Some weeks later I’m done collecting plush toys. I’m still overwhelmed by the strong response of friends and colleagues. Thank you all so much!!!

So now I’m sitting in the middle of dogs, mice, rabbits, birds, bears (of course they outnumber the others…), sheep, cows, lions, elephants, monkeys, turtles, hippos and so many more and feel like in wonderland. I did wash and dry all of them...



...and now will put them into two big boxes and send them to Dohuk and Bagdad.



... I had to climb pretty high to get this pic ... ;)









They could be even more since a friend collected toys in her school but because of a misunderstanding the package went to a shelter for disabled children in Frankfurt/Main. Maybe she will collect some more and send them herself to Iraq. But I couldn’t stand the big brown boxes in my kitchen anymore and am happy to finally send them away.

Some of the collected will stay with me. I tell you which ones so you know what you don’t want in case you decide to collect plushies for peace too. Some of them I couldn’t clean without cracking them. Others had electric devices inside which make them talk or whistle or bark. Because Iraq is a war zone I wanted to make sure that nobody at the customs would suspect anything else but a friendly gift for children who need it. So some of theses devices I could remove, the others will stay with me in Germany and I have to think what to do about them. Somebody send me a very sweet little pink pig holding a heart. But in Islam pigs are impure, even worse than dogs. This knowledge led me to the decision to not send the pig to the kids of Iraq because I don’t want to offend anybody.

EDIT: The young man who is the reason of my little collecting story told me that he is sure nobody in Bagdad would have been offended by the little pink pig. But still, I remember an artikel in the Yemen Times, condemning "M&Ms" because of the big feet of the advertisement guys, and think my decision was not entirely wrong. However the pig now is loved by the daughter of a friend of mine *g*

My contact person in Bagdad promised to send me some pictures of the arrival of the toys in Bagdad. So stay tuned, I will post them ;)

Birthdaytime again.



So after celebrating at midnight and some hours of sleep me and four friends entered a car and went to Gorleben. By chance my birthday and a big demonstration against the usage of nuclear energy happened to be at the same date. And since I’ve never been to this kind of demonstration before but think it’s an important subject these days I decided to go there and celebrate the fortune of life.















Compared to other demonstrations I’ve been to this one was the most peaceful and relaxed meeting of thousands of people. We were walking and talking und smiling and laughing all day long. Next to us, wearing green or black and being forced to stand straight almost all the time, were policemen and –women, some of them stunningly young, some smiling and others not batting an eyelid. It was impossible to ignore them but until the end of the day they were just standing there waiting.







We went home when it got dark, not without sitting for some minutes with the people that planned to stay the next nights to the moment when the as we call it castor would arrive, trying to stop it at least for a few minutes. For the time of the whole demonstration three people had stopped the train near the french-german border chaining themselves to the rails. But walking back to our car we saw lots of police stepping in order, giggling as if being on a trip with classmates and preparing to encircle our sitting comrades. Watching them was the only negative hunch of the day.

Lucky me!