Calgary man searches for group of women who helped him emigrate to Canada 3 decades ago | 24CA News
Ivo Ceko was a member of a army police unit that was guarding a resort in a city in central Bosnia when he met a bunch of younger Canadians and Americans in the summertime of 1994.
His English wasn’t superb again then, they usually couldn’t communicate fluent Croatian — however they managed to change some sentences.
“We chat, we laugh,” he recalled in a latest telephone interview. “I didn’t expect anything from that (meeting).”
When a younger girl within the group informed Ceko that she was travelling dwelling to Canada and requested if she might carry him something again, he jokingly responded: “Get me a passport.”
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“’Really, you want to get out from here?”’ he remembered her asking. “I say, ‘who wouldn’t?’ It was a desperate situation.”
Three weeks later, the person in his thirties obtained a brown envelope. Inside have been clean Canadian immigration varieties and a pair of socks. He crammed out the paperwork, utilized for a visa and arrived in Canada in March 1997.
Now, practically three a long time later, Ceko is seeking to reconnect with the group to inform them how grateful he and his household are for what they did.
“I just want to find them and say thank you and, you know, hug them and maybe have a drink with them,” Ceko stated from Calgary.
Ceko doesn’t bear in mind a lot concerning the 5 – 6 women and men who helped him, asides from that they have been of their twenties and had a guitar.
He thinks they could have Croatian roots as they have been visiting after Croatia introduced its independence in 1991 — and through the brutal civil warfare that broke out throughout the former Yugoslavia within the years after — to see how issues have been going of their newly based ancestral nation.
They might have additionally been workers of charities affiliated with church buildings that have been concerned in delivering assist to the determined inhabitants again then.
He stated the members of the United Nations peacekeeping forces have been within the city and on the resort, however he doesn’t assume the group was a part of any army.
The news that he had obtained the varieties traveled quick throughout Novi Travnik, a small city the place everybody knew everybody. Soon, mates confirmed up, asking if they may make photocopies.
Ceko stated he doesn’t know the way many individuals truly emigrated to Canada utilizing the photocopies, however he’s certain that just a few — together with certainly one of his mates — did.
Until now, Ceko hasn’t had time to consider reconnecting with those that helped him. He’s spent the previous 26 years elevating two kids, sending them off to school, and beginning a flooring business.
He closed his business when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. His kids are actually grown and dwelling on their very own. As his sixtieth birthday closes in, he stated it’s the proper time to begin the search.
“I always have (finding them) on my mind, but I didn’t have the time. Now I have time,” he stated.
Last week, with the assistance of his daughter, he wrote a put up sharing his story on a Croatian-Canadian Facebook web page.
So far, he hasn’t uncovered any leads, however he hopes he’ll ultimately get “lucky” sufficient to fulfill the group that modified his life.
“I am going to tell them the happy story,” he stated. “They probably forget about that, but I didn’t.”
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