The first trip, to Split, Croatia - Summer Vacation, 1993

This trip was organised largely under the auspices of a North Finchley based non governmental organisation (NGO), the Convoy of Mercy, guided by a dynamic Pakistani immigrant electrician, Asad Khan. During Trinity Term 1993, plans for a group of students to visit camps for Bosnian (predominantly Muslim) refugees in Croatia were discussed. Accordingly, a group left Magdalen on the coach to London on June 16th, to catch a vehicle to Croatia. I left straight from a Magdalen Society Garden Party, which seemed an odd contrast.

The trip was a difficult one. The vehicles supplied by the CoM were a decommissioned light blue London school bus, and a 7 and a half ton truck. None of us had ever driven a vehicle as big or temperamental as the latter. Problems came at every border and toll, where, without proper papers, we were often detained for hours by increasingly irate officials. The truck had also broken down by this time, it’s windscreen wipers repaired but temporarily with the underwiring from Helena Lyon’s bra. Main incident was when Ollie, Jules and I lost sight of the other vehicle in the pouring rain and rush hour of Ljubljana. Leaving Ollie to guard the truck in the forecourt of a petrol station, Jules and I, with no passports, driving licences, paperwork (all in the other vehicle), or Slovenian at out command went out, accosting strangers and trying to find a post office. Eventually, we did, and made a call to College; “We are in Ljubljana [spelt] with half a tank of petrol, and we are proceeding to the Croatian border”. The message as delivered in College was “Father Jonathan is lost in Lowestoft”. We then drove on, ocassionally trying to elicit directions from puzzled Slovenians, finding ourselves on a cobbled mountain road between Vrhnika and Postonja.

Once arrived in Split, one group stayed to paint and equip a house in Omis, south of Split, rented by the CoM to use as a “Youth Centre” for camp children, whilst the other group visited two camps, TTTS and Stobrec in Split. Otherwise, our trip was uneventful, bar Renu strolling through a plate glass window immediately on our arrival.

Second trip, July 1993

This time, having been motivated by the whole experience, three of us, Jules Griffin, Helena Lyons and me, took the JCR minibus “down to Croatia” (Split again). We carried a lot of foodstuffs, primarily tins of pilchards and 900 eggs. We travelled in conv oy with a COM vehicle, driven by Eddy Wright, a playgroup leader from south London, and Marfi from Galway. One memory is of taking all one aftemoon to inflate a giant green and yellow Nessy using the compressor at the British Army UN base across the road f rom Omis, In the dark at TTTS, Mary tripped and badly gashed her leg, and, upon seeing it, almost fainted on the way to the hospital (for which she was later very apologetic). We spent a lot of each day at the CoM house in Omis, which, to liven things up, was raided one day by the Croatian police, acting on a tip off from the neighbours that the house was harbouring “Mudjahadeen”. The trip in all took about 14 days. The foodstuffs, after having been “put into storage” by the CoM were eventually taken into Bosnia, to Mostar, by a freelance aid driver called Tariq.

The “Bosnia evening”, Lower Oscar Wilde Room, November, 1993

This evening was organised partly to raise funds for any further aid endeavours, but was primarily to help raise overall awareness in College of the continuing Yugoslavian conflict. There was an exhibition of photographs, press cuttings, maps and drawings (the latter by refugee children that we had worked with in Split) as well a short speaker meeting. Speakers were Jonathan Sedgwick, Bojan Bujic (Fellow in music, and a graduate of the University of Sarajevo), Sebastian Stride (an aid worker we had met in Split), Elma (formerly of TTTS, who had come to live in the UK), two representatives of Oxford Bosnia Aid, and the Archbishop of Canterbury’s ecumenical representative. About 30 people attended, ranging from Magdalen students to Bill Tribe, formedy a lec turer at Sarajevo University.

Third trip, December, 1993

This was an interesting, but difficult trip, largely because of the slow going along the Austrian autobahns because of snow, and the very long hours of driving. Adjusting our modus operandi, we took mainly requested medical supplies to a hospital in Zadar, Croatia, and to Split. The minibus was very cramped indeed, since largely occupied with boxes and a very bulky X-ray developing machine (together with chemicals and spare parts) donated by a medical charity in Southampton (administered by Helena Lyons’s uncle, Peter Hatcher). Medical materials were also donated by a charity in Fellbach, Stuttgart, where we stopped to collect them en route.

The X ray developer and some of the medicines were delivered to the paediatric unit of Zadar hospital, which had been badly shelled. Many of the patients were being accommodated in triple tier bunks in a dingy, ill-lit basement.

This trip was famous for Graeme, having been told the checkpoint rules (don’t look at anyone, always speak English, always keep your door locked), systematically breaking all of them, and Sabina waking Jules and I for Morning Prayer an hour into our sleep after a 14 hour driving stint. We were both so tired that even Jules, who had voiced his opposition to such an occurence all along, dutifully read a lesson without complaint (chosen, he later admitted, entirely at random where the Bible opened, and ending in the middle of a sentence, when he thought he had read enough.). Whilst in Zadar we lodged with a community of nuns (”the penguins”) who, upon our arrival, stuffed us with chicken and chips and local wine (which was all very welcome).

The front line just north of Zadar between the Croatians and Croatian (Krajina) Serbs was sporadically active at this time, and, on our return leg, in the middle of the night, the vehicle did pass near a short stretch of activity, made more exciting by Graeme not seeming to know where we were, and turning on the interior light or the van so that he could get a better look at the map, only to be cut short by Sabina saying that it ruined her night vision, and not because it made us a little too conspicuous (we were otherwise driving without lights).

Fourth trip, Easter, 1994

On this trip, we were held up in Stuttgart for an evening, when the van, (which we had used without any major hitches on the previous trip), on loan from a London Christian organisation, became undriveable in Luxembourg, and was discovered to be without brakes. We were hugely fortunate both to have had the offer of accommodation with the aid organisers in Stuttgart, and also the German language skills of Zoe Willems.

After arriving in Split we stayed with the community on the Macian Hill, whilst SA took the van and a load of medicines to Mostar, driving there and back, via Metugorje, in a day, armed only with a letter from the Catholic Bishop of Mostar.

Outward was also the first time that we were able to cross the Maslenica pontoon bridge, previously always having taken the Fag (Prizna) ferry to avoid risky disputed areas of the Dalmatian coast. We passed through Maslenica just before dawn - the vill age wholly burnt out and blackened, and with such notable sights as a Zastava (small bubble car) upside down in a tree.

Most of the aid we took was donated to the “Bread of St Anthony”, a professedly non- denominational humanitarian organisation in Split.

It was during this trip that, running out of petrol in the midlle of the night in Slovenia, Sabina demanded that I get her some straightaway, a task which was accomplished through negotiation with the local police in Ilirska Bistrica, the petrol being paid for with a bottle of Marashohino - cherry brandy, which, in it’s turn had been given to us by the hospital in Zadar.

Fifth trip, Long vacation, 1994 (Zagreb - Korcula - Split - Dubrovnik)

With such a large group, we took not only supplies (medical, educational, food - a consignment including several hundred weight of books from the library of Professor R.M Hare in Canterbury for the IUC, Dubrovnik), but a mime production of “A Midsummer Nights Dream” (with a running Bosnian commentary written and given voice to by Lejla Somun). There were perforinances in refugee camps in Zagreb (where we all stayed with host families), Korcula, and Dubrovnik (the latter in the infamous Hotel Albatross, down the coast towards the Montenegran border, within range of the Serb guns, and with a mined car park), as well as educational activities. Jonathan Sedgwick preached to the children on Korcula, on the theme of the long spoons in hell a nd heaven. We stayed in tents on Korcula, and in a hotel in Dubrovnik, and in a monastery next to the Hajduk football stadium in Split.

Whilst in Zagreb, we received lectures from several persons, including Tomislav Sunic, a Croatian government official, and ex American academic, who was later interviewed by several of the group, as well as meeting at the Zagreb mosque with a chief Imam.

Sabina and Lejla flew off to Sarajevo for three days to visit Lejla’s grandmother, leaving me with the rest of the people, no organised activities, no money, and a van made useless because stuffed full of aid. Eventually, half the medical aid went to a Catholic aid organisation, and the remainder was taken to Mostar by a UN press official in the boot of his car, the only rapid and practicable method of transport at the time.

This was a long trip, and undertaken often in very trying - squashed and desperately hot - conditions. Several people fell ill - me incuded - almost all from drinking contaminated water. In particular, Zoe developed and needed treatment for what I later discovered (from Kipling) to be called a “Bombay blister”. Notable incidents included Ian Conlan disappearing and leaving his passport in the ladies cloakroom of the Hotel Albatross, and Sabina having to wait several hours in the village of Slano in “Herzeg-Bosna” in the midst of a battle happy Croatian militia division just returned from action.

Assistance for this trip was received from Oxford Youth for Bosnia (via Maysa Ibrahim at Pembroke), as well as collections at St.Hughs, and a mini bus loaned by Oxford City Council highway maintenance.

Seventh trip, June 22 and 29th - July 10th, 1995

Because of impending viva (Leanne) and work commitments (Ruth, Hermione and Chris), the group split in two, and made staggered outward journeys. The first, larger group, inaugurated our new minibus, a slat bench seated white 10 year old Bedford, generously donated as surplus to requirements by Oxford Upper School for Boys. The second group travelled in the JCR minibus. I had come back to Oxford from my job as a University lecturer in Warsaw, to help with the organisational arrangements for this trip, such as the setting up of a bank account as MCA began to take distinct shape as a properiy constituted charitable organisation.

We were all bound for a camp for Bosnian refugees in Velenje, north west Slovenia, Our contact there had been made via Catherine Stewart, making many phone calls to aid agencies and organisations, Whilst there, the group worked with the children in the kindergarten, making masks and pictures (including a notable mural or lots of different mice, each drawn from the imagination of a different child, inspired by “three blind mice”, which was then tacked up alongside the main staircase), as well as (very effective) language teaching to some of the adults, and generally trying to make ourselves useful, and not intrusive, nor a nuisance Our reception in the camp, where we stayed in two standard refugee rooms, and our treatment throughout, was excellent - everyone was consistently friendly to us, even going to the extent or cooking enormous table groaning meals co nsisting of Bosnian specialities every evening. Even the “hard men” of the camp seemed to take to us, teaching some of the group card games until late in the evening. Almost all the money for the enterprise, as was usual, came from donation by those perso ns travelling - on the whole, 150 pounds each - as well as from donations by Chapel and the Magdalen College tnust, both of whom have been very generous and supportive since the initiation of out activity. Remaining moneys were donated to the Red Cross in Velenje for the daily needs of the camp (e.g. the leasing and installation or washing machines, television repair, kindergarten materials), and into a fund to help any members of the group interested in further aid work to return. John and Renu decided to stay in the camp when the rest of us left, to work further.

Christopher McNall

Last updated: February 25th, 2008