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.