Why I love the Balkans: in the 1960s Ruth Mackenzie spent four years in Yugoslavia, where her husband was a British diplomat.

It is natural to love one's own country. But how can one explain an unbidden and unexpected love for a place and people with whom one's life has hitherto had no connection? This is still my feeling for the Balkans and, in particular, for former Yugoslavia.

On our arrival in communist Croatia in 1965, all was grey in the autumn rain--and my spirits became grey as well. Yet behind this gloom bright colours of adventure waited. Whatever the political system, there were people to get to know, countryside to explore, culture to appreciate and history to understand. Over the next four years I came to admire this vigorous people, with such a capacity for survival through hardship, humour in the darkest times, and kindly generosity to the stranger in their midst.

Early one morning we were woken with the news that a British holiday plane had crashed at Ljubljana in Slovenia. We hastened to the scene. The Slovene doctor, head of the burns department at the local hospital, had arranged for the Slovene patients to be moved into the corridors so that the injured survivors might have the best care. The 96 dead had been laid in coffins, each one covered with a Union Jack, made specially by the women of the town, and crowned with a posy of Alpine flowers gathered by their children. I can never forget this detailed care for unknown victims from another land.

Through all the harsh times of war and communist government, the resilient Slav spirit sought better things, with sacrifice and humour. At the height of the student unrest in Zagreb in 1968, the politician in charge came to our home one evening and poured out his frustrations. He talked about his experience as a young partisan in Tito's army during World War II. One day as he tended a mortally wounded comrade he was astonished to hear him whisper, `Young man, do you believe in God?' When he replied, `No, comrade,' the response came, `When you come to dying, you think of these things.' `I think now,' said the politician, `that we may have been wrong to abolish God before we had something to put in his place.'

Recent events make it seem as if God has been replaced by the old demons of vengeful nationalism and ethnic hatred. A Bosnian doctor, writing to us from his besieged hospital in Mostar, said, `The wounds I deal with are terrible, but the hatred is worse, and who will cure that?' It is agonizing to watch a people you love sliding into the abyss. Can we hope that God has not abandoned them?

Driving through Kosovo 30 years ago, my husband and I ignored a red warning light on our car. The countryside was too entrancing. At nightfall, our engine died in a village near Prizren. Everyone gathered round and helped us to the town. Next morning we discovered a mechanic in the local garage who had just returned from an engineering course in the north of England, and knew how to mend our British car. Which of our helpers were Serb, which Albanian? They were all good Samaritans.

During the worst of the Bosnian war, my husband had the unexpected thought to `reach out to the Serbs'. He made several adventurous journeys to Belgrade and built up a network of friendships with people in many walks of life. A Protestant minister he met as he passed through Hungary recommended that he contact a Catholic priest in Bosnia. So began a friendship with a man who is now playing a key role in peacekeeping initiatives across the Balkans.

Many people call for new leadership in the Balkans: but it may come from unexpected sources. Thirty years ago we decided to befriend a group of rowdy students who invaded my husband's office in Zagreb. Today one of them is Bosnia's Ambassador to Japan. He wrote us recently that as he sat in the imperial coach on his way to present his credentials to the Emperor, he reflected on the vicissitudes of his life--penniless student, medical doctor, refugee from war and now suddenly ambassador. `I was acutely aware that the pomp was due to my post, and that I am just an ordinary poor fellow who has the opportunity to perform a service for my country,' he wrote. Such men give one hope for the Balkans.

The Catholic priest from Bosnia said to us recently, `Talking about reconciliation can be too easy.' He must know. Yet, in spite of the long road towards real peace, I steadfastly retain hope. There is another way, a better destiny for brothers who keep fighting each other. I never forget the words of a great Orthodox Patriarch who said to a friend of ours: `When we reach the next world, we shall not be asked about our differing doctrines: we shall be asked how much we loved each other.'