Reflections on Greece: The Refugee Paradox

The barbed-wire fence surrounding the vulnerable protected zones/sections decorated with flowers. 

I've been here in Lesvos, Greece for 11 weeks now, and I haven't left much time for reflection. The busy schedule and 14 hour work days easily occupy my mind and not much brainpower is left behind for reflection and contemplation. But this next series of blogposts will be my reflections on the time I have spent, some reflections retrospective, some real time, and some more oriented towards life outside and after Greece. And by Greece I mean everything from living here in Mitilini, Lesvos, to working in Moria, to the refugee crisis in general, to politics, including personal, national, and international opinions. Sometimes these posts will be my thoughts, and sometimes they will just be my observations that I haven't quite processed or formed an opinion about yet.

First reflection: There are two sides to everything here, paradoxes if you will. Beauty and ugly. Happy and sad. Peace and conflict. Safety and danger. Democracy and corruption. Laughter and tears. Stagnation and growth. Joy and pain. Unity and division.

Here are some of my observations that have led me to these conflicting yet coexisting feelings and circumstances.

Beauty and ugly. The Greek island beauty is stunning and the reality of living here is quite paradisiacal in ways. It's easy to stare at the sunset over the beautiful clear blue water and feel like it is a dream. But while you're facing the view of the quant coastal towns lining the Aegean Sea beaches, your back is to the uglier underbelly of most of the beautiful Grecian islands. The refugee crisis rages on, set slightly inland amongst the olive groves and foothills. Tents and sleeping bags litter the hillsides and barbed wire fences and cement walls hide the shocking sight of 8,000+ people crammed into an old prison facility with the capacity for only 3,500 people. A life jacket graveyard  of thousands of life jackets collected from the beaches that refugees land on is hidden behind the hills. The open sewage runs right across the main entrance to the camp right where the bus stop is, making it near impossible to avoid a stinky dip in the water. The Greek restaurants and delicious food taste best after a nice swim on a beautiful beach, but some of those restaurants refuse to serve refugees. This place is beautiful. This place is also quite ugly in many ways. But the ugly does not always outweigh the beautiful, just as the beautiful does not always outweigh the ugly.

The Life Jacket Graveyard, just a few miles away from the beaches where most refugees land. There are thousands and thousands of life jackets here, each of them representing a refugee who made it. But there are many more who don't make it, and these life jackets don't actually save any lives, as most of them are fake and actually fill with water and sink you if wet.

People waiting for the bus right next to the open sewage in front of the camp. That is all human waste.

This was painted by a refugee artist; this piece of art acutely depicts the increasing anti-refugee sentiment and what it feels like to try to find safety despite closed borders.

Happy and sad. Last week we threw an Eid celebration party in Section A with the unaccompanied minor boys that we work with. There are 150 of them, most of them under the age of 18 (all of them claiming they are under the age of 18 in order to stay in the protected zone instead of general housing and gain vulnerability status to hopefully speed up their asylum-seeking process) and most of them having no family here in Greece with them. Eid happens twice a year, but this one in August is the biggest of the Muslim celebrations, like Christmas on steroids! So as during all holiday seasons, people away from family will be missing their families dearly. Not to mention that many of these boys' family members are not just far away in their home country but are often not with us anymore at all. So with all of this in mind, and a general feeling of quiet sadness permeating the entire section of minors for the few days leading up to Eid. We kept our party a secret and the day before we went to the store and bought candy, cookies, tea, and popcorn in bulk. On the morning of Eid, we kept the door to the classroom closed as we decorated and set everything up, and then bumped up the speaker playing music and opened the doors to let the boys in. It truly felt like Christmas morning, with everyone coming in and smiling and hugging each other! We gave out little plates of treats and necklaces handmade out of colorful straws. We had a polaroid camera for group pictures, and the boys put on some of their favorite music and danced for hours! The classroom was packed and there was pure happiness that filled the room. It didn't feel like we were in Moria anymore and the boys kept asking for more and more pictures to be taken of the whole group, like one big happy family. It lasted a few glorious hours and then it was back to the realities of the camp. I wish we could have thrown a party like that for section B, the other 140 unaccompanied minor boys, or the single women/single women with children in sections C and D, or the unaccompanied minor girls and young children in the safe zone. Really I wish we could have thrown a party like that for all 8,500 people in the camp. But our 150 boys felt happy for a few hours and we'll start there.

Peace and conflict. Safety and danger. The refugees left behind war for a more peaceful country. They flee from danger to find safety here. Yet there are fights and gangs and drug deals and sexual assault and police violence and discrimination every single day in Moria camp. Although peace is present here, it is not always accessible because of the circumstances. The unaccompanied minor boys always say that during the daytime in their section of Moria, it isn't so bad. It's actually pretty quiet, people napping or going to school or different NGO activities. But they also say that nothing is worse than the night time. People climbing over the roof to sneak in past guards, the constant sounds of yelling and fighting. The constant harassment from guards and policemen to ID them. The constant fear of everything they own in one little bag getting stolen if they drift off to sleep. Waking up the next morning to find all of your shoes and the clothes you hung up to dry have been stolen. I wonder how many of the boys even sleep, and then I realize that the reason they all sleep so much during the day is probably because they don't get much sleep at night.

Democracy and corruption. The definition of Greek politics. This summer has been a very tense time for Greek politics regarding the refugee situation here. There were local elections for Lesvos and national elections for Greece also, and following the current European trend, both locally and nationally Greece is increasingly right-wing nationalist and anti-refugee leaning. Several national ministers as well as local mayors have visited Moria camp this summer, and the interesting thing is that the camp is a very very well run and secure on those days. We get alerts to be on our best behavior, but as soon as the VIPs leave, the security guards leave their post and go back to smoking, and the staff members relax and stop monitoring the refugees so closely. There have been rumors all summer that the new governments, once formed and officially in power, will close the refugee camps or turn them into close-site camps, meaning no refugees could leave the premises once they enter (essentially a prison, whereas right now the refugees are allowed to travel around the island at least). Others have rumored that the government won't do that, they will just replace all the current leadership of the camps and use the newly installed leaders to make everything worse. The new officials that have been visiting the camps have finally officially stated that they have no plans yet to close any of the camps and we found out recently that it is actually illegal by international law to detain asylum-seekers, so the camps couldn't be closed-site either. What has been happened though is a slow but sure pushing out of previous leadership of the camps and appointment of new leaders. The current camp commanders of Moria Reception and Identification Center and Kara Tepe Hospitality Center have done an incredibly good job and have been recognized for their dedication and capabilities as leaders and advocates for refugees. Both of these camp commanders announced their resignation and/or retirement in the past two weeks. Undoubtedly, this is a forced removal of potential opposition by the newly elected government officials. The short list of names for replacing these two individuals is "not good at all" in the words of our main local Greek partner NGO, Synaparxi (which means coexistence in Greek). The former mayor of Lesvos is in this NGO along with several other long-time political and community leaders of the island, and their weekly meetings are spent updating each other on the political news and discussing when it is appropriate for them to intervene and prevent some bad people from being appointed to manage the refugee camps. Even though the new government officials were elected democratically, their power to completely change the direction of efforts towards helping refugees (or shift towards hindering and hurting them instead) questionably extends beyond what democracy can and should do.

Laughter and tears. This is especially relevant to our team as we have learned to work here as a crisis relief team. We have laughed harder than your average volunteer team, simply because we have a good time being around each other and we truly enjoy being with the refugees and partners we work with. We joke and we hang out and work hard together, but sometimes it all just hits you when your least expecting it and you end up in tears because of the sadness, the pain, the unfairness and injustice, and the inevitable fact that you can picture your own brother, sister, mother, father, niece, or nephew, in the faces of the people here and you can't believe your life is so different from theirs just because of where you were born. The only reason they are illegal and I am not is that I was born in America whereas they were born in Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, Congo, the Gaza Strip, and Yemen.

The refugee who painted this had never painted before. This was her first painting. It is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen; depicting an Afghani woman.

Another piece of refugee art. 

Stagnation and growth. The Greek economy is slow, unemployment is high (upwards of 50%), most Greek people don't have jobs. Greece blames the refugee crisis for killing the economy on this little island, but in reality the people and business that this number of refugees and the refugee camps have brought to Lesvos have stimulated economic growth here more than ever. There are 95 NGOs here now that were not here before, renting apartments, staying in hotels, eating at restaurants, shopping at markets, buying souvenirs, being tourists. There are 8,000 refugees that need meals and catering companies that have expanded and made big money stepping up to the task. The only transportation company on the island, the public buses, have never seen so much business and are stuffed to the brim every half hour, 7 days a week. There are thousands of Greek employees in each refugee camp that were previously unemployed, and still would be without these jobs. Sure, tourists may not come to Lesvos like they flock to Santorini, but Lesvos is by no means slipping away into the economic abyss of a bankrupt country because there are still refugees arriving every day. If anything, this island is staying afloat because of the refugee boats that stay afloat and make it here.

Joy and pain. Mohammad, our awesome coordinator who is a refugee from Iraq, has quickly become one of our best friends. We love him, joking with him, eating with him, working with him. He is very open about his journey here, and how even though these past 3 years that he has been here stuck in Greece as a refugee seeking asylum have been so hard and draining, they have also been the best 3 years of his life because he hasn't had to hear bombs going off in his city every single day. He hasn't had to run towards bomb sites to make sure none of his family or friends were injured. He has had to live here and wait and wait and wait and endure the difficulties of refugee life in Moria and on Lesvos, but he's safe. Another Mohammad, our intern from Gambia who speaks 9 languages, is one of the most joyful and purely good people I have ever met in my life. He has been here as a refugee for almost 11 months, and is just waiting to be able to go to London to be with his brother and sister and to get married to his girlfriend of 7 years. He had his final interview with the European Asylum Seeking Office scheduled last week after which he was going to immediately get fingerprinted so he could receive his passport within the coming months and travel to London, but when he showed up on the day of his interview, the office informed him that his interview had to be postponed a month. He was sad, but the first thing he said to me was that at least it wasn't postponed a year like most peoples' interviews. Those two Mohammads are both around 22 years old, my age. You would be hard pressed to find two more compassionate, happy, fun people. It's crazy to think about how different our 22 years on this planet have been. It will undoubtedly be painful to leave them when we get on a plane in 2 weeks to go home. They will have to stay here because they are not allowed to leave. We have to leave because we are not allowed to stay longer under our visas, and we have no idea if we will ever meet again. But they will always be considered some of the best friends we have ever had the privilege of having. Joy and pain.

Mohammad from Iraq :)

And Mohammad Gambia with the ping pong paddle :) We usually just call him Gambia because there are so many Mohammads! 

Unity and division. We work very closely with the Greek staff members of the camps and have built a lot of positive momentum this summer in how unified we are. In the past, it has felt like a battle trying to get them to follow the rules or do their jobs, but we have made an explicit effort to focus on unity with the Greek staff. We have both held each other accountable for distributing meals fairly. We have learned all of the staff members names and they have helped us when we haven't had enough hands and we have helped them when they don't have enough hands. The director of the section of unaccompanied minor boys has become a good friend and we respect her tremendously for the care she has for each refugee, even though previously our organization has not had the best relationship with her. She even invited us to her birthday party! Our main partner, Synaparxi, focuses on unity and coexistence, providing opportunities for Greeks and refugees to interact and learn about each other, as well as rallying community members to be advocates for refugees. So many of the refugees are working with organizations to help each other. Mohammad (our intern from Gambia who speaks 9 languages) regularly stays out until the late hours of the night because he meets people on his way home after a full day working with us that need a translator. He drops everything to translate for them for hours while they go to the hospital or go to an asylum interview or to the police station. So many people are doing so many positive and unifying things for each other. But in the midst of all of this unity, there is still division. Remember that open sewage that runs right in front of the bus stop and the main entrance to Moria camp? Well it has been running openly for years, but the local community members that are anti-refugee and hold positions in government in the nearby village refuse to give proper city permissions for the sewage system capacity to be expanded because they do not want it to appear like Moria can accommodate more people. It's the same reason they won't allow more housing containers to be brought in to house more people in the camp. About a year ago, there was a large shipment of housing containers (large shipping containers that are about 20 feet long and house upwards of 3 families each in Moria) arrived at the port of Mitilini from Athens. It was met by the local anti-refugee fascist groups who blocked the shipment from being unloaded by protesting on the docks (the very same fascist group that took to the streets in masks last summer to beat up refugees - true story. This small island has seen a lot). They don't want Moria to expand its capacity to hold more people because they think it will bring more refugees here. This is one of the main reasons why, even after 4 years of this crisis existing at this level, there are still not enough roofs to go over everyones' heads and why there are nearly 3,000 people living behind the official Moria camp in an olive grove in makeshift tents and shelters. After so many years with this consistent massive stream of refugees staying in Moria, you'd think that a solution could have been reached to provide adequate shelter for the refugees. But the division amongst the people who make decisions and the people who have the power to stop decisions from being made has ensured that those solutions are not found or implemented.

We have a football program for the unaccompanied minor boys. They love it! The program is not meant to just be fun, but also to teach teamwork and unity skills to the boys, helping them love and respect each other even if they come from different countries and backgrounds. 

This is a housing container, otherwise known as an Isobox. NGOs use these as spaces for activities, this is our Isobox in Kara Tepe camp that we just repainted with new, more welcoming vibes! Isoboxes are the main housing that exists in refugee camps, and sometimes hold 3-5 families in one. 

All of these observations honestly do not begin to scratch the surface. I know there are hundreds of things that I have observed but not yet processed from my time here. Even these observations I wrote about will likely mean something different to me or be understood differently in a week or two from now. Not only is this a complex issue, but paradoxes are difficult to wrap your head around as it is, so for now I'm not expecting any more from myself than this; observations and reflections.