My shift at Moria yesterday was quiet.
The ferry strike over, many refugees who had been stuck at Moria for
the duration of the strike had left, and the weather had precluded
many boats from arriving. For once there was enough room in camp to
offer a measure of comfort and privacy we don't usually have the
luxury of providing.
I was able to move one large family of Afghans from their unheated RHU prefab hut to one of the very few
with heaters. their new heated quarters cheered them and the queen
mama of the family and I shared hugs and smiles to supplement our
limited verbal exchanges with my extremely limited Farsi. (Funny, but
I find my memory of Farsi is coming back more readily than my Arabic,
though I spoke Arabic far better than I ever did Farsi).
Each night at Moria, as we clothe,
shelter, and feed the wet, tired, and hungry refugees, as things
settle down, we seek out those who are sleeping outside in the cold.
It has been especially bitter the past week or so with snowstorms,
high winds, and lower than average temperatures, plummeting to below
the freezing mark. Last night, with room to spare, we approached not
just those with no shelter at all, but those in small tents as well.
An Afghan staff member and I approached one tent harboring a
family with several small children. We tried to convince the family
to move to one of the RHU huts or the heated dorms up the hill, but
they refused to go.
Though our mandate is to treat all with
dignity, there have been many issues over privacy. As I noted in an
earlier post, we often have to cram the huts and the dorm rooms with
far more people than capacity. Ikea, who manufactures the huts, says
that each building will house five people. We usually have at least
eighteen to twenty in each, and sometimes more. When we bring a new
group to an already occupied hut, either those already in residence,
or those we are bringing to share the small building, or both groups,
are resistant.
This can be particularly frustrating.
Of course it is easy to understand that people have been through so
much yearn for some measure of quiet and comfort—and as I noted
above, it is part of our mandate to treat all with dignity and
respect. However, if it's a case of ceding a bit more comfort to one
family at the expense of another being quite literally left out in
the cold, the whole notion becomes more problematic. It can be
difficult to understand the lack of empathy with others who are in
the same boat. As in the case of the second imad I wrote about,
families who were again literally in the same boat were reluctant to
share shelter.
Still, I would have to say that it was
a relatively good night at Moria. Many, if not most, had some heat in
addition to shelter. There was plenty of food and hot tea to go
around. It's far easier to take care of people with the limited
resources at hand when there are fewer people clamoring for them.
With less work on our hands, we Starfish volunteers and the DRC staff spent more time indoors as
well. The DRC office is one of the Ikea huts and the door is always
open, so though we've had a small space heater longer than the
housing units, the office is nearly as cold as outside. And when
we're busy, most of us spend most of our time outside, talking to
those looking for shelter, taking them to where we place them,
pointing out the blanket line, the food line, the charging stations,
the bathrooms... and when we do have a moment inside the hut, unless
we are directly in front of the small space heater, we are still
cold.
Of course it's difficult to complain.
We volunteers and staff are dressed in multiple layers. We generally
are wearing shoes that are adequate. We are generally not completely
wet, although I've been pretty damp a few times. But even decently
dressed and dry, it's difficult not to get cold when spending hours
in freezing temperatures and brisk winds.
So last night, since all was so quiet,
we fashioned a door to the DRC office hut. We squandered two
flimsy,clear plastic rain ponchos for
the makeshift door and for once, huddling in borrowed refugee
blankets over our layers of clothes, felt a measure of warmth. I felt
the warmth on the inside too, as our little group, united in our
efforts, had the opportunity to share tea and stories with each
other, relatively relaxed for once.
Not that we haven't shared some stories
before. The hour or so commute each way between Molyvos and Moria is
often a time of sharing. A smoke outside the hut in a stolen moment
sometimes opens a window on a colleague's life. Even within the
course of our duties, we sometimes glimpse an insight.
I gained new respect and an
appreciation for the tolerance and humor of my Afghan friend at DRC. the other night when
he and I were talking to a group of Iraqi men. He was explaining to
them in Arabic that they would be sharing the hut with other single
men we had already placed there. One of the men started babbling
about how they didn't want to share with Afghans, that they were this
and that and talked too much. He assured them that they would be in
a hut with other Arabic speakers. They were all clearly relieved, and
the man who had made the racist comments shook his hand, and told
him he was a good man. He responded that he wasn't a good man, he
was an Afghan.
The men at least looked ashamed, but I've seen this kind of prejudice more than once at Moria, against
aAghans, against Somalis, against Iraqis and Syrians and Kurds, and
non-Kurds. Running for their lives, some people still find time to
scorn others. Sometimes I despair of humankind.
Gul isn't the only person I've met with
a witty appreciation of irony. One of the Greek family who runs the
hotel where I'm staying, cracked me up just
after I posted my last blog entry yesterday.
(Was it really only yesterday? So much
is packed into a day here, it feels longer ago. I can't believe I've
been here less than two weeks.)
Anyway, I asked him where the
closest place to get cigarettes was, as I've run out of those I
brought with me. He told me, then offered me a couple to hold me till
I could get there. I demurred, but he insisted, giving me three
cigarettes. With a straight face, but a twinkle in his eye, he told
me that they were good good German cigarettes; that he wanted to
support the German economy because it had suffered a little over the
past couple of years. We shared a good laugh over that one.
Though his family's business has
suffered greatly throughout the duration of the refugee crisis—the
tourist trade has dropped off by more than half—Vasilis told me how
honored he was to offer discounted housing to volunteers, that he was
impressed and moved at how people came from all over, sometimes far
away, to work for no pay to help out, and that he was happy to do
what he could to help. I have a lot of respect for Vasilis and his
family, and most of the Greek people I've met here who are rising to
the occasion and offering what they can despite their own grave
troubles.
I've written a lot today. It was my day
off, so I wasn't hurrying to make my shift, but I feel like i've
given you all enough to digest for today.
There's so much to say it's hard not to
just spill words in all directions.
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