Nachricht Nummer : 304 Übertragungszeit : 3 min 32 sec Nachricht von : WAM@ZAMIR-ZG.zer.sub.org Betrifft : Zagreb Diary 12 November, 1993 Erstellungsdatum : 13.11.1993 20:45:00 W+1 Realname: Wam Kat Zagreb Diary 12 November, 1993 Dobar dan, "Can you do me a favour", of course tell me what I have to do. You know last week we talked about the idiocy that Croats can't change money and you joked that you could make a living with changing money for the locals, now today I need money to be changed, can you do it for me. So we went into rainy Zagreb, I hate it, all those people with umbrella's, I always am afraid that one of them hit's me in the eyes. On the flower market we met and he told me that it was not 100 DEM but 600 DEM and I explained him that although I was a foreigner I also can only change 100 DEM at the time. So we started for a trip around Zagreb's banks. The first bank with a line from at least 75 people scared us off, the was no Croatian money anyway. In the exchange office of the Dubrovnik hotel they only had a messages hanging "Nema Dinera (No Dinars)", the next one was the Ljublanski bank, but also they run out off money. But there they told us that there was a rumour that foreigners could change 500 DEM at the time in the big bank on the main square. Coming there we had nearly to fight our way in passing at least 25 people who were willing to change for 100 Dinar per mark less than the official exchange rate, so aggressive I never have seen the black market before. I went standing in line in the bank, but with at least 50 people in front of me this operation would be taking very long. After 10 minutes the whole crowd anyway could go home, also this bank run out of Croatian money. So at last we ended up at the black market, two weeks ago the rate on the black market was about 4500 HDR per DEM and now it is already down to 3600 HDR and it keeps on going down. Rumours are that soon only people with bank accounts can change money. At the moment however getting HDR's for your DEM's is a daily job, if you have to pay some bills you really need to take time for it. We went back to ARK and talked a bit about the discussion I have started with others in the last days. I want to know were we stand in the discussion about what will happen with the UNPA zones. His opinion was that the Vance plan and even the new peace proposal from Tudjman goes a lot further than the demands which before the war were published by the Serbian Democratic Party (SDS). The only problem we could see was the checkerboard on the flag (and every where else). Would the Serbs accept it or not. Than I had to hit the road, in Brace Domany the Peace Circus people were waiting for in order to go to Pakrac. But on the main square it was clear that somewhere the tram number 17 had broken down, like always when it is raining a bit and I decided to walk. In Vlaska I passed by at least 15 trams, which could move an inch anymore since their motors weren't rainproof. I remembered that same picture from rainy days in Praha or Budapest. I was not the only one who decided that walking was faster, on both sides of the road you show big groups of people walking through the rain. All in all I arrived at least 2 hours later in Brace Domany than planned. A little later we hit the road, I still love it to sit in the front of a huge bus looking out over the cars, since it was late we decided to take the famous highway of Brotherhood and Unity, rather than the Northern road. It was already dark when we finally came to the UNPROFOR checkpoint near Kutina. In front of our bus the Jordanian soldiers were inspected very carefully two cars from Zagreb, but they didn't even looked into our huge Swedish bus. In the dark in the search lights of the bus (this one use drive in the North part of Sweden and have such big special lights) the destroyed houses behind Gay looked more spooky than ever before, high up in the bus we can nearly look down through the missing roofs into the buildings. I heard the comments in the back. It is clear that although they have been preparing themselves for months to come here, this first confrontation, even in the dark, with kilometres of destroyed houses makes a lot of impact on them. We drive into Pakrac, but since the street lights are installed some weeks ago it looks a relative normal city, at least for me. In the new house of the volunteers we met some of the Polish volunteers, who came over some weeks ago, after they had heard from the project at the evening that I went to the Netherlands (they came with a Dutch group of peace activists, which had a small demonstration in Zagreb). A few minutes later Teet, the Polish and Czechs are talking with each other in Russian, in Croatia you can't find much youngsters who speak Russian, only the older people (Jura the boss from Skorpija proofed that evening how good he was), but the ones from the former Warschau pact had still Russian on their schools up to three years ago. The house is warm and nice, last week 17 bunk bed arrived from Lipik ( a German relief organisation brought them about 1 year ago to there, but since than they stood in a warehouse and everybody forgot about it) and the big mattress party is over, what a luxes. Next week we get telephone and our new office will be ready for using, slowly the project get's in it next step and we are ready for the winter. 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 ##