The Ban Bus

I handed my tattered faceless passport over to the pretty blonde at Belgrade immigration as I entered Serbia and she scowled at the lack of anything on the cover. It’s fast turning into a dog-eared worn scrap and not the international identity pass that it should be. All printing on the cover has worn away and it bulges with many old stamps and visas. It’s the biggest passport I could get for the frequent traveller and its sixty four pages are three quarters filled in only five years.

Blondie opens the book and cracks up laughing. “You have dancing penguins in your passport?” she chuckles and shows her friend seated next to here. Together they start to paw through the pages as the atmosphere changes. “Here’s a pretty one, a polar bear and Yemen is fancy as is Afghanistan and Lebanon.”

“Yes, I do a little work in the Arctic and Antarctic and the odd war or two in between,” says me as she looks at me curiously.

“Well now I must give you my little stamp too,” she says, “sorry it is not fancy at all” as she thumps down on an empty corner in the book. We grin at each other and I am back in the Balkans.

My old black pack is doing laps of the baggage carousel and I remember that I originally got it in Bosnia as NATO issue and it’s been the best and only bag I have used for the past 12 years. Shouldering the burden I head out into the arrivals hall to look for a friendly face after three days of really nasty travelling. Bodies press in and scan the arriving passengers as recognition turns to hugs and kisses. They are then quickly whisked to waiting cars. That works for all except me as not a face in the crowd greets me. All alone, again.

The dates were confused and everyone thought I would come tomorrow. I start calling contacts and try to unravel where anyone is as I have no local numbers with me. So much for planning today. After a lap of the address book I finally get hold of Emil, my old friend and the resident representative for Norwegian Peoples Aid in the Balkans. Emil has the best solution, get a taxi to his office and we can work it out from there.

The taxi rank is the usual mix of snake charmers and assorted rip off merchants and all claim that they can’t use the fare meter as there is too much traffic etc, etc, etc. I finally cut a deal that works for both and I’m on my way. I do get a small piece of vindictive glee when we get stuck in really bad traffic and I can see the driver’s plan of making a fast buck evaporates. “Pity I’m not paying you by the meter. You would have made a fortune out of me with all this time in traffic,” says me. A grimace passes his face.

Emil is at the door of the NPA office and a coffee is waiting and of course he knows how to track Mette down. My Scandihooligan Princess has already been here for a week now, putting a lot of the ground logistics for the Ban Bus into place. All is quickly sorted and I head for a nearby hotel.

The Ban Bus is shaping up to be an epic voyage of advocacy from Serbia to Oslo. The route is going to be gruelling as we roll out of Belgrade in two days then take the gentle drive over 10,000 km.

Serbia, Macedonia, Greece, Turkey, Romania, Bulgaria, Bosnia, Croatia, Slovenia, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Sweden and finally, Norway. Twenty-one countries in sixty days, add a closing winter and snow and terrible roads as we head north and it will be quite a trip.

You don’t pull a Ban Bus out of your left ear. It takes a lot of planning at every level from getting money, to who will be on it, as to what is our message and how will we get it across. Then there is the problem of access to political decision makers, what it will take to get the message into the media and how do we get the general public in these counties engaged. The size and scope of this task is huge but then you don’t create an international disarmament treaty out of fresh air and think it will be an easy path to make it work. Get smart, get busy and engage on every level from man in the street to Presidents and Kings. No stone can be left unturned or angle unexplored.

One of the hardest tasks is actually to educate governments and militaries on the realities of the problem in a cluster bomb effected country. The simple thing is that the diplomats and military representatives that make the decisions have rarely ever been on the ground in an effected place and of the handful who have, were generally only on an “affected country tour”, which of course makes them instant experts. The irony here is that the experts in these issues are with the aid workers and journalists who are on the ground before, during and after conflicts along with the local people who are stuck with the permanent dangerous legacies. No fly by night visitors here, field reality is their stock in trade. So the problem then remains, how to get the reality into the minds of the decision makers. The answer from us is the Ban Bus.

Mette’s ability to work never ceases to amaze me and she is pulling all the logistics together single handed. Everything from sourcing a bus to printing, translations, designing, networking, international liaisons to our next countries have all been handled by her. Truly a one woman corporation. I am unfortunately not going to be much help to her over these coming days as Emil wants me to head south with his cluster bomb survey teams and see what we can find out about areas that might still be affected by unexploded bomblets.

Before this new journey begins there is enough time to adjourn to a local restaurant. As I have a fair dose on cannibal in me I love the Balkans as it’s a meat eater’s dream. These people love their meat and know just how to have it, tender and juicy. If you don’t like meat then get into the wine! Magnificent Cabernets can tickle your taste buds or any number of whites. Yum. We vacuum up the first bottle of red and steaks follow soups with a bit more red and by the time we brave the evening air I am really tired and fairly wobbly. Lucky the hotel was only one hundred metres away.