A big success!

As some of you may know, Australia is one of the destinations where refugees and asylum seekers seek refuge. Unbelieveably in the 21 century in a place like Australia, most of asylum seekers and humanitarian entrants are kept at ''detention camps'' located in the middle of nowhere, which seems to be a shame for the country. Last month I attended a meeting with the big guys from DIMA, Red Cross, RACS, UNHCR, Refugee Tribunal etc. where I got a lot of fresh information about what's going on and the same meeting held once a month actually is where people's lives and futures are discussed. It is very sad that parents' situation apply to babies and kids and so there are also small children at detention camps. Another thing is that families aren't considered together and while the father of the family can be released from the camp, his wife and children might have to stay there for another couple of months or even years.

So, some Senators including Howard have come up with a ''brilliant'' solution to cover this shame and the federal government prepared a proposal to see all boat-arriving asylum-seekers ferreted offshore to be processed in Nauru! As sad as this thought to be legislated at the parliament of one of the world's most peaceful countries is, there was a lot of effort put by campaigners, volunteers and refugee agencies including A Just Australia and Refugee Advice and Casework Services which are agencies I'm involved with, a huge success is achieved last monday when the government announced the Prime Minister's decision to withdraw the legislation on Monday morning he did so to prevent the inevitable defeat of the bill in a Senate ostensibly controlled by the Coalition.
I take this opportunity to congratulate all defenders and activists of human rights and invite you all to celebrate with this meaningful song written and sang by ''Refugee All Stars''; a band from Sierra Leone who spent long years at a refugee camp in Guinea: http://action.one.org/dia/organizationsONE/one/signUp.jsp?key=426&t=OneColumn.dwt

''I believe that the basic attribute of mankind is to look after each other.'' Prof.Fred Hollows

A Cock N'Bull Story...

I was walking around Paddington about a month ago and I saw the ''staff wanted'' advert on the window of a Pub (so called Hotel in Sydney, somehow all bars/pubs etc. serving alcoholic beverages are called hotels), went in and asked for info and the bartender asked if I have RSA certificate so I learned that in Australia one needs to hold an RSA (Responsible Service of Alcohol) certificate to be able to serve alcohol and I started searching for a course to get it and found out it's a one day course, so the next day I got my certificate and also a job as a barmaid at the legendary Irish pub ''Cock N'Bull'' at 89 Ebley Street, Bondi Junction where I have actually been on a thursday night to have a couple of Bullmers before and loved!
There is a very diverse employee profile; barkeepers, allrounders, DJs and security I met so far are from Canada, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Ginea, Ireland, Chile, Macedonia, Thailand and Australia. The best thing is that there's a very diverse profile of customers as well, for instance I've met a Papuan guy who cleans toilets and an English expat who deals with airplane mechanics, so it's just one peaceful United Nations:-) We are all one baklava, aren't we?:-)))
Eventhough I sometimes serve ''Soda'' to some Aussie customers who ask for a ''Cider'' as it sounds exactly the same with the Oz accent (Irish allways ask for Bullmers so there's no confusion) or I have to ask twice sometimes up to 4 times what they want, no one complains as a smile opens the doors most of the time. Customers and people in general are very kind to the ones serving them, like most of the people thank the driver before leaving the bus and most of my customers allways say ''please'' when ordering a drink and some of them even say things like ''can I have a pint of New when you get the chance please'' and I more feel like the Queen rather than a barmaid:-) But I'm kind to them as well as most of other bartenders prefer to argue unpolitely when a problematic customer comes, I prefer to take what they say and to learn; I learned most of the shots and serving styles for rare beers from customers.
Yeah, well gotta catch my shift now:-)