Friday, April 16, 2010

My Volcano Diary as a refugee in Switzerland

It’s strange to find oneself a first world refugee in one of the wealthiest countries In Europe. When I set off on Monday for Switzerland by Easy-Jet I thought the travel would be a doddle. A simple straight forward easy commute and I’d be home in East Sussex for lunch on Friday.

My work has often been in destinations where I expect complications - Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo, Sierra Leone – Switzerland is nowhere near that list. I came to Geneva to conduct an evaluation of the work done on Women in Politics and on Gender by the InterParliamentary Union. IPU has a membership of over 100 Parliaments. Its work to strengthen democracy around the world goes mostly under-trumpeted.

Early evening yesterday the husband of my colleague Ann phoned from Sweden to tell her a volcano had exploded in Iceland and some of the European airports were closed. By 11am today airports were closing everywhere. We were kicked out of the hotel where we were staying. The receptionist said they were fully booked except for one room we could have at over double the price we had been paying and way out of our price bracket...
As a refugee in Geneva the main challenge is a shortage of cash not a shortage of drinking water. The financial cost of survival is a constant worry in a city where the simplest lunch of spaghetti and green salad in a back-street café cost us £15 today. After lunch I was so tired I had a 45 minute sleep in the afternoon sunshine on the grass in a park near the old City.....

1 comment:

Keshav said...

I assume you've reached home now. Hopefully, I'll get to read more about your Geneva ordeal.