Nachricht Nummer : 336 Übertragungszeit : 3 min 33 sec Nachricht von : WAM@ZAMIR-ZG.comlink.de (Wam) Betrifft : Zagreb Diary 12 December, 1993 Kopienempfänger : /APC/YUGO/ANTIWAR, /CL/EUROPA/BALKAN Erstellungsdatum : 20.12.1993 15:18:00 W+1 Realname: Wam Kat Zagreb Diary 12 December, 1993 Dobar dan, "Are soldiers in Netherlands also so stupid" she asked me when we are sitting in the train from Kutina to Zagreb (after waiting for 2 hours in Kutina, the connection between Pakrac and Zagreb are not the most fast ones, but there is connection so that is already something. Although some times in front of the loco they have a freight wagon to find out if the train line is mined). We are sitting in a huge apartment, with about 40 people, just on the other side of the wagon a group from about 10 HV soldiers is sitting and standing. Two seats from them are two nuns sitting, during the talks of the soldiers I was looking at their faces, how would they react, but they look if they were made out of wood, not one single muscle in their face reacted. The soldiers were more or less busy to describe their dreams at the front- line and repeating the stories which are even not published in the national sex papers. As you boy you can learn a lot in the army, it was not hard to follow for any of the other people in the wagon, they shouted as it were their words into the smoky compartment. Even for me as foreigner it was not hard to follow, the words were repeated so frequently that it was easy to figure out were they were talking about. There are obvious on the way to their unit after the weekend in peace. Maybe they are just new ones who are going to the barracks around Zagreb. But that we couldn't figure out, the conversation stayed with the original topic until they left the compartment just three stops before Zagreb. "I don't know" my reaction is honest, I don't know where Dutch soldiers are talking about, probably they talk about the same things, I never really was listing to their stories in the train, most are any way driving to their barracks in their own car. Back in Zagreb I try to exchange some money at the station in order to buy train tickets for to night to visit the UNOV building in Vienna tomorrow, but of course it was not possible, not more than 100 DEM is not changeable. So I try to pay the tickets directly in DEM, I ask, and till my big surprise that is possible nowadays. I buy the tickets, couldn't reserve a sleeping places, since the computer is broken and the women find out that my companion speaks english and Croatian. So she let here translate a private letter she just got from the South African ambassador. She obvious asked for a visa and had to send more information, but the letter was in English and she didn't knew that language. Just before the night train will leave for Vienna I can still sleep some hours, tired from all the things in the last weeks, it was really Sunday evening and tomorrow starts the week again and I am still tired. Next week should be a bit more relaxed. Although with all the guests coming to Pakrac that will be also not easy. Markus, who just returned in his famous driving style, which is maybe wish to practice in Sarajevo, but on the small roads around Pakrac I am more afraid from his driving style than from possible snipers. The counter from his speed meter often can't any further down. He holds possible also the local record of getting the most people in a VW Golf, although the local police nearly broke that record this morning, they passed us by with at least 9 agents in their golf, sitting at each others lap. I wonder if they have watch us driving. The train has no sleeping wagon and we decided to occupy a first class apartment since laying in the corridor all the way to Vienna is something I use to do ten years ago, but at this moment I have not so much interest in that way of travelling. Sleeping is any way hardly possible in the first hours, we will cross 2 borders more than the last time I made that train ride. We get the feeling that we get controlled at least 15 times, Croatian police and border control, and also three times somewhere in Slovenia. Each time they looked strange if we show them our blue passports. Vanja forget it a few times and when they see their Croatia pass they start to ask her to unpack her back and show how much money she has. Since she will fly in a couple of days to Rumania to meet people of SCI about the different projects which SCI are supporting with volunteers in this part of the world. They asked me to go fro Suncokret, but I have not enough contact with them at the moment to feel that I can representing them. But I hope they will send some body. Some where between the two Slovenian borders I start to answer the enormous amounts of mail which I have been getting in the last week. We don't know yet what we can do with all those reactions. What can we do with Email in Pakrac or in Bosnia. I discuss the job which they offered me in Sarajevo, she looks at me a couple of times with a faces if I totally lost my mind. I promise her that for the time being I am not planning to leave Pakrac alone and start some things else. Like every weekend it was again a real Pakrac weekend , with lot's of guests and people just passing by. Outside the world is getting white again, we are driving into Austria, for the first time in all those months I am abroad, outside former Yugoslavia (besides the three week visit I made in the Netherlands). Bok I Mir from Zagreb, Wam ------------------------------------------------------ Zagreb Diary can be found on a lot of different electronic networks, it is copyright free and can be ported to any network or other means of communication you like, but please drop my a line, you can reach by sending a message to wam@zamir-zg.comlink.de or wam@zamir-zg.comlink.apc.org. Zagreb Diary is dedicated to Tyche, Pjort and Rik, so that they found out what there father have been doing all that time in Zagreb. Financial support for Grassroot relief work in Croatia or BiH can be send to Kollektief Rampenplan (atn. Lylette, Postbox 780, 6130 AN Sittard, Netherlands, tel:. +31-46-524803 and fax: +31-46-516460 or to Zagrebacka Banka, Zagreb, accountnr.: 2440291594, to Kat, Pieter Jan Herman Fredrik, Brace Domany 6 6fl nr3, 41000 Zagreb. Please notify me if you send or have send any donations. ## CrossPoint v2.92 ##