Cav's Place

Initially meant to take a break after Sunday’s big march, seeing as I have a cold and was exhausted after eight hours on my feet, but the amazing energy generated by those 15000 people and all the support we got from others who were in cars or in their apartments made me show up on Monday as well, and then there was little point in starting the break yesterday, seeing as the national team played Turkey and I wanted to do the same thing I did Friday, when we played Hungary, and only be there for an hour, coming back to see the match after that. Therefore, I made the decision to start my break today, after going there for ten days straight, and even announced it, but now the fact that I’m feeling better and the different behavior displayed by the gendarmes last night makes me want to keep going, because we definitely can’t afford to be fewer if they want to stop being nice and honoring this unofficial agreement we have had for the past week or so.
Because of that, and also considering the fact that it was 3:20 PM when I finally managed to get out of bed today, there’s no way to write a post about days six to ten of the protest itself, which was the actual plan for today, and you’re only getting this quick personal update instead. I hope I’ll somehow manage to write that post by Friday, to have it cover days six to 12, possibly by taking it one day at a time and posting when I’m done, because there clearly won’t be any way to write anything over the weekend, when the protests will once again be bigger and start earlier.

The problem is that it wasn’t simply the cold and exhaustion that made me want to take a break, but also the fact that I’ve been outside and among people far too long, and having two reporters shove microphones and cameras in my face over these ten days certainly didn’t help either. The first time it happened, it didn’t go so badly, as I at least managed to speak in complete sentences, though I most probably made a strange face and definitely couldn’t remember to say all I meant to say, but the second time I was simply stunned and could barely string two words together, my answers being all over the place and very difficult to understand. Worse, this second TV station has very strong ties with the president and the current opposition, who are even more in favor of this mining project than the current ruling coalition, so they’re actively struggling to make those who are truly against it appear to not know what they’re talking about, only being interested in covering the protests for the antigovernment angle.
Even worse, the focus now is on discussion groups and creating teams of activists to go around the city and talk to people, explaining the major problems and terrible precedents that will be created if these projects won’t be stopped and detailing the complete list of demands we had from day one, to make it clear that we need to continue despite the announcement that the law itself will be rejected by the Parliament, which is definitely not something I can do and can easily result in me ending up feeling worse for going than for not going, which is definitely what I need to avoid.

But I need to get ready to leave, so this will have to be it for now. It would have been wiser to take a break in order to ensure I’ll feel at least slightly better during the weekend, when another major march is planned, but I guess I’ll keep going, hoping that somehow I won’t end up completely drained and once again not get out of the house for several months or who knows what else.