My grandfather, whom I never met because he died young before I was born, was a tram driver in Belgrade before World War II. He lost both legs in a tram accident and became an invalid. After the bombing of Belgrade, he moved with my grandmother and my mother to Osijek in Croatia. My grandmother later became a tram conductor.

When I was young (up to the age of five), I lived with my family and my paternal grandparents. I used to play all the time in the garden of our neighbours over the road, where there was an old tram. As a child, this was a very special place to play. Our neighbour was a plumber and he had converted the tram into a workshop.

Before the war, I studied Journalism in Sarajevo. I lived in the city centre in a studio next to the Cathedral. Trams ran beneath my window. Chiming Cathedral bells and the tinkling sounds of the trams were my daily music at home. Sarajevo is one of the first cities in Europe to have had trams. Even before Vienna. At the start of the war in Sarajevo, people tried to carry on their daily lives as normal.
The tram was one of the city’s defence symbols. They continued to run even when the city was under fire. I left Sarajevo when the trams stopped for the first time.

I moved to Amsterdam as a refugee 25 years ago. Time flies. Looking for a new life, finding myself, making it all come together and connecting it. It was a challenge. I founded a family and gave birth to my daughter Sara. We knew from the very beginning that she would be a ballerina. My mother had always dreamed of becoming a famous ballerina. I am named after the most the famous ballerina in the world, Maya Plisetskaya. My daughter fulfilled my mother’s wishes and started ballet when she was three and a half. This year she began her tenth season.

I am standing “on the point” of forging a new career as a photographer. Three years ago I embarked upon a new course of study at the University of Applied Photography (Fotovakschool). This is my final project with which I graduated. De Hallen in Amsterdam is an old tram depot which has recently been transformed into a cultural and shopping centre. The first time I went to De Hallen was for a ballet performance by the famous Royal Ballet from London.