Craig George continues his account of the journey with his fellow team members on a mission to deliver aid and vehicles to Ukraine, fuelled by cross-industry generosity
Sunday 20 August
We met at breakfast where Craig T and John recounted their tales from the previous evening, especially that of an irate Slovakian man shouting at them from a few floors up the soviet era block of flats adjacent to where FJE had spat it’s dummy out. Now, we assume he was grumpy about the noise of the dynamic duo doing their thing diagnosing the fault, but perhaps he was a knowledgeable Volvo technician trying to impart his knowledge. I guess we’ll never know!
Another gorgeous and very hot day was dawning, ready for our final push for the Ukrainian border at Uzhhorod. FJE behaved itself, starting just fine. After another walk-round check had revealed no oil or water had been consumed or spat out in either bus, we hit the road once more.
To avoid mountain roads and maintain a good pace we slipped back south into Hungary, around Budapest and then north back in to Slovakia to get to our border crossing. Tamsin tackled these few hours of driving while I tackled a much worse task: customs paperwork in advance of our arrival at the border in the hope this would slash our time to pass through customs.
Ali, very aware of the difficulties we could face trying to persuade the border guards to let us pass, employed two Ukrainian guys from Family of Christ; the charity we were delivering in to at Uzhhorod. Sure enough, about two miles shy of the border we rendezvoused with Erik and Zhenya and went straight to the border control from there. Being a Sunday afternoon meant no queue and we went straight to the control point for HGVs. Alas, it soon became apparent that the Slovakians didn’t want us to pass through.
They quickly found a chink in our armour; we didn’t have a T1 customs declaration, which is required for goods transiting Europe between two non-EU nations (i.e. the UK and Ukraine). My interpretation of the UK guidance is that a T1 isn’t required for humanitarian aid, but alas I am told we don’t argue. What they say goes and they will simply find another way to stop you if they don’t like the cut of your jib. They are happy for the buses to pass, but not their contents.
We turn away and regroup. A plan is formed to offload the buses at a nearby farm used by Family of Christ. We go there and offload in the 33c heat; all of us absolutely shattered and dripping with sweat by the time we’re done over an hour later, the buses now empty and a small barn quite full!
We return to the border and now unladen we can use the bus and car lanes, where a new group of customs officials will be dealing with us. We hope we will find a more lenient crew, but again it’s not to be.
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