The Ban Bus

As we drove out of Zagreb there was a sombre mood, as we wondered if we were going to have trouble in the press over the Serb spelt sign. A changed letter and only on for ten minutes, we really hoped it would not take centre stage. Davor was very quiet till he confessed, “My country is gone”. When Yugoslavia tore itself apart not all relished the rise in nationalism. Davor went to Canada and stayed as far away from the madness as possible. He saw Yugoslavia under Tito as good for all. The subsequent collapse has helped no one in his eyes. The drama over having a little Serb spelling really made him sad.

We drove on and crossed into Slovenia and the border girl spelt out what we had been missing for so long, “You must pay!” This was a first rate rip off as she insisted on us paying a 36 euro toll to drive across the country. The country is only about 300 yards wide, so that hardly represents great value for money. “Oh but you can drive anywhere here for the next 6 months” she says. As we will be out of here in the next 2 hours this hardly makes us feel better.

Driving on and out the other side we are in Italy and I can taste the pasta already. The Balkans have been great but they eat a lot of meat and I have reached my fill of grilled lamb. I am craving some beautiful Italian food! The GPS even seems slightly calmer as we close in on Paduva, which is in the north east near Venice. I know nothing of this place so as we get closer and closer we are all becoming more impressed. The GPS actually gets us to the centre by Saint Antonio’s cathedral. The little hotel we’re staying in is across the road from the church and Diego is there to meet us. He is the local campaigner and there are a bunch of them at a restaurant around the corner.

Unfortunately we can’t all stay at the same hotel and Daniel and Davor are on the edge of town, so we park the Ban Bus in our hotel and they grab a taxi out to theirs. I hate splitting up but sometimes it’s necessary due to the cost of hotels. We will always rotate who gets the better hotel if this happens but it’s still nicer to all be together. When I think of it, Davor has had mansion rooms where ever we have gone so my sympathy metre drops a few notches. Daniel has had the run of dog boxes so if anyone should get something better it is him. They decide to just head to the hotel and sleep and leave Mette and me to meet the locals.

There is a core group of 10 local campaigners and they have been waiting here quite awhile for us to come. The menu is passed and my idea of Italian heaven is laid out in the pages. I order something that sounds magnificent and the waitress says, “Sorry, too late for pasta, we can only do pizza now”. I was like a kid who’d lost his puppy. The disappointment didn’t last too long, because shortly after we were tucking into pizza and most importantly, it was nice and spicy!

The local campaign has a stack of things organised for us for tomorrow so after the meal it’s off to bed till we met again at 8 am.

Davor and Daniel meet Mette and me in the car park and the Ban Bus transformation begins yet again. This time, it’s into English and Italian. The language sensitivities of the last few days start to drop away as the van become the Ban Bus again. Diego had prepared a pack of directions and timings so we plug them into our GPS and are on the road again.

Italian traffic is well, Italian traffic and of course we get lost. “Recalculating” says the GPS followed by “Recalculating”. Around and around we go with no idea if we are right or wrong. We call Diego and they are running late too. Finally they spot us heading up a road and we get the Bus in the front of a church. A crowd of excited young school kids are on the steps screaming “Welcome Ban Bus!!”

The priest has given us free run of the church and Mette and Daniel get the pictures out and banners up in the street as I start to talk to the kids. I don’t do a standard presentation as everyone I do is different from the last. I have been asked in the past if I can supply a copy of my speech and I say “sure, how fast can you write?” I start talking about the basics and introduce the issues a little at a time so as not to lose the younger children. They all get it and finally we are open for questions. The quality and thought behind the questions is incredible, especially for a group of kids aged from 10 to 17 years old. This was a talk that could have gone on for hours. Diego closed the session, then we hit the streets. I was with some kids and we went in search of signatures at the bus terminal for the Peoples Treaty. In the mean time, Mette and Davor loaded the Ban Bus with kids and they started driving laps of Paduva yelling “Ban Cluster Bombs! Sign the Treaty”, in Italian of course. When I got back to the church there was a bunch of buzzing kids with a few more loads to go. Mette is the biggest kid and give her and van full of noise to play with and she is in her element. These kids were having a ball and didn’t want to go back to school. I admire teachers like the ones who brought the kids to us, as they are exposing them to a bigger world. They are not necessarily being exposed to a better world but a bigger one.

The rain had been pelting down and everything was soaked. All the photographs outside were wet but that didn’t matter as we purposely printed them on waterproof boards. Would have been silly to come to Europe at the start of winter and not have them waterproofed.

The day was just beginning as we headed to a restaurant for lunch. I got pasta! but it wasn’t that good. The afternoon had us in the old part of town and we were going to work the streets for signatures again and set up the exhibition. The exhibition is all about door stopping. There is a simple tactic to get lots of people interested in signing a petition to ban cluster bombs or anything else..We park the Ban Bus and off each end we set out the lines of pictures. It corals each end with visual material that will make them pause. They walk towards you, pause slightly, look at the first pictures, see you with a petition then speed up. You just leave them alone. At the second line of photos another person approaches them and asks them to sign. This simple technique works really well. People are defensive and avoid being stopped in the street. You let them get past you, they have a look at the photographs slow then you get them on the way out. It works almost every time.

The rain came and went and we spoke to many people. Because we were opposite the entrance to the university there were many graduating students getting hammered and celebrating. They had trumpets and accordions and sang the same thing over and over again. “Doctore, doctore, something something, Doctore.” It went on and on. One guy came by dressed as a goldfish with a picture of a naked woman on a fishing line. I missed the cow that apparently had also just passed us. Still they sang “Doctore, doctore”. I had to know and the song is “Doctor, I’m a doctor, stick it up your arse, I’m a doctor!”

As the sun set we mopped up the photos, packed up the van and headed for a popular local for a drink. Paduva is a really beautiful city. I would love to have more time to wander the back lanes and take it all in but we were to hit the road in the morning and head north to Geneva.

The day felt done, but they had one more gig to squeeze in before we left Italy and it’s was to speak at a nightclub’s Halloween Party. Yep, the quiet night before a day driving to Switzerland was out, because the party wasn’t starting until close to midnight. They had organised to have a plasma TV rolling cluster related films all night and we would take the floor at some time and add a few words. There was only a narrow window of opportunity to do this..Too early and the crowd would be tiny, too late and they’d be too pissed to know or care.

There were a few hours spare till the club gig started, so we headed to the hotel for a quick break and dinner. Davor was exhausted and I think the problem of yesterday was really getting to him. Mette decided to drive him home in the Ban Bus and Daniel and me went for dinner. My back was a mess due to old injuries and I was certainly having trouble walking about. I needed some drugs and needed them fast. A fist full of pain killers and anti inflammatories was swallowed and we went back to the restaurant we were at last night. This time I was in time for pasta and a magnificent seafood Tagliatelli was delivered.

Two hours later we headed back to the hotel to find Mette and a phone call revealed that she was lost. In fact she was very lost! Davor and her had been going around and around with no hotel in sight and the GPS was letting them down again. How unusual! I suggested they head back to our hotel and Davor could be put in a taxi to his hotel. In the meantime Daniel and me grabbed a cab and headed out to where this nightclub was.

It was deep in an industrial estate and called Banale. The place wasn’t open yet and the bar girl had no idea what we wanted to do. There was a definite language barrier here as she indicated that people came here to get hammered, dance and laid. Sounds like a typical nightclub to me! A phone call to Diego and all was unravelled. We were in the right place. The films were copied onto the clubs computer and we worked out how it would run. Halloween is apparently quite popular here and some patrons were even arriving in costume. The place was filling fast when Diego came to us and said that some kids were at the door and had come to hear the talk. They didn’t have much money so couldn’t get in. The rain was starting as I got my computer and went out to the car park. These kids were connected through Diego and a youth group he worked with. As far as we were concerned if they had come all this way because they want to know about clusters they deserved a good show. In a darkened corner of the car park I started telling them the field realities and showed them film of cluster strikes. We talked for over half an hour and they all found it outrageous and wanted more involvement. I think they will be our latest band of activists with some energetic local leadership.

The crowd was almost at capacity and not so far off being tanked so it was time to make a show of it. I have spoken in some weird and wild places in the past but I don’t remember a darkened club on Halloween. Any soap box will do so I hit the stage with Tibisay, Diego and an MC. We pushed out our message and kept it short, sharp and punchy. The place was starting to pump and I was exhausted, so it was time to head for home. The locals had been a bag of surprises and Diego returned again dressed as a BLU-97 cluster bomb! Across his chest he’d written, “Ban Me!”
There is a simple reason why I like to come to Italy, Italians are just great!!