The Ban Bus

But away from the dollars and cents and back to the people..

Greeks really are animal lovers. In the din of road noise and shattered bearings in the fans I could not sleep. Standing in the dark gazing out the window I see another act of animal kindness. A woman walked down the back lane in the middle of the night oblivious to my presence and has a big bag of something. It ends up being cat food as no sooner did she appear then a few local strays turned up. She had little bowls in hidey holes about the place and was putting a handful of food in each. The cats stroked her legs and tucked in for a midnight snack as she wandered off to another secret rendezvous. I followed her only a few metres and there she resupplies another secret stash. It’s just another tiny piece of the jigsaw that makes me feel that there is a huge social conscience here and getting public pressure against cluster bombs is possible.

The morning comes and I have one more engagement at the University of Macedonia. A Professor there has invited me to talk to her international relations course. We battle the traffic to the University and get out of the taxi. I find a guard and ask him where room 7 is and he looks at my note and says, “Not here, this is Aristotle University”. The taxi driver has taken us to the wrong University. Panic sets in as there is only 20 minutes till I’m to talk. Luckily the right university is close so we run off down the street to the right place. In the front door and I ask a student where room 7 is. No idea is the reply. We ask a few more till finally someone has an idea and we head to the 3rd floor. Asking more people we are finally directed to a small theatre with a 7 on the door, made it with a few minutes to spare. Daniel has come down with a very nasty flu and is looking like a mercy killing will be the best option. We wait as there is still a lecture inside. A few students arrive and hang about the corridor too. The lecture runs over time till I start to feel a little uneasy. I ask a student if this is the international relations class of Mrs Perraki. She says no. More panic! I’d been sent to theatre 7, not room 7.

We head off again with Daniel constantly blowing his nose on toilet paper. He is starting to sound like a horn chorus in a British Hunt Club. “On On, Honk Honk!” A door is ajar and a guy sitting and writing.

“Excuse me, do you speak English?”
“Of course.”
“Can you tell me where Mrs Perraki is and her international relations class.”
“Yes, Mrs Perraki is upstairs, please come with me.”

Off we go to the next floor and the offices of other professors. Mrs Perraki’s door is locked.

“She must be in class, room 7 did you say?”
We head off again as Daniel strikes the chorus at the rear till finally we arrive at room 7.

Mrs Perraki’s face lights up as her guest lecturer enters all sweaty and flustered.

“Very sorry for the late arrival” and start to pull out the data projector and computer. I launch into the talk as everything is starting up. This is an international university where the working language is English so there are no language barriers here.

After one computer data projector snag I am in full flight and alls going well. The students are quite taken aback particularly when we talk about Greece having cluster bombs for defence. “That means, you will use them on your own soil”. Their faces drop and an outraged feel runs through the room. We certainly have converts to the cause here. Mrs Perraki is going to stay engaged and teach the lessons of the CMC and ICBL in her future courses. We will connect her to the campaign and feed her as much relevant information as possible. She is an International Humanitarian Law Lawyer who is now a professor and a long time member of Amnesty International. She definitely has a social conscience and wants to challenge her students to make a difference, not just a salary.

We head back to the hotel and Davor has driven back to pick us up. Daniel is a ball of sweat and snot and rapidly falls asleep on the back seat for our four hour drive to the border with Turkey. At least that stops him coughing and sneezing.

We drive and chat till we arrive in Alexandroupolis and Davor is making cryptic jokes about the hotel. “Hotel Panorama, maybe because it’s in a panorama, a view, of not the sea,” says Davor. We drive on till we need to turn left and there is no way as all places have no U turn signs. There is a set of lights and the police have a speed trap there working the opposite direction. We pull up at the lights, wait for the green arrow and make the turn up the side road. When we get to the top of the hill we turn around and drive back to the lights to make the turn in the direction we want. The police wave us over immediately and a young sergeant comes up.

“Where are you from?” he asks. “Aren’t the road signs the same in your country?”

We answer and say many are the same. He walks Davor off to point at the road. Daniel and I have no idea what he is on about. They come back and he inspects the vehicle papers. Davor is trying to soften him up and explains what we are about.

“Hey guy, we are doing humanitarian work and you and me are brothers, come on, let us go” he says.

The officer walks around the Bus and reads the signs. He finally cracks a smile when Davor shows him the spelling mistakes and the little bits of extra magnetic signage that we corrected the mistakes with.

“Ok,” says Davor, “now you must sign out petition.” He grins and waves us on.

“Only because you do important work,” his words fade as we drive away.

Mette has had good meetings in Alexandroupolis and although there are no presentations to do there are some excellent contacts made. These will pay off in the future as we focus more attention on Greece and the region. Turkey tomorrow and the whole new country game starts again.

On checkout, Mette logged onto her bank and the money was paid in at last. It had taken 18 days. There had been a screw up somewhere in the bank and as soon as the money was paid from London to Mette’s account in Norway it was bounced straight back to London. Of course the wonder of banking customer service means they wouldn’t dream of telling you there was a problem now would they. There used to be an ad in Australia for a bank that finished with “We never forget it’s your money” but they forget to add “And we have it now, not you!”