In Lesvos this morning I had the pleasure of meeting Hannah and Basil of Lighthouse Relief in Skala Sikamineas on the north of Lesvos to hear about their north shore emergency response operations. Did you know that in 2017 this team responded to 116 boat landings giving emergency assistance to over 4,000 people (more than half women and children)?
We left Skala with a pit-stop at ‘Stage 2 camp’ where refugees arriving on the notorious dinghies from Turkey spend their very first night in Europe. I was unexpectedly and happily reunited with a friend there! A super-friendly cat 
who I met in September 
.
Next, to the new (2 months’ old) Refugee 4 Refugees warehouse right next door to Moria Refugee Camp where Syrian founder, Omar Alshakal, and his volunteers were busy sorting and preparing and organising for open doors again tomorrow.
Omar kindly took us to see the tented overflow fields of Moria.
It was worse than I’d imagined.
I didn’t know that the people in tents are the people who’ve been in Lesvos for more than a year. Just when you thought life couldn’t be any worse… Men, women, children. It’s indiscriminate.
When some of the people realised there were ‘visitors’ they appeared to come out their tents to greet us. I loved seeing a little tented dog kennel with two young teenage boys looking after it. Such humanity… it’s own shelter, a blanket, a couple of battered toys… awesome!
A young Sudanese man stopped for a chat. Mohammed was dressed only in t-shirt and shorts and, when we shook hands, his were way warmer than mine! He said ‘I’m from Africa’ like that explained why my Scottish blood with 4-layers on was frozen and he was so warm! Mohammed’s been in Moria for 8 months, is skilled in languages and dreams of going to Canada, but anywhere is fine. Of his current fate, his resigned face said only Inshallah; as God wills.
There must be 500+ people in this overflow area but I could only see four port-a-loos. FFS. Omar assured me they stank and we wouldn’t go there. But what choice for those living in this camp?
To the right were African men praying in a makeshift church, who suddenly sang together… their beautiful melody echoed through the camp…
We stopped to chat to a Syrian man with seven Iraqis around a fire. They were cooking chicken. It was blackened on the fire and they said it was for the Syrian man’s wife and 3 kids. We were offered some, of course, and they laughed saying ‘plants plants’ when I said I was vegetarian! They never stopped smiling and joking even as they showed us the food for camp that day – chicken with rice. I swear to you that the chicken was raw. They cook the chicken again, but the rice trays were neatly piled in a plastic bag, uneaten. Barely cooked, they said it was inedible. Binning the rice and re-cooking the chicken was clearly a daily chore now accepted. ‘The food no good, no good’.
Our final stop before leaving was with an Iraqi man on crutches with bright pink ski boots. He pulled his trouser leg up a little to show us open wounds on his leg. An injury from more than a year ago, the shrapnel is still in there and the wounds weeps and throbs constantly. The doctors don’t help. Tomorrow. Tomorrow. Every millimetre of the man’s face turned to warmth and appreciation when Omar told him to come to the warehouse where the wound could be treated (even if the shrapnel can’t be removed). That tiny glimmer of hope, of someone giving a damn, and I’m sure Omar had just made a new friend for life.
We left Moria and Omar and I decided to pop in on Rafat and the team at House of Humanity. It was late and dark but the place was buzzing with families from Kara Tepe Camp and their precious bags of food and clothes. The Timber Project had arrived and were already transforming the downstairs clothes distribution centre. Rafat was buzzing with the success of the day! We promised to be back as volunteers tomorrow.
It’s now 1.30and I’m at a cold, draghty volunteer flat listening to hammering rain and thunder… Thinking of the little dog in his shelter, his family shivering in the summer tent next door, of Mohammed still surprisingly warm in his t-shirt and shorts, of the man on crutches with the shrapnel, of the people praying and the souls they were praying for. And I’m thinking of Europe’s monumental failure of these people and the toll that it’s taking on each precious life.
