She is preceded in death by brothers Carl Maki, Wallace Heikkila, and a sister, Viola Nowicki.
Visitation will be today from 9 – 11:00 AM at the Saint Cecilia Church in Caspian. Funeral service will be also today at 11:00 AM at the St. Cecilia Church with Rev. Daniel Moll to offer the Mass of Christian Burial. Interment will be in the Stambaugh Cemetary in Iron River.
The family is asking memorial contributions made to the American Diabetes Association. Condolences can be expressed to the family on line at the Jacobs Funeral Home web site or here on my blog.
We will miss my mother! Although she had a stubborn, feisty personaility, underneath she had a warm heart. She was a dedicated wife and mother to us. She would attend every game or activity we had and her life revolved around her children and grand children. I developed my love of sports and an active lifestyle from her as well as the value of hard work. The last few years she really suffered from the long term effects of diabetes. I am happy that she is now free of the pain and that we were all there as she passed. Thanks for everything Mom, we love you.
It was a special West Iron County High School girls’ basketball game tonight. My father, Charles is pictured above with my brother Andy and daughter Ocean. He is the public address announcer for the school’s football, basketball, and track n’ field games. Tonight, the Wykons (West Iron County High School nickname) were taking on Kingsford High School and my Dad was at his usual post as the announcer.
There was a moment of silence before the game for my mother. Yvonne Kralovec started the girls’ basketball program at the school. The first team debuted in 1974. My mother coached girls’ basketball for a total of 42 years. She mostly worked with the younger students, ranging from grades 4 – 10. In her later years, she was the official scorekeeper for the games. It was nice to see her niece, Kim Heikkila, scoring tonight’s game. It was also a warm touch that all of the Wykon players when they were announced came over and shook my Dad’s hand. My mom coached all of the girls on the team at one time. I think it was also appropriate that her grand daughter, Ocean was at the game. She wanted to keep running out on the floor. Many of our friends came up to us to offer their condolences.
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