Now living three hours south in Sarajevo, she makes occasional return visits to Banja Luka. It's her home town, and her family were here for generations. As a teenager, she lived for several years with the war-time threat, and then the reality, of being forced out. These days, Aida sometimes makes a stop-over in Banja Luka with foreign consultants. She's actually trained as a dental technician, but most people with good English find their language ability's a much more marketable skill.
Ethnic origin counts in a way it never used to.
In fact, Dayton merely recognised a fait accompli - Bosnian Serb leader and indicted war criminal Radovan Karadzic established RS in 1992. The other of the two entities, Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, is a collection of 10 mainly Muslim or Croat cantons, each with its own separate administration, president, prime minister and cabinet. Everywhere, minorities are routinely discriminated against when it comes to finding a job or adequate housing, and the wheels of bureaucracy run on grace and favour with a large dash of croneyism. Getting anything done, from acquiring a driving license to installing a phone to getting an apartment is dependent on 'knowing' someone. Even people in work can find their salaries are slashed, or routinely paid months in arrears.