At at the end of my last post, I told the story of the guy from Northern Ireland who drove, with his buddy, from his home to Athens with his towns' donations to Syrian refugees. On the Facebook page where we found our volunteer group, a Greek freelance photographer posted his slideshow of the same afternoon, and lo and behold, he got a photo of Northern Ireland guy. I hope one day he sees this great photo.
It took us 2 days to recover from the emotional and physical toll from our work at the supply depot. It really is very overwhelming, the size of this migration. We read that on Wednesday, 3 days later, a ferry will arrive at 9:30 pm carrying about 250 refugees in from the islands. This is a very small number. There are also reports that the Port Authority, on order of the EU and Greek governments, are now registering volunteers before they can help. The volunteer community is up in arms - agreeing on one hand for security reasons - but also balking at their interference after more than a year of neglect. Marc and I talk a lot about this development and decide to go anyway, we'll see what decisions we have to make once there.
The public transit system in Athens is amazing, and like every other city we've been to, we buy a multi-day pass and figure out our way. Marc researches amazing apartment locations for us, easily accessible to sights, but also to interesting areas of the city that he finds recommended based on the characteristics we are looking for. Our Athens apartment is located right near the dolphin image in the map below, central to everywhere we want to go. This day, we need to take the green line out to the Port. We leave around noon, giving ourselves time to check it out, see some more of the coast, and watch what a massive Port like Athens is all about.
We arrive easily enough, the train drops us at the bottom of the map below, and the refugee ferries arrive all the way around the other side at Gate E1. It's about a 4 km walk from end to end. We do it on a beautiful sunny day and see some wondrous sights of this working Port, central to Mediterranean and European trade.
Massive, massive ships and private ocean cruisers coming and going.
A few blocks through the city, away from the Port, we walk to a pleasure port for a beautiful sunset, Boardwalk dinner. An elderly man strikes up a conversation with us - this happens all the time in Greece! - hears a bit of our journey, and with a big smile, yells his farewells to us after 20 minutes "Don't look back! Carpe Diem!"
The view from this part of the coast shows us where we were at the Olympic basketball stadium, as well as the private marinas we walked through. This bay was where the 2004 Olympic sailing events were held as well.
Darkness descends, and we walk back through the Port, traffic has increased 10 fold. All night-time ferry sailings depart at 9, and every ship berth is filled and transport truck after transport truck heads inside, drops its trailer and leaves. Most ferries are travelling to Crete, so we assume there 's another trucker on the other end to pick up the load. Lots of foot traffic on a Wednesday night, mostly young people.
We meet Negia and the rest of the volunteers inside E1's passenger terminal where the Port has given them storage space and access to electricity and a kitchen. A group of young people from The Netherlands, The SoupProjekt, cook every day all day, preparing massive vats of soup to hand to the refugees as they debark. We are about 20 and we begin filling grocery carts with water, bananas, oranges, bags of "mom supplies". There's an orderliness, mostly women, all following 2 grandmothers' lead. We head outside. And the back of the ferry opens. We are lined up a ways' back, to give the refugees room. Interesting to note a group of about 30 men, milling off to the side swoop in and start haranguing the travellers. Getting them in to groups to get on various buses. We are to.d there's an unsavoury side to this part of their journey, but we don't ask too many questions.
Marc hands out oranges, I hand out bananas. We have an opportunity to say welcome, to smile at moms and children. Everyone is wary, scared, tired and grateful for the food. A team of 4 young women from the University of Belgium arrived to help and naturally, Marc and I were keeping a parental eye on them, reminding us of our kids and so many great young people we know. They are in Social Work and have come to Athens for a week as a project assignment in their final year. They are completely overwhelmed by what they've seen today, the people they've interviewed, their morning stint at the supply depot. We take the train back to the city centre together once we're done, and as we leave, a few groups have not had buses arrive, some are huddled on street corners with their Athens leader, about 50 are sleeping in the terminal tonight. With a general, nation -wide strike the following days, the situation gets really, really terrible as the refugees get stuck between EU demands, unions, the austerity protests, and generally a messy, messy situation.
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