Nachricht Nummer : 208 Übertragungszeit : 3 min 42 sec Nachricht von : WAM@ZAMIR-ZG.ZER.sub.org Betrifft : Zagreb Diary 25 July, 1993 Erstellungsdatum : 05.08.1993 08:56:00 S+2 Realname: Wam Kat Zagreb Diary 25 July, 1993 Dobar dan, During the swinging of the volunteers, which I joint for a while, but after a few hours a notice that my conditions is not real optima forma at the moment, I had some talks with Davor, the local reporter. We continued our talk from a week ago about the defenders of this side of Pakrac, he introduced me to one of the commanders of one of the other special "police" forces. The guy was load singing along one of the Utashi songs, which the band always play at the end of the evening. This guy came to Pakrac about 3 years ago, he is from Montenegro, Davor told me, at this moment is still in the police. His brother also came to Pakrac and ended up in Lipik were he is also in the police. And so the story went on. Since I decided last night that I would take the early train back to Zagreb I also decided to sleep outside the school building, partly because due to the fact that the two class rooms we have were overfilled with people, but more because of the fact that they easily could find me to wake me up, without waking up the whole group. It was a clear nice night with a lot of stars and I enjoyed it a lot more than sleeping in a room full of snoring and other strange noises. After the late return last night the night was rather short, I rather was sleeping when the others already came down the stairs of the school and I had only a few minutes to wake up, get dressed, put my things together and run of with them to catch the morning train. I travelled together with the three Dutch volunteers, one of the two Italians and Goran, who was going for a short break to Rijeka in order to meet an old friend who was only in the neighbourhood for a few days. Since I was not the only one who only slept a few hours we were looking at eachother through half sleeping eyes. During the train trip Goran told me one of the most remarkable stories I ever heard. A few days ago his parents in Zagreb received his mobilisation call up papers, or invitation to join the army as we like to call it here. His mother didn't really knew what to do and tried to reach Goran in Pakrac, since he had to join his army brigade just within two days and she was afraid that he couldn't make it in time and would loose his job as teacher if he didn't show up. But of course she couldn't get hold of him in time, so she decided to call the army and tell them the story that he wasn't at home. The guy on the other end of the line wanted to know of course were he was and what he was doing. And she told him the whole story that he was in Pakrac as leader of a workcamp, which was busy to rebuild Pakrac on both side of the front-line. The guy on the other hand reacted prompt, saying that he knew about the project, he heard that one Dutch guy had started it and that in this case Goran didn't had to come, but that he should phone back to army some where in September if he wasn't still engaged in that rebuilding project. First I thought that Goran was pulling my leg, since I was obvious the Dutch guy this army fellow was talking about and that our project was that famous I didn't realise, but after a while he make me believe that the story was real and I started to realise that my name is also known in army circles, and even that some how they agree with it. I was afraid all that time that they wouldn't, but that is Croatia, it is not always simple to see the logic. We arrived early in Zagreb, Goran left directly after arriving. And I went with the others to arranged the bus and train tickets for every body and than they joint me bring my things to Vesna, she was still sleeping so I decided to join the others for a scroll around the town. We visit the main square where at this weekend the 38th International folklorist festival is going on. It is probably by far not as International as it use to be, since beside some groups from Austria, Italy and Hungary the International participation stayed at home. Okay there was one more group from Germany, but that is a dancing group from second generation Croats, who were by the way very noisy and very present with their old Croatian songs, shoutings and flags. At one corner of the square we find a singer from Lika, who is in full traditional clothes singing old historical song in his dialect, he is surrounded by a lot a lot of other displaced people from this region, from which now most is part of Serbian Krajina. Around him are standing people with tears in their eyes. At the other corner we find a simular picture, this time the singer in the middle is not coming from Lika, but from Eastern Slavonia, from a village near Vukovar. You can see on the faces around the old man that the people have their minds far away from what is singing. The songs only open up their memories. At 4 I bring my Dutch friends to their bus, the Italian guy already went some hours ago by train, with the same bus another Dutch guy goes back home, he was participant of one of the first workcamps last year and help us with fund-raising in the Netherlands in the last winter. This time however he didn't came to Croatia to help in a refugee camp, but came to spend his holidays at the sea side with some friends he made during his earlier visits. We I stand there on the platform waiting until their bus finally will leave my mind goes back to my home country, as the minds of those people around those singers, for some minutes I really am thinking of running up stairs buying a ticket and join them, but as you see I didn't. 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 v2.1 ##