A Painful Exchange
From war-torn Croatia to heartbreak in America
By Amalie Benjamin, Globe Staff | June 2, 2005
TEWKSBURY -- The knee-high cross, covered in flowers, stands upright at
the foot of the driveway. The poster of a missing person, half covered
now with a note of thanks, serves as explanation. The face, one that
belonged to the woman whose remains were found almost two months ago in
Tyngsborough, means little to Slaven Krejacic.
It is not his tragedy. But he has lived it.
Strife has surrounded Krejacic, a foreign exchange student, from his
native Croatia to Tewksbury. He grew up amid a war in Zagreb, the
country's capital, the fighting touching him only obliquely. He came to
the United States seeking something different.
He found it.
He had come looking for an American experience. He got one. It wasn't the one he had hoped for.
Living with a host family devastated by the tragedy of a missing
daughter, Krejacic had to create his own order: drama, graphic arts,
tennis. This was what he wanted. This was convention.
Then came the discovery of the body of Christina Lunceford, his host parents' grown daughter out on her own, seven weeks ago.
Like the war that brought his country notoriety and news broadcasts,
the death wasn't his. Insulated from the former and invested only
peripherally in the latter, Krejacic could only offer sympathy, not
empathy.
''I can't really know her," Krejacic said. ''I don't
know the sound of her voice. I don't know how she acts. So it's hard
for me to even imagine some connection with her. But I still feel bad
for the people who are going through this because I feel connected with
them."
With an illusion of perfection, fed by Hollywood, Krejacic had arrived to find a world far from his expectations.
A houseful of children
Michelle Lunceford sits on the couch in a living room dominated by the
squawking of a rooster and a television the size of a billiard table.
Nearly three weeks since the body of her missing daughter was
discovered and identified, Lunceford does not know what to say.
How many children does she have?
The question stops her.
She gets mixed up in verb tense. She had five. Five children along with a number of foster kids and exchange students.
Four of her children remain alive.
Even before the tragedy, normal had never been a part of her household.
For years, Michelle Lunceford and her husband, Dave, have taken in
children, beginning with foster kids and moving on to exchange students
15 years ago. Her house has always been full. She likes it that way.
That's why she took in Krejacic. That's why she also took in Michael
Son, an exchange student from Korea. That's why she then took in
Christina Kim on an emergency basis, after Kim's original host family
didn't work out.
It wasn't chaos to her.
''It's
the way I'm most comfortable, with a lot of kids around," Lunceford
said. ''And Slaven, actually, is quite compassionate, quite aware. If I
were having a bad day, he'd walk in after school, look me in the eye
and say, 'Today wasn't so good, was it?' I think he picked up on my
feelings probably more than my own family at times."
With
Krejacic, the other two foreign exchange students, and two of
Lunceford's own children still living at home, the house is replete
with people. Then, of course, there are the animals.
More than
100 animals inhabit the house, many in glass cages, which creates the
feeling of living in a pet store. A skunk skitters around the kitchen,
claws clacking on the tile. There are roosters, a kinkajou (imagine a
cross between a raccoon and a monkey), and an African fox.
But what's there cannot ever make up for what isn't.
The skeletal remains of Christina Lunceford were discovered on April 9
in a wooded area in Tyngsborough. Eight months had passed since she
disappeared, days shy of her 21st birthday. Dental records were
required to identify the body.
Police are considering it a homicide. There were no arrests as of Tuesday.
Krejacic never met her, never spoke with her. Her body was found during his school vacation.
''I really felt bad, but I tried to look at it from the positive side,"
Krejacic said. ''They expected this, but there was still hope. I just
look at it as the agony's finally over. You don't have to worry anymore
where she is now. It's not the best place. It's not where you want her
to be. But at least you know. At least you don't have to worry about
all the other options, the horrible options you were worrying about. I
look at it that way. It was hard because I really like these people."
Vague memories of warHe has been through a war. Been through conflict and death already. He was surrounded by suffering.
Does this make it any easier?
He laughs, uncomfortably. For Krejacic, even war wasn't war.
War was more like a game. Abashed at his own words, he calls them horrible. That doesn't, however, change his feelings.
''It was actually fun at times," he said. ''I loved the times when the
sirens went off and we'd have to run to the basement. I never saw the
war. I was always so protected. It was a game for me, running to the
basement. It was like, 'OK, this is fun.' I just liked the excitement.
I mean, I was a kid. I didn't really know what was going on. I didn't
feel that I was really affected by the war and my dad didn't go to the
war, so I couldn't feel it in that."
During the conflict in
the former Yugoslavia, Krejacic, cloistered in his hometown of Zagreb,
didn't see its effects, didn't experience them personally. He was just
5 years old when it began in 1991.
''Because I lived in a big
city and I lived in a capital city, so it was really protected,"
Krejacic said. ''It affected me in a way like a lot of different people
came into my city, a lot of new people like refugees and people whose
families lost their homes and moved into the city. I met a lot of
different people."
Michelle Lunceford interjects. She doesn't
want Krejacic to regard his reaction to war that way. She gently
siphons off the blame. How could he have understood? To him, war meant
sirens. Nothing more.
An agency disconnect
Sally Dake clearly is confused.
The name ''Slaven Krejacic" has not registered and panic lilts through her voice.
Dake, from the student exchange agency that brought Krejacic to the
United States, promises to call back. She makes assurances that it will
take no more than 24 hours.
''As far as I knew, everything was
OK," Dake, director of field coordination with Face the World, said
from Boise, Idaho. ''No one had mentioned it at any time. I think it's
strange that no one mentioned it."
She didn't know about
Christina, weeks after her remains had been found. Neither did
community representative Rita Fardella, the person responsible for
Krejacic's well-being in the country and the program. Evidently
Fardella, who works a day job as a case manager for people with
disabilities, was on vacation in early April during the discovery.
Fardella said she missed the news.
How could she not know?
''I can only answer that as best as I can," said Fardella, who lives in
New Hampshire. ''I came in only for this year, without a contract. I
know I'm not staying on. I never signed another contract. . . . I've
been getting busier and busier with my own job. I'm not around during
the day to go to the schools. I just don't have that kind of time
because my own job has been getting more and more intricate."
Dake later stresses that the situation will be different next year, for
the next crop of exchange students. The regional director for New
England, Martha Perkel, who oversaw Fardella, left the company at the
beginning of May.
''You'd think in those smaller towns that
things are relatively safe," Dake said. ''You have someone train the
reps. You think they know what they're supposed to do. . . . I wouldn't
have questioned if there was anything going on there. There isn't
anything in the reports that said there was a problem.
''I guess we're learning a lesson here."
A turbulent transition
Krejacic started hesitantly at Lowell Catholic High School. Private
school wasn't what he wanted. It wasn't public school. But, if he were
to come to the United States, that was his option.
''I was
kind of bored," Krejacic said of life in Croatia. ''I really wanted to
change everything. I just wanted to see something completely different,
so I just decided to go somewhere totally different, where I don't know
anybody and I don't know anything. I just wanted such a radical change."
He got it.
Krejacic arrived in the United States just as Lowell Catholic was
beginning classes in the fall, weeks after Christina had disappeared
and after he was supposed to come. There had been visa problems. The
transition didn't go smoothly, or quickly.
''I really wanted
to go back home," he said. ''It was so tough. It was just that radical
change. Maybe I had, like, bigger expectations. I was really, really in
a bad condition, like, the first month. I really wanted to stay in bed
the whole day long."
The changes were dramatic. He had wanted that. But it was far harder than he had expected. Different. Maybe too different.
He was popular enough back home that his friends made sure his prom was
postponed until he returned to the country. But here he had to start
over, get through life amid the sharp wit and sharper tongues of
American teenagers.
''The hardest thing is if he were a senior
in his own country, he'd have all his friends, doing things every day,"
Lunceford said. ''Now you come to America, the seniors already have
their friends. They already have their little cliques and their little
groups. It's hard to get into one in the 12th grade. If they come as a
ninth-grader, the kids have more of a chance of being popular and
having more friends."
Tennis helped. By the time spring season
arrived, he was far more comfortable with his surroundings, his new
country. Krejacic scanned a mental list of potential activities and
settled on the sport. Self-deprecating in his assessments of his tennis
prowess -- or lack thereof -- he acknowledges his mediocre play wasn't
the reason he decided to join.
''He had never really played
organized tennis, but he was hoping to get an extracurricular activity
in while he was in the States," Lowell Catholic tennis coach Dave
Gilpin said. ''That's why he joined."
Krejacic disappeared
from the courts for two weeks after the discovery of Christina's body.
He didn't talk about it much when he returned, Gilpin said, and his
play was no different. He still served well, still had trouble with the
low ball, still tried to improve.
Heading home
Krejacic graduated with honors from Lowell Catholic last Friday,
Lunceford said. The high school's website says he is hoping to attend
the Croatia University of Journalism. He was scheduled to head back to
Croatia today. The prom awaits.
A few weeks ago he said he was missing the urban lifestyle, club hopping until dawn. That, he said, is normal for him.
It was different in Tewksbury, smaller and sadder.
The tragic situation at his guest family's home cut into his search for
normalcy. There was someone gone. He may not have known her, but the
void was unmistakable. Amid the clutter and the craze and the clucking,
he could see it. He could feel it.
And yet, he understood it could never be his.
''In order to know somebody," Krejacic said, ''you really have to meet the person. I didn't have that."
Amalie Benjamin can be reached at abenjamin@globe.com.
© Copyright 2006 Globe Newspaper Company.
Student exchange organization: Face the World (FTW)
