Mr. Khouri paused before he went on. “Yugoslavia was created, in a way, after World War I, but back then they called themselves a kingdom, and after World War Two they changed again—to a federation made up of six republics and two provinces. They had a president called Tito who was very powerful, but after he died the different parts of Yugoslavia started fighting. . . .”

He leaned forward in his chair to put his elbows on his knees. “A few years ago, some of those republics started breaking away—they didn’t want to be part of Yugoslavia anymore, they wanted to be independent. Be their own country.”

“What’s so bad about that?” Sam asked, and Mr. Khouri shook his head.

“Nothing bad about it, except for some leaders who thought they were losing control and getting only a little bit of power instead of a lot . . . and those who didn’t like the way the new countries were forming or the new maps that were being made; some people felt like they would be outnumbered if they broke away from the larger territories.”

“Outnumbered by who?” someone asked.

Mr. Khouri sighed again. “The different religions and ethnicities—the people—within all the different territories of Yugoslavia.”

“Is that what the war in Kosovo is about?” I asked.

“It’s partly that, yes; we’re told that another country called Serbia is trying to claim control over Kosovo, to make it its own. And Serbia doesn’t want a particular group of people to live there anymore—those who are called ‘ethnic Albanians,’ which is why Kosovar Albanians are mostly the ones seeking sanctuary. . . .” Mr. Khouri said.

“I still don’t get it,” Sam said. “Why can’t they just live together? Why did they have to start a war?”

“Lots of reasons that don’t make much sense if you really get down to it, which is true of all wars, really,” Mr. Khouri said. “But one reason is that the entire region—called the Balkans—has a very long and complicated history, going back centuries, and some people remember that history very differently. It could also be that Kosovo happens to be a majority Muslim country, and Serbia is mostly Christian . . . and I guess they don’t like that they each have different ways of doing things. And then it’s probably that a whole lot of powerful countries that are not even part of the Balkans are trying to take control of the situation and get involved in things they don’t really understand.”

Mr. Khouri stood up again. “Mostly I think a lot of this started because a whole bunch of people thought that maps are what make a country. But we all know—fifth and sixth graders—that that’s not how geography works, is it? Remind me: What is geography really about?”