Where Have You Been?

I was in Greece during the coldest winter for years, working to ameliorate the lives of refugee women, men and their families there. I'm haunted by it. Not so much by the stories, which are monuments to human destruction and human triumphant resilience at the same time. But by the ego-based failure of those who wish to help, to really do anything effective.

I just heard news from Raqqa. The families there have no human choice. Stay and die. Leave and die.

What will we do? What is to be done?

I remembered the stories I heard when I was in the camps in Greece. And this song was going on and on in my mind.

A woman with bomb pieces in her hip.

Families who know they will never see their homes again.

A man who lay bleeding for hours in Aleppo.

A child who was thrown from her father's arms to her uncle's, as her father was dragged back to Turkey.

A child who makes money for the family selling sex ... while her mother takes care of her baby.

A man who walked with his wife, children and his mother across several countries to make a better life, who is angry because he is stuck in northern Greece.

An artist who painted the pictures of terror.

A child with a look of horror who walked around the hotel lobby playing a tin drum.

A predator extorting refugees for money.

A volunteer leader who is cruel and greedy.

Some children in a military camp killing a litter of puppies.

A baby dying of hepatitis.

A young man dying while the doctors were at the gate being questioned for papers.

The boats arriving through the fog and snow.

Boxes and boxes of stuff sitting waiting in warehouses while paperwork gets done and people are cold and underfed.

Couples wanting to make love and condoms tied up in bureaucratic red tape.

A young man in jail in Turkey for no reason.

A family with a newborn with nowhere to live.

And what do you do now, my darling young one?

Thanks to Zed

My gratitude alphabet is coming to an end. It started last year when I wrenched my back carrying too many packages over the slippery icy sidewalk, and I was angry at the world. A friend suggested I start a gratitude process to help my back. The back was sorted within a week but my alphabet continued.

Today I am grateful for endings. I'm happy that life is full of changes, and that I have had a pretty amazing ride so far. But I know I wouldn't be where I am today if I hadn't given up on some big projects that I've loved in the past.

But, as always, endings are always embedded in beginnings and vice versa. And I am very, very grateful that some things in my life have remained constant and steady.

If I hadn't moved forward and stepped down from leading MBC, I wouldn't have had the time to do some of the interesting projects I've been able to participate in since the summer: being more involved in my cafe, running more (I say this in a guilty voice because I haven't run much here in Greece), coming to Greece to lend a hand with the asylum seekers here, and stuff like that...

So now what?

Just joking with my co-volunteers about the ending of my gratefulness alphabet - now I can be an absolute asshole for the rest of my life! No, endings aren't like that, actually. Stuff just seems to go on forever, really. I mean, there are always ripples from past experiences and actions. And even when the real ending happens, when someone dies, of course we have memories of that person.

So my time in Greece is almost over for now and I am filled with different emotions: sadness, gratefulness, love, disgust, regret, joy, anger... and my alphabet continues.

Day by Day

"So what are you actually DOING over there? It's amazing you're there, but..."

A valid question. Some days I feel I am not doing anything at all. One of the first days I was here, my glasses broke (actually snapped!) and I haven't been able to replace them here, so I am feeling a little self-conscious.

What am I actually doing here in northern Greece, supposedly volunteering with refugees? First of all, most of the people moving through Greece in the hope of finding a country that will accept them are not official "refugees", but rather "asylum seekers".  This term seems even more precarious to me, and pretty much appears to be someone who has very few of the rights we take for granted.

I live in a small apartment with nine other women. Actually, eleven. Or is it ten? The numbers change all the time. Most of us are volunteers, but some of us are coordinating this huge venture we are involved in.

In the evening, we make bags of supplies for the mothers we are seeing the following day. Food, diapers, and newborn packs for the very pregnant mothers.

In the morning, we leave the apartment and go to visit mothers - either pregnant women, breastfeeding, or both, or women with children under two. Our mandate is to be sure that mothers are effectively feeding their babies. That's the simple story.

What's the rest of the story? What am I doing? I am providing prenatal care, sometimes. I'm weighing babies. I'm giving breastfeeding information and support. I'm looking at various people's ailments. I drive a lot.

I drive a lot because the people that were located in the camps have been relocated by the UNHCR to hotels and apartment buildings all over Greece. The motive was great: it has been very cold here and people were freezing.

Lovely olive tress, but if you were a city person, from a beautiful big old city like Damascus or Aleppo, how would you want to be relocated to a hotel here in the middle of nowhere, away from any community that you had formerly created in the camp - even though the camp is horrible - and possibly away from the people in your family? It's such a difficult situation - and every single person involved is doing the very best they can possibly do. I went to a building today where some families had been settled. A few days ago, it was a mud pool. Today, there were walkways set up with scaffolding, and a gravel road was being put down.

I spend some of my time in camps. These are housed in abandoned warehouses, with rows and rows of tents inside them. Heating, electricity and wifi are provided. Many dedicated volunteers help to provide health care, activities for the children, food, clothing and support for the people living there.

There are two interesting housing projects I have visited. One of them has been made real by a group of people from the UK, who have bought an apartment complex and created a space for families to live. They have named their project "Filoxenia", which means "generosity of spirit". This is a new project and is constantly changing and growing, which houses mostly young families and their children.

The least depressing place I have visited is called "Elpida". This is an abandoned factory that was bought by two philanthropists from North America (an American and a Canadian). It has been rebuilt to house families, and many volunteers help to create community by providing health care, education, activities, communal spaces and a place to belong.

http://togetherforbetterdays.org/elpida/
http://radcliffefoundation.org/project/elpida-home/
https://www.facebook.com/elpidafactory/

But let's remember that all of these great initiatives are just band-aid measures, and the real answers lie with the governments that need to decide what to do about this huge crisis. Every single person I have met, from the lovely young woman who bathes babies to the very young mother living in a hotel with her tiny baby, to the important military-looking people at the camps, they are all doing their best. Tomorrow, I'll be going to a camp and then visiting a pregnant mother who has been relocated to a beautiful apartment she shares with ten other people, who told me that she will be moved again within the month.

I hope I can make a little difference to someone.

Embrace the Chaos

Rumor is, that because of the extreme cold. it has been decided that the people living in tents on the islands (yes they are still arriving to the islands, on boats, and yes it is bloody cold here) should be moved to the camps here in northern Greece that have been set up with tents, some electricity, some water, some heating...

So that means that the people living in the camps now are being moved to more stable accommodation - hotels and apartments that are either empty because of the season, or because they're just empty, or because they're condemned.

Which is great news. But because of the way the bigger bureaucratic wheels turn, there are some hurdles that us people on the ground have to jump over so that we can continue to provide care for the people who are counting on us.

First, we often don't know where people are. They themselves get a call one evening and the bus arrives the next day to take them elsewhere. It is most peoples' plan/dream to end up reunited with their families in a country where they have the legal right to work, go to school, and live a normal life. And it is most peoples' final goal to be reunited with their families back in the home country that they love. In the meantime, it is their short term goal to have a life that is reasonably human: to have their children with them, to have a warm place to live, food and the means to cook it, a toilet that works, somewhere to wash yourself, a sheltered place to sleep. These simple necessities have been denied tens of thousands - hundreds of thousands, actually millions of people worldwide, and many of the people stranded in Greece now are unfortunately without some of these basic human needs. So when they get that call that they will be moved to a hotel or an apartment they are happy to leave the tent ...

Which leads us to the next downside. Actually, two. First, the hotels/apartments aren't always very nice. Today I went to an absolutely lovely apartment where three families were living. One of those families had moved from an awful "Black Hole" in a condemned building where water was literally running down the walls.

Two, the communities and friendships that have been formed over the weeks and months living in the camps are broken when people get moved to different places in different places, sometimes in different areas of Greece altogether. I've spoken to several people who had created work for themselves in the camps who found themselves isolated in their new locations.

No one really knows what is happening from day to day. I saw an official report today that quoted the number of people living in a certain camp, as of Jan 18, 2017, and I know it is a wrong number because I was in that very camp today and there are only a few families left. So, the official people don't know. The smaller NGOs don't know. The people living in the camps don't know, and us volunteers on the ground? We know even less than anyone else.

Except - what we DO know, is that when we meet a person: a woman, a child, a man, we do what we can to make a difference. We don't ever know what that difference will be, or even if there WILL be a difference, but we try our best.

I'm not usually one for the speakings of saints, but here is a quote from someone who was born just north of where I am now.

"We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop." Mother Teresa

I am a tiny drop in this huge ocean of sadness and despair. I have done prenatal visits: taken blood pressure, felt bellies, listened to baby's heart tones. I've conversed and encouraged using my hands, my heart, and google translate. I've visited some mothers with babies - mostly healthy, a couple of babies who are not doing so well, and I've tried to encourage and support. I've listened to people's stories, about family members far away, about war and bombs, about good news and bad.

What did I do this week? I drive from place to place, visiting mothers. Today I visited two pregnant mothers and then I went to the camp. Yesterday, I did groceries for the mother baby food packs and went to a meeting. The day before that, more prenatal and postpartum visits. Tomorrow, I may go to visit a newborn and her mother. Or organize a women's group in the camp. Then I might drive further north to visit some other people who have been moved to a hotel. Who knows what each day will bring.

All I know is, I am here to be whatever drop I am supposed to be, to help spread kindness in a world that is full of hatred, and to make a place where babies can come into this world with smiles on their little faces.

A small drop in a huge ocean

There is so much to say! 

The work I do with pregnant women and with mothers and babies remains the same, whether I am in a fancy shmancy house in a rich suburb, or in a small room with no electricity, no heat, and water pouring down the walls. Mothers are mothers, and most pregnant women have similar concerns and worries, at least in terms of the coming labor and birth.

That's where the similarity ends. None of the women I have spoken to here in northern Greece want to give birth or raise their children in the situation they find themselves in. These families are people like you: back home, they are nurses, teachers, University professors, artists. They are the ones who managed to get out: a poor unemployed man and his family wouldn't have been able to pay for the treacherous voyage across to southern Europe.

I won't post pictures of the people I am meeting here. They have already been stripped of so much of their dignity. Living in a tent or a crowded room, being given rations of food, using communal bathrooms, wearing second hand donated clothing, being moved from place to place at the whim of the authorities ... having people take pictures of you and asking you personal questions, it's too much. 

So I'm posting pictures of snowmen, which shouldn't be living here in Greece - they belong in Canada. And pictures of the stray dogs that roam everywhere, through the city, around the camps, in the fields behind the buildings. This dog we met outside Sindos camp, it had been hit by a car so its back legs didn't work so well.

The camp is housed in a huge abandoned industrial warehouse, with many of the windows broken. The UN tents line the warehouse. Clothes are hanging outside the tents. Children run around and play, some of them ride bicycles, others climb on dangerous-looking objects that line the walls. There are painted handprints on several of the inside and outside walls.

Across the road, there is another warehouse where the supplies and food are kept. The camps are maintained by the military, so there is always a sense that you are being watched.

The smell in the warehouses is pretty overpowering at times. they are heated, so there's a strong smell of fuel. There's the smell of too many people living together for too long in small spaces. There's the smell of coldness, dampness and loneliness. There's the constant smell of cigarettes, because most of the men smoke here. 

Sounds? Children laughing or crying, dogs barking, people talking.

Inside the mother baby tent, we distribute diapers, food packs and essential items for mothers with children under two. Mothers who are pregnant or who need assistance feeding their babies are visited individually.

We are planning on starting up some activities for the women who live in the camp, so that they can have a few minutes to relax, having a foot rub, doing a few yoga stretches, learning about some aspect of motherbaby health.

This dog was lying outside another camp which is also very strictly controlled, but is easier to live. The people living there have rooms, communal spaces, and there are classes and activities organized every day.

We were sitting waiting the other day for our colleagues to finish their appointment. Before we knew it, we were having an impromptu chocolate eating and Arabic lesson session. Ten women - four English speakers, six Arabic speaker, and one woman who spoke both, got together and made jokes about everything and laughed at each other, while the kids played outside and the tiny kids jumped around and got yelled at. Life goes on.

If you feel tiny, if you feel like there's nothing you can do, look around you and find some way that you can help. Small things: if you're in Canada, make friends with a Syrian family who lives near you. If you're anywhere, donate money to any charity that appeals to you. If you are active in politics or you feel you can make a difference, make it! If you have any skills at all that you can share - health related, cooking, teaching a language, TRANSLATING from Arabic, sorting stuff in a warehouse, watching the coast off Lesbos for boats, then come to Greece and start volunteering!

I'm feeling very tiny much of the time. I want so much to help - the woman whose family lives in four different countries, the one who has lost many members of her family, the one who never wanted to give birth in a tent, the one whose husband is in a different camp ... and all I can do is care for those who I am lucky enough to meet, smile at the others, and be very, very grateful for what I have.

Get It Done

I have to tell you one more time how I love to run. 

I was running through the Rockies in my teens, then I gave it up for a while. When I started again, a few years ago, I realized that the practice of running, for me, teaches me about life, and about discipline.

What do you do when you're a runner? You run! Sometimes you don't want to. Sometimes you're tired, or your foot hurts, you have a headache, you didn't sleep well, you're busy. But running means running, and it means that you actually have to get your running clothes and shoes on and go and do it. And when you do, you feel better. Usually.

So, now I'm sitting in Frankfurt Airport, after an endless trudge through the Terminal. Why am I here?

I'm here because I decided less than a month ago to head to northern Greece to help out the mothers and babies that are there living in camps while the world decides where they can go. I'm also here because of incredible generosity on the part of people I know and love, and people I don't know (yet). 

I'm here because being a runner has taught me that you just have to get it done. See something that needs doing? Figure it out.

I'm not sure what I will encounter during my three weeks in Greece. I'm waiting for my plane to Thessaloniki now, and I'm prepared to work hard from the time I arrive. I'll be blogging and sending you all news and experiences from my trip. I know it's cold, very cold, in northern Greece, so I will be trying to stay warm and to help the mothers and babies to stay warm. I will probably be using some funds towards that goal, buying warm clothes perhaps, blankets, or extra food. I am leaping into the unknown, in a way, except that I know my work and how to support new families. That's the constant, just like your breath or the feeling of your body when you're pushing your limits.

For now, it's one step at a time. 

I am still accepting donations to my campaign. The funds will be used for buying supplies on the ground in Greece; to donate to the organizations that are working with mothers and babies in Greece, and possibly to fund another trip in a few months.

https://www.gofundme.com/MothersandbabiesinGreece

A Drop in the Ocean

I got to "Y" in my gratefulness alphabet that I started several months ago.

Today, I don't have to ask "why" when it comes to being grateful - I can see it in front of me, in so many ways.

It's so humbling to realize that people are behind me, supporting my project, wanting to spread the word, the word that people CAN do something, that we CAN help, even if its just a drop in the ocean.



About two weeks ago, I decided I would go to Greece to assist the (mostly Syrian) mothers and babies who are living this cold winter in a foreign country, with very little of the things we take for granted: shelter, food, heat ... there are families living in borrowed housing in Athens, or on the street, and there are tens of thousands of people living in camps in the north of Greece, waiting for permission to move north so that they can start the difficult process of rebuilding their lives.

I started a campaign to raise funds. I had no idea I knew so many generous people! I reached my original goal in eight days! I am still accepting funds, because I now know that I may need to buy supplies when I am there, and if I have money left over I will be donating it to the organizations I will be working with.

I have bought my ticket, and I'll be spending some extra cash on excess baggage. I'm taking newborn diapers, underwear, and a few extras to distribute.

One of my young friends is SEWING UNDERWEAR for me to bring - that is one of the clothing staples that people are in great need of.
A woman came in to the cafe today, with a huge bag of new underwear her husband donated from his store.

Everyone is giving, whether it's money, love or things. I am so grateful to you all! When I'm there, on Monday, I will be working hard to make sure that mothers and babies get the care that they need, but I will keep you in my heart and I will send updates every day.

Gratitude

Yesterday, December 27, 2016

I went over to a friend's place early in the morning to deliver a package for my son. Then down to the cafe with some supplies and ingredients for our baking extravaganza. Then over to pick up a gift for a friend who is grieving.

Then home for a minute, and I spoke to a postpartum mother who is healing from  c-section and learning how to breastfeed. Spoke to another postpartum mother who is finally getting the hang of feeding, and we discussed poop and the color of poop and breasts and all that baby talk.
I went for a run, I was going to do five k but man! the sidewalks were icy, I came home after a slippery run of 3 and a half k.

Back to the cafe, to pick up a meal for my grieving friend. I dropped it off at her house, full of love and sadness.

Then off with my family: three sons, husband and "daughter-in-love". We went shopping! I bought my lovely DIL a pair of sandals to wear indoors, and we got some booze, and didn't buy anything else but laughed together at the crazy consumer-inspired road rage happening.

I love my family - all for one and one for all! L'Chaim!!

Then back home, a bit to eat, drive downtown, to the movies!! Rogue One! I brought drinks in my purse because Cymbalists don't like to pay $7 for a small Coke.

Hey, the battle between good and evil? Good wins!!! But everyone dies in the end.

Then out for a drink, and we got a big plate of nachos, but they had chili con carne on them which we don't eat, so we got it to go and dropped it off for a homeless man on St Catherine - he ate well last night!

Then a different bar, the Whiskey Cafe, our regular. Drank good Scotch, had a blast, went home to our warm house, welcoming dog, and comfortable bed.

I lay in my bed so happy, so full of love and gratitude.

People living in Greece right now who have escaped the bloodshed in Syria? They had lives much like mine! Ok, maybe without the really insane Boxing Day consumerism, and no going to bars, but they had nice clothes and furniture and real houses and devices and good jobs and cars.

Now they have nothing. Tens of thousands of them are living in Greece, and I want to go there for three weeks to help young families with newborns, or those who are pregnant, so that their lives and the lives of their children, can be made a tiny bit better.

Please donate to my campaign, and share if you can!

https://www.gofundme.com/MothersandbabiesinGreece

Mothers and Babies

Many years ago I decided to interrupt my studies and go to Africa. I visited my parents in Botswana, then traveled for months through southern and east Africa, visiting the place I was born and the countries I last saw when I was very young.

On a border somewhere in East Africa, two things happened on the same day that deeply affected me and led me to where I am today. As I was waiting to cross to the other side, a young woman leaned heavily on the fence, clearly having labor contractions. She was on her own; a group of women crowded around her and led her away.

A few hours later, a woman came to me with a baby. The baby was sick, clearly dying. The mother explained to me that the baby had diarrhea and asked me if I could help. Back then, I was 23 years old, and although I knew quite a bit about First Aid, herbal healing, helping survivors of sexual assault, and the English Romantic Poets, I knew nothing about newborns or breastfeeding.

I didn't know that around 20% of all infant deaths were due to diarrhea, I didn't know about the links between malnutrition, formula feeding, breastfeeding, and infant death.
She thought I could help her, and I couldn't. I hope you never see a baby and mother looking at you like that.

I realized that day that I wanted to devote my life to making a safer world for mother and babies. I had a lot of other things to do with my life  as well, though, and spent several years meeting my true love, raising five sons, running an organic farm, studying midwifery, and working as a doula. 

Now I am ready, I have the skills to share and the time to spend. I am going to Greece to contribute to the effort to provide prenatal, childbirth and breastfeeding assistance to families in Greece who are living in very difficult conditions. Temperatures are low; people do not have good winter clothing; they are living in tents, in squats or in the streets. Babies are still being born, and children are still being raised.

“…statistics showed that in serious emergency situations, such as the one currently facing those affected by the Syria crisis, disease and associated death rates among under-5 children are higher than for any other age group.

The risk of dying is particularly high because of the combined impact of communicable diseases and diarrhea together with possible increases in rates of under-nutrition as people flee their homes.  The people inside Syria and those displaced may find themselves often in very difficult and unsanitary conditions thus can be at major risk of serious water-borne diseases. Breastfeeding confers critical protection from infection especially where safe water is unavailable and there is poor sanitation. Breastfeeding saves lives.” from safelyfed.org


I have created a GoFundMe campaign to raise funds for my trip. If you have been wondering what you can do to help, this is it! Please help me help mothers and babies in Greece!

GoFundMe

Please share my campaign, and if you can donate even a small amount, it will be gratefully appreciated. The funds will go towards my air travel, accommodation, transport, and supplies while I am there, and any left over will be donated directly to the organizations in Greece who are working with mothers and babies. 


I am wishing you all a year full of health, joy, peace and love.