alexanderdroznin

[alexanderdroznin]

Day 21: Monday, July 10. Filippiada, the third and final camp.

Filippiada (pop. 4,619) is just under five miles from Hotel Marathia, and the volunteers pass through it on their way to the camp in the morning. The town is situated in a narrow strip along a north-south portion of European route E951 (Greek route EO5), at the foot of low hills on the right bank of the Louros. The western edge of the town is densely forested, and about four miles to the northeast, a low mountain ridge rises out of the plain. Though Filippiada is roughly the same size as Katsikas, and both are in mountainous regions, it has a noticeably different feel - here it is less dry, with more trees and less farmland. The town is still largely asleep when the volunteers pass through it.

The Filippiada camp is located around two miles north of the town center, just beyond the town limits, at the intersection of two sections of E951/EO5. Like Alexandreia, it was established on the site of a former air force base. The camp is on a 15-acre gravel-covered plot, behind which is a lightly forested hill. The Greek Air Force and Ministry of Migration Policy, which maintain offices at the camp, are responsible for its management. Filippiada opened in March 2016 with 83 tents and an official capacity of 700 residents. In November of that year, the tents were replaced with containerized housing units, of which there are currently 70. At any given time, there are approximately 300 residents here, most of whom are Syrians (40%), followed by Afghans (25%), Iraqis (25%), Iranians (5%), and Pakistanis (5%). Roughly 30% of the residents are men; 30% are women; and 40% are children.

There is a gate and a guard booth at the camp’s entrance, but a guard is posted only in the afternoons. In the front half of the camp, along the road that leads to the residential half, there are: (on the left side) a gazebo, female-friendly space, offices for UNICEF, UNHCR, and Solidarity Now, as well as a small library; and (on the right side) the military/migration office, two medical tents, a large tea tent, six communal kitchen tents, and three housing units for pregnant women and new mothers. In the residential half of the camp, there are 67 housing units in a dozen rows, a large warehouse (the only permanent structure in the camp, and the center of RS’s operation here), a small lot for solar generators that power the camp, two toilet facilities, a shower facility, and a madrasa tent.

RS arrived at Filippiada in October 2016, and as at Alexandreia, it works alongside other NGOs here to provide dignified aid to residents. Having cleaned up and organized the abandoned warehouse, RS set up a mini-market (with the same points system as at Alexandreia), clothing and shoe boutique, and a large reception area for children’s activities. RS also rents out a small unit in the town that it uses as an overflow warehouse.

Although Filippiada and Arta are relatively accessible from the Filippiada camp, the concerns of residents here largely reflect the lack of a major urban center nearby. Filippiada is quite a bit smaller than Alexandreia, and 36 miles away from Ioannina, Greece’s 25th-largest city; Alexandreia is 32 miles away from Thessaloniki, Greece’s 2nd-largest city (which has an asylum office, too, and is accessible by train); and though Arta is nine miles away, it is barely larger than Alexandreia. There is, at least, a bus that goes between Filippiada and Arta. Still, many of the residents here worry about access to medical care - there are hospitals in Arta and Ioannina, but it would take one or two hours, respectively, to get there from the camp. Over-the-counter medicines can be purchased at the pharmacy in Filippiada. An army doctor and a pediatrician visit the camp weekly, but residents say that there are many weeks when only nurses are present. There is neither a psychologist nor gynecologist at the camp. Limited interpretation is another cause of worry, as there is only an Arabic interpreter and no interpreter for Kurdish, Persian, or Pashto. Electrical outages are common. There are safety concerns, too - in recent weeks, there have been fights with knives and rocks that resulted in the police being called and removing some residents. In September 2016, local parents protested the enrollment of refugee children in the school at Filippiada - as a result, only about 50% of the children here have any kind of formal education.

A. D.’s first day at the camp is spent largely getting to know its and the warehouse’s layouts, as well as helping out in the mini-market. The camp is quieter than Alexandreia, with fewer people out during the day - it is now deep summer, after all, plus Alexandreia had more shade, open space, children, and end-of-Ramadan energy. A few residents come by the shop in the afternoon. Compared to Alexandreia, Filippiada has more families with young children than Alexandreia had, and far fewer single men; and Pashto and Persian are heard as often as Arabic (which has little effect on RS’s work, as neither E. P. nor any of the volunteers speak Arabic, though E. P. understands some). For lunch, the volunteers head to their usual spot in Filippiada town, a little establishment run by a warm older woman who is known as just “Mama”. Her specialty is meatballs, and it would not be a stretch to say that hers are the apex of the genre.

So it is in Filippiada, on the 10th of July.

[alexanderdroznin]

Day 20: Sunday, July 9. Approaching the last station.

The bus ride from Ioannina to Arta is a 44-mile journey south along European route E951 (Greek route EO5), whose southern terminus is the town of Antirrio, on the Strait of Rio between the Gulfs of Patras and Corinth. The road traces the Pindus mountain range, which is home to six of Greece’s eight highest mountains. Along this stretch, however, the mountains are less prominent, but there are more of them - Tomaros is off to the right of the road, Xerovouni is off to the left, and the impressive Athamanika sub-range is just beyond it. They are no Olympus, but Olympus is a point standing alone. Here, the peaks form the sturdy spine of Greece.

Arta (pop. 24,427) was known as Ambracia in the Hellenistic period, during which it served as the capital of Pyrrhus of Epirus’ kingdom. It was incorporated into Rome in the mid-2nd century BC, and became Arta under the Byzantines a millennium later. That legacy is readily apparent in the Church of the Parigoritissa, the Monastery of Saint Theodora, and the castle at the city’s northern tip. The Arachthos, which flows around the city, is spanned by a picturesque four-arch stone bridge in the southwest corner. The current bridge is an Ottoman construction on the site of previous Roman and Byzantine structures. There is a legend associated with it: when it was being built, its foundations would collapse each night. A bird with a human voice informed the chief builder that, in order for the bridge to remain standing, he should sacrifice his wife. As she was being buried alive in the foundations, she cursed the bridge to flutter like a leaf, and those who pass it to fall like leaves as well. But she was then reminded that her brother was currently abroad and might pass the bridge on his return, so she changed her curse into a blessing. Immurement during the construction of buildings is a common motif in Balkan folklore.

A taxi takes A. D. from the Arta bus terminal to Hotel Marathia, about five miles northwest of the city in the village of Chanopoulo. The driver, a lively older man, takes his time getting out of the city in order to tell its history and point out landmarks. After pausing at the bridge, he speeds down a country road that is surrounded by farmland on one side and hills on the other. The hotel is nestled in a grove at the foot of a hill, with plenty of shade and a clear view of the sunset. A. D. is greeted at the entrance by a young woman who checks him in and says that she is the fourth generation of the family that owns the hotel (since 1955). Her father comes down to the lobby and warmly introduces himself before taking A. D. up to his room. With its two beds and a balcony that looks out over the trees, onto the plain and setting sun beyond them, it is entirely too much.

Later in the evening, at dinner, A. D. meets the other volunteers, all from the UK: C. J., T. O., and I. S., a college-aged group of friends; S. M., who is a couple of years older than A. D.; and an older man, J. C. Though she has been staying in an apartment in Filippiada nearby, E. P. stops by briefly to say hello. She is from the Netherlands, and has been with RS in Greece for close to a year. It is good to put a face to the name of A. D.’s primary point of contact since Ioannina/Katsikas.

So it is in Chanopoulo, on the 9th of July.

[alexanderdroznin]

Day 19: Saturday, July 8. The island and the Pasha.

Today is A. D.’s day off, and because it is his last full day in Ioannina he decides to spend it exploring the city and its surrounding areas, rather than going to the beach again. In any case, he is still nursing a severe sunburn from the previous weekend’s beach trip. The last place in the area that he has yet to see is Ioannina Island, which is a short ferry ride away from the mainland. The island is dotted by Byzantine monasteries, the oldest of which has been standing since 1291. Besides the beautifully preserved architecture, there is little else to see on the island, although the Monastery of Agios Panteleimonas is the place where Ali Pasha, the controversial ruler of Ottoman Greece who challenged the authority of the Sublime Porte, fled from the forces of Sultan Mahmud II and died in battle in 1822. He was buried with full honors in an iron latticework tomb in the citadel, next to Fethiye Mosque, across a meadow from the now-ruined house where he lived and from which he ruled.

The late-morning ferry delivers A. D. to the island before noon, where he spends the afternoon walking among the monasteries. He decides to forego seeing the holes from bullets that may or may not have gone through Ali Pasha, because he thus far knows little else about Ali Pasha. He would prefer to have lunch on the south side of the island, facing the citadel, but the south side is barren except for the ring road. There is cappuccino on the north side, he imagines. After a late lunch, he walks to the southern tip of the island and sees the spire of Fethiye Mosque across the lake, now from the northeast. He has now seen it from every direction except due east, for which he would have to rent a boat or go to the far shore, nearly 4 miles from the city as the crow flies. A. D. promises to return to Ioannina someday, and starts heading back toward the ferry dock.

In keeping with the theme of multiple perspectives, A. D. has dinner at a cafe on the opposite side of the square from where he had dinner last night. Absurdity takes place on two fronts, the gastronomic and the political. After consuming two whole blocks of feta, he notices a couple of police officers cordoning off the adjacent intersection. Soon after, he hears a crescendoing rhythmic chant in the direction of the citadel, and as he gets up to investigate, he spots a procession of flag-bearing marchers of all ages. Against the grey Turkish walls, their red flags are brilliantly emblazoned with a gold hammer and sickle and “KKE” in gold lettering. He returns to the table to finish his lager, and leaves a voicemail for his Soviet parents. As he gets up to leave, he thinks of A. A., now in Sweden; N., still in Alexandreia, in one way; K. S., still in Alexandreia, in another; and Ali Pasha, who stood up to the Ottoman Sultan and was buried with full honors on the highest point in Ioannina, next to Fethiye Mosque.

So it is in Ioannina, on the 8th of July.

[alexanderdroznin]

Day 18: Friday, July 7. The last day in Katsikas.

A. D. is woken up just after 7 AM by the sunlight searing his lower legs through the balcony door. There have been no messages from either E. P., P. H., or any of the Filippiada volunteers since last night. He decides to take it easy for the rest of the morning, but be ready to head over to the warehouse by 10 AM, as usual. At 9 AM, a message comes through from N. F.: E. P. can’t spare any volunteers today, and so if A. D. chooses to go to the warehouse, he will be on his own. 

Since he promised P. H. to wrap up loose ends at the warehouse before leaving for Filippiada, A. D. decides to have some coffee in the park around the block from his house - which is an excuse for getting some writing done and scoping out the local Wi-Fi situation - and go to the warehouse closer to noon. He boldly wears a non-RS T-shirt after 9 AM on a work day. Cappuccino, two sugars. Three cappuccinos, six sugars, Radio Taxi 28, lakeside route, warehouse by noon. The dog runs out from the adjacent sheep pasture as A. D. opens the entrance gate. He has decided to call her Lucy, after the dog from Alexandreia (and because it is always good to have a Lucy). Perhaps he should have called her Ela; if he sees her again, and she wishes to be trained, he will call her Luciela. Lucy stays for a bit longer today, but runs away once A. D. disappears into the warehouse.

Sorting clothes alone in a dusty warehouse for 5 hours is almost unbearable, so A. D. listens to music and takes a break every hour or so to kick around a soccer ball in the backyard. The mountains on one side and cicadas on the other coalesce into a particularly resonant valley. It is lonely, but it is good. The fruits of the previous day’s reorganization effort are realized today, as A. D. is able to sort dozens of crates of kids’ clothes without having to move any crates or pallets across the warehouse. The work goes by quickly, and he is done before 5 PM. 

With no one to drive him to Ioannina, but with the weather having cooled down significantly since midday, he decides to walk the 5 miles. It is an uneventful walk until he reaches the lakeside path on the southern border of the city, from which he sees Fethiye Mosque - for the first time from its south side - rising above the walls of Its Kale. As he enters the city and approaches the row of lakeside cafes below the citadel, his phone picks up a weak Wi-Fi signal. There is news: the leaders of the superpowers have met, and there will be a ceasefire in southwest Syria. A. D. thinks of A. A., now in Sweden, and N., still in Alexandreia, before turning away from the citadel and heading home.

So it is in Katsikas, on the 7th of July.

[alexanderdroznin]

Day 14: Monday, July 3. A new group.

With the departure of B. C. and S. D. the previous day, only A. D. remains from the Alexandreia group. He wakes up alone in the home meant for 4 people, still having slept on the couch rather than moving to the bedroom upstairs. As he sits down for breakfast, he looks out at the car that he cannot drive, but all thoughts of learning to drive stick disappear when he remembers that the car is parked on a slope. He will go to the taxi stand by the citadel, and hope that the new volunteers sent over by E. P. will drive him home and take the car with them to Filippiada. She had promised him on Friday to send two people, but that is all she said. Presumably, at least one of them can drive stick.

The taxi driver seems bemused by A. D.’s request to be taken to a rural area outside of Katsikas, perhaps because A. D. is clearly not a local, and it is 10 AM on a Monday. He repeats “Katsikas?”, to which A. D. responds “Katsikas, plus one kilometer” while gesturing to the logo on his shirt. The driver shrugs and mumbles “okay” (which does not put A. D. at ease), but takes the same route that the volunteers had taken the previous week. He slows down when he comes to the town center, so A. D. reminds him “plus one kilometer” and points to the right. He could walk from here, but it is already sweltering. As the car rounds the bend, and first the mountains, then the farms and the warehouse, come into view, A. D. realizes that it is indeed a strange request. He points to the RS van parked in front of the warehouse and lies - “I have to pick up my car” - as if that would make the scene less strange. He considers asking the driver to come back for him at 5 PM, but keeps his mouth shut and pays the man.

Opening up the back gate of the warehouse, A. D. spots the dog sprinting across the meadow and toward the fence, which she wriggles through. She pauses and looks back at him before trotting to the opposite corner of the neighboring field, where the sheep are grazing. A. D. wonders why he doubted that she was a border collie.

He works in solitude for less than an hour, stacking boxes of Tunisian dates in the anteroom; clearing the warehouse floor of loose crates and debris; and sorting through stacks of miscellaneous boxes. Besides clothing and shoes, it appears that dates, soccer balls, and yarn are the most plentiful items in the warehouse. Around 11 AM, a car pulls into the driveway and A. D. goes out to meet the new volunteers. N. F. and L. K. are a brother and sister in their 30s, from the US, and have spent the last week working at Filippiada. N. F. works in the film industry, and L. K. coaches girls and women’s soccer. Besides A. R., they are the only Americans that A. D. has met so far in Greece. While L. K.’s work and research interests have taken her abroad multiple times, this is N. F.’s first overseas trip.

The group works until lunch, moving items from the secondary miscellaneous section to the clothing, shoes, or primary miscellaneous sections. They find a surplus of men’s winter boots, size 42, in unopened boxes, which will be stored separately until the winter season. L. K. is pleasantly surprised by the abundance of soccer balls, but points out that they would be easier to store if they weren’t inflated. A. D. and N. F. veto the decision while passing around an inflated soccer ball.

Taking advantage of the car, they drive into Ioannina for lunch. Neither N. F. nor L. D. has been there yet, so A. D. recommends a few sites and restaurants for them to visit since they will be working nearby during the week. They initially have trouble finding a cafe that serves food - most of the open ones serve only coffee and beer - but eventually settle on a sandwich shop on the outskirts of the city. Their lunchtime conversation turns to sports education, Middle Eastern politics, mono-ethnicity in Greece, and the dearth (based on the demographics of RS volunteers) of Americans volunteering abroad. Regarding the latter, they conclude that Americans who volunteer tend to do so domestically, due in part to the prohibitive cost of traveling abroad.

The remainder of the workday goes by much as the morning, and the group finishes sorting the pile of miscellaneous boxes before 5 PM. The main effort of sorting individual crates, and the items in them, will be started the next day, most likely with N. F. and a rotating volunteer from Filippiada. A. D. closes up the warehouse and the others offer to drive him home, where they will pick up the other car. As they drive past the citadel, N. F. and L. K. decide to explore the downtown and lakeside areas of the city before heading home.

So it is in Katsikas, on the 3rd of July.

[alexanderdroznin]

Day 9: Wednesday, June 28, 2017. Katsikas.

Having spent the night in a modern Airbnb townhouse near the city center, which will be home for the next week, the volunteers begin their first full day in Ioannina with breakfast by Lake Pamvotida, the largest lake in Epirus. By mid-summer, the subtropical climate is out in full force; mornings in the city are warm and humid, and marked by a serene quietude. By the evenings, however, the air over the lake cools and begins to waft over the city, and the restaurants and cafes along the lake come alive.

The narrow lakeside path runs past the city’s Byzantine stone walls, which squeeze it right up against the lake and are so high that, from the path, only the tops of trees, minarets, and church steeples are visible. It is at once an ancient Roman city - said to have been built by Justinian - a medieval Ottoman outpost since its capture in 1430, and a modern Greek regional capital. In the middle of the lake is Ioannina Island, which houses several monasteries and is accessible by ferry; Perama Cave, with its beautiful stalactites and stalagmites, is tucked away by the northwestern corner of the lake; and opposite the city, Mitsikeli mountain rises up over the northern banks.

J. S. runs the group through their tasks for the day, which are largely logistical: get everyone to the warehouse in time for the arrival of the moving truck later in the morning, and spend the rest of the day helping unload the truck and organizing the warehouse into sections (men’s clothes, women’s clothes, children’s clothes, shoes, toys, toiletries, and so forth). The plan is to work until the afternoon, have lunch in Katsikas town (6 km southeast of Ioannina, but near both the warehouse and camp), return to the warehouse for the remainder of the afternoon, and then go over as a group to the actual camp (which will remain unpopulated at least until the end of the summer) at the end of the day.

The drive from Ioannina to the warehouse is effectively a straight shot to the southeast, passing through the suburban towns of Anatoli and Katsikas first. Although the city has a pronounced feeling of antiquity, it does not feel as though it is in disrepair; but as one drives out of it, the increasing number of dusty and unpaved roads, as well as simple one- or two-story buildings, create a landscape that is at once modern, and rural.

Passing through Katsikas center - a gas station, grocery, and several small cafes, although there is a vibrant feeling of life here, too - one turns south, and then as the road winds up a slight hill and around two bends, a grand vista opens up: larger villa-style homes, a green valley of farmland, and beyond it, the Pindus mountain range. European route E90 (Greek route A2), which traverses the country west-east from the port at Igoumenitsa to the Greek-Turkish border at Kipoi, runs through the valley just beyond the warehouse.

The warehouse itself is just at the bottom of the hill, in the valley, with farmland on one side of it and a food distributor on the opposite side of the street. There are no other buildings for at least 200 meters on either side. It is initially difficult to imagine the warehouse as the central point of the Katsikas operation: compared to the air-conditioned, industrial warehouse near Alexandreia, it feels more like small barn. It is a long rectangle with low ceilings, separated into a large storage space on one side, and a small foyer and office on the other. There is neither air conditioning nor electricity, but there are windows and two sky-blue sliding steel doors on the front and back of the building that let in natural light.

In the back, there is an outdoor covered storage space in which various farming equipment has been left by the previous owner, including a beautiful but rusting horse-drawn carriage that he had built for his grandchildren. Beyond that, a fenced-in grassy backyard with a lone tree in the middle, behind which is a steep hill belonging to the neighboring property. There are some goats grazing near the top of the hill, and above it all, a clear blue sky.

Once the moving trucks arrive, the day is spent unloading them and directing the forklift operator around the warehouse - the pallets are fully loaded and heavy, and will not be moved again once the forklift is gone. It is highly physical work, made more difficult by the lack of air-conditioning and a particularly hot summer day. Lunchtime splits the work into two shifts, and is spent in one of the cafes in Katsikas center - although it is a cramped space with a small menu, the food is fresh and delicious. After lunch, the group finishes up the unloading process by the late afternoon and decides to call it a day. The real work of sorting, since the pallets were loaded in a rush after the decision to leave Alexandreia was made, will take place over the next few weeks.

The drive over to Katsikas camp is short - it is located just over a mile due east of the warehouse, on the outskirts of Pamvotida town, by a grassy hill. Compared to Alexandreia camp, it is in poor condition: there is no infrastructure besides a couple dozen container homes (which have been empty since the previous, largely Albanian population was relocated from the camp, and will remain empty until new refugees come in) and a long, decrepit Nissen hut (a hangar, in other terms). The hut is locked, and J. S. struggles for some time as none of the keys on his ring seem to fit.

A security officer approaches - he is wearing the same uniform as that of the military officer in charge back at Alexandreia camp - and asks the group what they are doing. J. S. tells him that Refugee Support has the right to be here, and the security officer shrugs and walks back to his booth. Eventually, the door of the hut is opened - there is nothing inside, and it would appear that no one has been inside for months. J. S. locks it back up, and the group packs itself into the car to head back into Ioannina.

Besides J. S. (who will leave for the other camps tomorrow), the group is down to A. D., A. B., D. B., B. C., and S. D. Dinner is a small affair on the second floor of a chic restaurant downtown, from which both the modern urban center and old castle walls are a stone’s throw away. A. B. leaves tomorrow morning for the continuation of her travels in Spain, and D. B. will follow soon after as she heads first to Thessaloniki and then home to the UK. It is yet another last supper as the volunteers go their separate ways, and it is certain that there will be many more as long as the camps are in operation. As promised, when the sun sets in Ioannina, the cool air from Mitsikeli rolls down the mountain and over Lake Pamvotida, enveloping the city in a pleasant mist.

So it is in Katsikas, on the 28th of June.  

[alexanderdroznin]

Day 7: Monday, June 26, 2017 (Shawwal 1). Eid al-Fitr.

The volunteers forego the morning briefing in order to get to the camp earlier than usual, in anticipation of a particularly hectic day. The final distribution of food and toys before RS leaves on Tuesday is expected to take up all of the morning shift and most of the afternoon. Unlike most days, the team will be at the camp late into the evening because the residents have planned festivities that will only begin at 5 PM. J. S. informs the group that a resident family has invited the entire RS team over for dinner, which is scheduled for around 8 PM. Finally, today is T. B.’s last day of work with RS, but she is planning to stay at the camp as late as possible before leaving for Thessaloniki.

Upon arriving at the shop, the volunteers are greeted by the grocer’s and butcher’s vans, which are ready to be unpacked. The team will weigh out the appropriate quantity of rice (raw or parboiled), tomatoes, onions, and potatoes for each household. The chicken (legs and wings) and lamb (pre-cut into strips) will be separated into 1 kg bags and stored in the shop refrigerator until the distribution begins.

After estimating how much of each item is available, the group prepares the final distribution list. Each household will receive: 1 kg of rice, 1 kg of tomatoes, 1 kg of potatoes, 1 kg of onions, 1 cucumber per person, 1 bundle of parsley, 1 liter of Greek yogurt, 3 spreadable cheese wedges, 1 kg of chicken, 1 kg of lamb, and 5 kg of Tunisian dates.

The volunteers assign 3 people to be on hand at the shop: one at the door, one to gather the food items from the shelves, and one to pack the items into a shopping bag and perform a final check. With the toys having been sorted and packaged the previous day, the boutique is ready for customers and will also be staffed by 3 volunteers. The 7th volunteer will float between the shop and boutique and assist wherever they are needed, as well as keep the team updated about the goings-on in the rest of the camp.

Once the residents are given the go-ahead, they line up outside the shop and are beckoned inside, one household at a time, by the volunteer at the door. It takes a couple of tries for the volunteers to settle into a rhythm, but after those initial miscues, the work proceeds at a steady pace. The residents appear to be very happy with the quantity of food they are receiving, and the volunteers at the door relay that the children are smiling and eager to start playing with their toys as soon as they leave the boutique.

With roughly 100 households to get through, the team aims to serve each one in 7 minutes - 3 minutes in the shop, 3 minutes in the boutique, and a minute to move between them. Therefore, the entire operation is expected to take around 5 hours, although the workflow slows down when some of the volunteers leave to pick up lunch from K. S. Upon their return, the group pauses to eat together in the shop, serving a few more residents as they sporadically trickle in. They return to their regular workflow after lunch and continue working until the last resident comes in just after 4 PM. Not all of the food or toys have been distributed, so what is left over will be left with the camp administration to be handed out later; some of the non-perishable and transportable items will be taken back to the warehouse to be moved to Katsikas tomorrow.

In the evening, the residents - organized by A. A. and some of the other adults - put on a variety show of music, dance, and theater on a makeshift stage in the main square of the camp. Even without having an understanding of Arabic, one can tell that the mood is extraordinarily festive. Yet there are two poignant pieces - short dramatic scenes - put on by the children, called “The Sea” and “The Streets.”

In "The Sea,” all of the children come out on stage wearing white sheets as capes, and having settled into formation, they undo their capes, swing them around and over their heads, and lay down on the stage, with the sheets now transformed into shrouds covering their bodies. As they lie there motionlessly, another child - also dressed in white, with cardboard angel wings on his back - weaves his way around the bodies, raising them up as he passes by. The piece ends in a static scene, with all the kids standing silently - wrapped in their white sheets - while the sound of crashing waves plays over the speakers.

Then, in “The Streets,” N. and two other kids begin by miming the activities of a child’s life - playing, going to school, and dreaming of the future. They are wearing the uniforms of professions they aspire to - doctor, engineer, and artist - but then the music stops - war has come - and they huddle together, kneeling, in the center of the stage. They mime begging for money and scrounging for food, before finally collapsing from exhaustion.

It is unclear who came up with these pieces for the children, but they are eager to participate despite the emotional toll - some of the kids are visibly distressed as they come off the stage and sit back down in the audience.

Still, the show ends on a happier note, with upbeat songs sung by children holding balloons. After it is over, the volunteers are invited to dinner by one of the resident families, and are served a magnificent mezze course, most of the ingredients for which have come from the RS shop or the town supermarket. Because of the language barrier, the volunteers and residents primarily talk among themselves, although the universal expressions of delight in good food are understood by all. Towards the end of dinner, the men in the family light up their pipes, filling the small space with a sweet haze, while the women prepare tea.

Long after the sun has set, the volunteers thank their hosts and say goodbye; do a final check of the shop and storeroom; separate a group of squabbling kids who have gathered in the square; and pack themselves into the cars, set to leave the camp for the last time after a full day (they will return in the morning tomorrow for final pre-move preparations). Although most of the festivities have died down, quite a few residents have come out to enjoy the cool evening air. There is not enough time to say goodbye to all the children and residents whom the volunteers have gotten to know, but at least there is time for some.

So it is in Alexandreia, on Eid al-Fitr, the 1st day of Shawwal.

[alexanderdroznin]

Day 6: Sunday, June 25, 2017 (Ramadan 30). Bread and circuses.

RS’s final morning briefing in Alexandreia covers three aspects of the last days’ operation: finishing up in the warehouse, preparing for Eid al-Fitr and the residents’ end-of-Ramadan celebration on Monday, and going over Tuesday’s schedule with regard to the arrival of the movers and their trucks. Today is also E. H.’s last day - she will leave for Thessaloniki after the group goes out for dinner one last time in Alexandreia. As for the housing situation in Katsikas, A. D. has booked an Airbnb in the neighboring city of Ioannina, where he will be joined by A. B. for 2 nights, D. B. for 4 nights, and B. C. and S. D. for 5 nights.

There is not much left to be done in the warehouse - all of the pallets have been loaded, and only a couple of boards remain of the shelving structure - so J. S. proposes that the group spends no more than an hour there. In that time, the main goals are to clear floor space for the forklift, sort items in miscellaneous boxes, and determine if anything from the warehouse can still be used or distributed at the camp.

J. S. confirms that the first truck will arrive on Tuesday at 10 AM, with the second one following at 2 PM. They will arrive in Katsikas on Wednesday, and the volunteers will help unload them into the new warehouse. In case the movers prove to be incompetent, J. S. puts A. D. in charge of the operation and explains how the trucks should be loaded: 33 pallets per truck in 11 rows of 3, chipboard panels on top, and cardboard boxes and irregularly shaped items on top of the panels.

The warehouse work is finished quickly, and most of the rest of the day is spent preparing individual parcels of food and toys for distribution on Eid. Only perishable items will be given out - anything non-perishable will be taken to Katsikas - and so J. S. places an order for fresh produce with a local grocer. Although the shop does not normally stock meat, an exception will be made for Eid - it is customary for the special meal to include lamb or goat meat. However, obtaining halal meat in a small Greek town and on such short notice is virtually impossible, so J. S. has consulted with the elders of the camp and been assured that the residents will accept non-halal meat. He places an order with a local butcher for 100 kg of chicken and 100 kg of lamb, which will be delivered the morning of Eid and stored in the shop’s refrigerator.

The group has decided to distribute toys to all of the children, independently of the planned games and activities. In fact, because Monday’s schedule of events has not been clarified, it is possible that the adult residents have already planned their own activities for the children. RS has been informed that there will be dramatic, comedic, and musical performances in the evening, as part of an outdoor variety show organized by A. A. and a few other residents.

The volunteers gather several packed crates of toys from the storeroom and warehouse, and set up for the remainder of the afternoon in the shop. The plan for Monday is to have families come in for their food parcels, then head next door to the boutique to pick up toys for their children. There is a wide variety of items - stuffed animals, coloring books, art supplies, bouncy balls, puzzles, sports equipment, solar-powered toys, board games, and various other small things. It takes the group several hours to determine how many of each toy is available, which toys are appropriate for each age range, how to separate the toys by gender, and how many toys to include in each parcel.

By the end of this process, the floor is strewn with loose toys, tempers have flared, and so the group decides to break for lunch. When they return, the operation proceeds more smoothly - assembly line-style - and the last parcel is put together before the end of the afternoon. At one point, A. A. pops into the shop to see how things are going - he is noticeably happier and even more energetic than his usual self - and the volunteers rush over to congratulate him on his recent good news. He is still unsure about when exactly he will leave Alexandreia - some residents leave immediately upon receiving their decisions, while others might stay for several weeks - but hopes to be in Sweden by the end of the summer.

The final passes through the storeroom and warehouse yield a trove of unopened boxes of bread. Because the quantity of bread distributed differs from household to household, the volunteers decide to give out the bread today rather than with the food parcels on Monday. With it potentially being their last time working on the residential side of the camp, all 8 volunteers join the effort. As the team works its way through the blocks - making much better time with twice as many hands on deck - A. A. joins them, while several children gather around the car. One of the girls frolics about with a yellow parasol of unknown provenance.

Suddenly, a young man unknown to A. D. and S. D. runs up behind M. O. and places his hands over her eyes. “Guess who?” he coos in her ear. She is visibly uncomfortable, as are all those present. This is E. S. (the resident), having returned after being denied at the airport ticket counter. Later that night and among themselves, the volunteers question the veracity of his story - they doubt that someone could walk into an airport, present fake documentation, and be allowed to leave without consequences. Nevertheless, E. S. is desperate and says he will try again later in the week.

True to his word, A. A. points out the wounds on E. S.’s head and neck. No one dares to ask E. S. if they really were caused by shrapnel.

The bread distribution is completed shortly thereafter, but not before the unclaimed bread (as usual, some residents were away) is given out to the children. At this stage, the volunteers give them as much bread as they can carry home, since the alternative would be to throw it out.

When the team heads to the kitchen to wrap up some final chores, Lucy runs out from behind the building to meet them. As the Ramadan sun sets for the last time, the volunteers embrace their canine friend, pack up the car, and drive off. Lucy follows them only as far as the entrance gate.

So it is in Alexandreia, on the 30th and final day of Ramadan.

[alexanderdroznin]

Day 5: Saturday, June 24, 2017 (Ramadan 29). A day for rest.

On their scheduled day off, the volunteers sleep in until late morning. Just before noon, a message from A. R. comes through on the group chat: UNHCR called to say that RS’s storeroom at the camp is open, and that it might have been broken into. Each volunteer promptly responds to the message with an offer to head over to the camp to assess the situation. Within a few minutes, almost all of them are in the lobby, ready to go. They discuss the possibility of theft, and some volunteers comment that the residents would only be stealing from themselves (since the majority of items in the shop and storeroom would be distributed on Monday).

Last to arrive is A. B., whose left eye has swollen shut as a result of an allergic reaction to a mosquito bite from the previous evening. M. O. (who has been rooming with A. B.) and I. N. (who speaks Greek) have spent the morning with her at a local optometrist’s. Unfortunately, he was unable to treat her and recommended that she go to the hospital in Thessaloniki. Since all the volunteers cannot fit in one car, the group decides to split up - one team will check on the camp and continue on to the city to get treatment for A. B., while the other team will find out about the local beach scene. If all goes well with A. B.’s eye, the first group will rejoin the others at the beach later in the afternoon. D. B., E. H., M. O., and S. D. agree to go with A. B., while A. D., B. C., and T. B. stay back at the hotel.

The volunteers separate, and soon there is word from the first team: nothing seems to have been taken from the storeroom. The group tries to remember who had locked up, or who had possession of the keys throughout the afternoon shift. Some of them offer to take responsibility, but A. R. quickly steps in to table the discussion - nothing was taken, RS is leaving soon, and J. S. doesn’t need to know. With that, the first group locks up the storeroom and drives off to Thessaloniki.

At the hotel, the second group waits in the lobby for I. N. to return from her morning errands. They have pinned down a beach in Leptokarya, a popular summer destination 40 miles south of Alexandreia. The town of 4,225 is sandwiched between the Aegean and the eastern slopes of Mount Olympus. Getting there by train from Alexandreia, however, is impossible -  the train running through Alexandreia only goes as far south as Katerini, the third-largest city in the Central Macedonia region. Instead, I. N. orders a cab for the volunteers - there are no ride-sharing services in Greece outside of Athens - that will take them 5 miles east, to the town of Platy, where they will get on the train to Leptokarya.

As they wait for the cab, B. C. tells the story of S., the Somali aid worker who had joined the group for drinks the previous night. S. had told his story to her and a couple of other volunteers. A refugee of the ongoing Somali Civil War, he had lost his girlfriend and many family members to sectarian violence, and himself been captured and subjected to physical torture and sexual abuse. He eventually managed to escape to Greece, where, after living on the streets of Athens and being shuttled around relocation camps, he was granted asylum. He soon found work with IRC, which stationed him in Alexandreia when the camp opened in the spring of 2016. S. continues to receive psychological counseling, and has recently started recording his past experiences in a personal diary.

Shortly thereafter, the cab arrives to take A. D., B. C., and T. B. to Platy. They buy tickets at the station for the next train, and an hour later they are at their destination. It is a cloudless day, so after passing Katerini, Mount Olympus comes into full view on the right side of the train. It is only a 5-minute walk from the Leptokarya train station to the beach, which is at once busy and relaxed, and lined with cabanas and lounge chairs.

Good news comes through on the group chat: A. B. was seen by an ophthalmologist and her eye will be alright, but because it is already late in the afternoon, the group will stay in Thessaloniki instead of joining the others in Leptokarya. A few minutes later, more good news: there has been another positive resettlement decision. The beloved A. A. has been accepted by Sweden.

So it is in Alexandreia, on the 29th day of Ramadan.

[alexanderdroznin]

Day 4: Friday, June 23, 2017 (Ramadan 28). Children, encamped.

The volunteers gather as usual in the hotel lobby for breakfast and the morning briefing on RS’s last regular day of work in Alexandreia. E. S. will work the morning shift, after which she will leave for the train station and head to Thessaloniki. As it had done the previous night at dinner, the group expresses their gratitude and wishes her a safe journey home and success in her graduate study.

The majority of the briefing addresses how the remaining food and toys will be distributed before RS departs; planned activities for next Monday’s Eid celebration; and the logistics of transporting materials and people to Katsikas next Tuesday. J. S. points out that there is a full pallet of toys in the warehouse, but they would need to be distributed in a fair way. M. O. suggests that the toys be given out as prizes for winning games, but J. S. adamantly opposes the idea. The group brainstorms ideas for athletic and non-athletic activities that would be fair to children of different ages while also emphasizing teamwork, but the conversation becomes heated and the issue is tabled.

J. S. goes around the room to confirm the volunteers’ plans for the coming week, which will help him organize the driving and housing situations at Katsikas. With E. S. departing, there will be 8 volunteers left after today. E. H. will work through Sunday, T. B. will work through Monday, M. O. will help load the moving trucks on Tuesday, and the rest - A. B., A. D., B. C., D. B., and S. D. - will travel to Katsikas with A. R. and J. S. Once there, A. B. will work a single day before leaving with A. R. for the camp at LM Village, where the latter will again take on the coordinator role. The others will stay on at Katsikas at least through the following weekend, and they will have one of the cars - which only S. D. can operate - with them.

At the camp, the volunteers begin by cleaning, restocking, and preparing the shop for opening. Some items are running low or have run out, but at this point it doesn’t make sense to place new orders. Unlike most days, there are no residents waiting outside the shop this morning, which is unexpected given that the shop will be closed for good after today.

With the shop only needing a couple of volunteers, the rest of the group gathers a ball, stickers, colored pencils, and drawing paper from the storeroom, and sets up at one of the shaded picnic tables outside. It is a quiet and muggy morning, but two of the boys - I. and M. - are already out and looking for something to do. They decline to join the arts and crafts table, so A. D. and E. H. go off to pass around a soccer ball with them. After about 30 minutes, however, the boys decide that they don’t want to be in the sun after all. Since no other children are out yet, the two boys ask for A. D.’s phone so that they can play games in the shade. M. takes a liking to the chess app and spends the rest of the morning trying to convince I. to play against him, but I. doesn’t seem interested.

While the boys are playing, a young man with a suitcase and a huge grin across his face walks by. He recognizes A. D. as a volunteer from RS and comes over to introduce himself. H. is Syrian and lives with the other young, single men in block E, but has been away in Athens all week long for his visa interview. He breaks the news: like O. A., he received a positive resettlement decision and will be leaving for Norway within a couple of days. He hugs A. D. and E. H. and asks them to tell the other volunteers, then excitedly heads home to let his friends know. Before the Alexandreia camp opened, H. had lived in the notorious Idomeni transit camp on the Greek-Macedonian border.

Meanwhile, several children have gathered at the arts and crafts table, having heard that the volunteers have brought out supplies for the last time. They play nicely for a bit, but soon begin to fight over the materials and claim entire notebooks and sticker sheets for themselves. The volunteers remind them to share, but it is no use. N., who has been alternating between taking selfies on A. D.’s phone and drawing, and an older boy accuse each other of hiding extra stickers. As a matter of fact, both are intent on smuggling them back to their homes.

While they argue, the girls quietly remove the sticker sheets from the table and start heading homeward. N. runs after them, and the girls begrudgingly return - but when he takes the sticker sheets for himself, the older boy drags him back to the table. N. winces and cries out - the other boy has accidentally grabbed him by his lame arm.

With the children refusing to share, the volunteers end the activity and break for lunch. E. S. has already left, and so the small group has become noticeably smaller. After lunch, the team splits up for the final time between the regular stations - shop, kitchen, and warehouse - and get through the afternoon shift without incident.

In the evening, the volunteers gather at their usual watering hole, a bar called Tassos across the street from the hotel. It is not a large place, but fills up with locals and volunteers from other organizations. The group is joined by S., a Somali aid worker in his late 20s who works with IRC and had become close with the RS volunteers, and who had once been a refugee himself. Because Saturdays are scheduled days off, they stay out late, balancing between good conversation and utter inebriation. There is talk of going to one of the beaches south of Alexandreia, where some of the volunteers had gone the previous weekend. Someone quips that the Greek mosquitoes have turned out in full force this evening.

So it is in Alexandreia, on the 28th day of Ramadan.

[alexanderdroznin]

Day 3: Thursday, June 22, 2017 (Ramadan 27). The life of N.

The group begins the day with a bittersweet piece of news: after having worked in Alexandreia for the last two weeks, E. S. will be working her last full day today before she returns home to Latvia. Going off of her experiences at the camp, she is planning to continue working with children in need, focusing especially on education. So that everyone has a chance to properly say goodbye, the volunteers plan to have a group dinner in the evening at one of the local restaurants.

In the morning, A. B. and A. D. operate the shop, with occasional help from M. O. (who, since A. R. is away at an NGO meeting, is managing the kitchen and warehouse teams as well). It is a quiet shift, but the volunteers are kept company by a familiar face. N. is a 9-year-old Syrian boy with a gregarious personality, a penchant for lighthearted mischief, and a solid command of English. Whenever the shop is open, he enjoys being around the volunteers, and the volunteers appreciate that he can translate for non-English-speaking residents. He has a habit of pestering the volunteers for their phones, and they usually oblige him - he enjoys taking selfies and playing games when it is too hot to play outside. N. is a very considerate child: once, when his grandmother came in to shop for the family and had exceeded their allotted point total, he - without being prompted - returned the chocolate cookies that his grandmother had picked out specifically for him, and retrieved a can of corn to be used in a meal for the whole family.

N. has an unorthodox living situation. Like some other residents, he lives in a house consisting of two adjacent units to accommodate a family of more than 5 people. However, his family isn’t large in the sense of him having a lot of siblings - rather, his father has two wives, and a family with each of them. N.’s mother is the first wife, and between the two women N. has close to a dozen siblings and half-siblings. Because none of the volunteers come from countries where polygyny is legal, they are curious about this arrangement. A. A. explains as best he can: polygyny is allowed under Islamic law as long as a husband treats his wives equally, and although it is legal in Syria, it has been discouraged since the 1950s. He says that most of the Syrian residents understand and accept it, but the Kurds find it strange.

A. A. confirms rumors about N.’s father that have been circulating among the volunteers over the last few days. The man has frequently been referred to as “the most dangerous man at the camp” because of his proclivity for violence, especially of the domestic type. N.’s mother and N. himself bear the physical marks of this violence. Although at first glance N. appears to be physically fine - he runs around and plays with the other boys without issue - he has a lame left arm. It often causes him to wince, and he cradles it with his other arm when it causes him pain. After an incident a few weeks earlier, the local police were called and N.’s father was formally cautioned. Yet when he comes to the shop, he is the picture of congeniality towards N. and the volunteers.

N. receives care from a social worker and the onsite medical team. S. D., who has recently graduated with a degree in social work and has experience working with traumatized children, believes that N.’s case will remain unresolved if he cannot be separated from the source of his trauma. N. is beloved by the volunteers, but they recognize that their efforts to give him a safe space to play in during the day might be undone as soon as he gets home. Over dinner, S. D. admits that foster care for a refugee child is a terrifying prospect.

N.’s command of English isn’t limited to speech - he enjoys singing as well, and having recently watched Frozen, “Let It Go” has become his signature song. He knows several other songs, too, but doesn’t always remember the right lyrics. In those cases, he proves himself to be a talented improviser, which is especially impressive given that English is not his first language.

With A. B., A. D., and M. O. looking on in the shop, N. breaks into a rendition of the alphabet song. He gets as far as “L-M-N-O-P” and pauses, then repeats, still smiling: “L-M-N-O-P / Please, my father and his friends, don’t beat me.” With that, N. skips out of the shop as the volunteers exchange horrified looks.

The shop becomes even quieter after N.’s departure, and since some children have gathered outside, M. O. suggests that the team brainstorm ideas for children’s activities. She proposes making a tri-string bubble wand for blowing giant bubbles, and over the next hour, the group gathers inspiration from YouTube and experiments with different bubble solutions and types of string. While some progress is made, the project repeatedly runs into the same issues: either the string becomes tangled, or the bubbles burst too quickly. Realizing that they don’t have the right ingredients to make a robust bubble solution, the team decides to break for lunch.

The topic of conversation at lunch is N.’s song, and the nature of childhood trauma. It is apparent that some of the volunteers are heartbroken.

In the afternoon, A. B., A. D., M. O., and T. B. join A. A. and O. A. in the kitchen. Later on, after finishing up early in the shop, B. C. and S. D. join the group as well. They prepare the usual stew and Arab salad, but in addition to that, A. A. has them put together an experimental dish - curried lemon rice - that he hopes to incorporate into the regular menu. Upon being tasted, it garners unanimous praise from the volunteers.

After the service is finished - today, Y. and his brother J. have volunteered to distribute the containers of food around the camp - the group settles into cleaning. O. A. relaxes on a chair in the corner - today is his last day at the camp, he announces, as he has received a positive resettlement decision from Spain. The room erupts in cheers, and there is a jovial mood throughout the remainder of the shift. A. A. and O. A. put on their favorite Arabic music, which - after several attempts - the volunteers learn to sing along to.

O. A. receives a call from E. S. (a different E. S. from the volunteer), another resident in his mid-20s who used to help run the kitchen operation with A. A. and O. A. He has been absent from the camp for the last few days, having set up in Thessaloniki in preparation for an illegal departure from Greece. A. A. confirms that E. S. has acquired false documentation in the city. He and O. A. try to discourage their friend from going through with his plan - walking into the Thessaloniki airport and booking a flight to Barcelona - because of the risks it poses to his official refugee status, but E. S. is desperate to leave.

Over the phone, E. S. repeatedly asks about M. O., who becomes noticeably uncomfortable. According to the camp’s and RS’s own policies, relationships between residents and volunteers are not allowed. The consequences of not following this rule can include the volunteer being sent home, the resident losing priority in the resettlement process, or even the NGO being kicked out of the camp. E. S. has been persistently pursuing M. O. for the past few weeks, but because of these potential consequences, no one wants to get the camp authorities or J. S. involved. With everyone present in the kitchen around this phone conversation, E. S. asks O. A. to tell M. O. that he’d like to marry her and have her join him in Spain.

A. A. believes that E. S. is mentally ill. He says that if E. S.’s plan to leave the country doesn’t work, and he ends up returning to the camp, he will point out the shrapnel wounds on E. S.’s head and neck. According to him, E. S. had survived a bombing in the early phase of the war in Syria.

After the volunteers close up the kitchen and say their goodbyes to O. A., wishing him luck in Spain, a dog comes up to the group. This is Lucy - she is an older brown-beige hound, but still quite playful. It is unclear whether Lucy lives exclusively at the camp, but the residents leave her food and water, and the children enjoying playing with her. As the RS car pulls out of the camp, with its passengers prepared to say goodbye to one of their own later that evening, O. A. calls to Lucy in Greek - “Ela! Ela!” (”Come! Come!”) - and she obeys, trotting behind him and A. A. as they head home.

So it is in Alexandreia, on the 27th day of Ramadan.

[alexanderdroznin]

Day 2: Wednesday, June 21, 2017 (Ramadan 26). Pack and play.

Today’s morning briefing addresses two issues that came up yesterday. Some of the residents, aware of RS’s impending departure, have been asking about the fate of the remaining items in the warehouse. It is a valid concern: although the items belong to RS, many of them were designated by their donors for use in Alexandreia.

Although he is sympathetic to the residents’ perspective, J. S. holds a firm opinion on the matter: RS seeks to provide aid with dignity, and since the refugees here are relatively better off than those elsewhere in Greece, it is the prerogative of the organization to redirect its efforts to other sites. After the meeting, the volunteers discuss the matter among themselves. For the most part, they disagree with J. S.’s assessment of the residents’ self-sufficiency.

The second issue regards the boutique, where residents were allowed to use or rent out sewing machines. With the boutique now closed, some of the women have complained about being unable to mend their families’ clothing. J. S. had been planning to take the sewing machines to the next site - they are expensive, he says - but decides that it would not be much of an issue to rent them out for the remainder of the week. However, A. R. and M. O. point out that two of the machines have been broken, and all of them are missing needles. Although needles are relatively inexpensive and could be bought at the local hardware store, J. S. decides to hold on to the machines for the week.

Work at the warehouse continues today, with teams scheduled to be there during both the morning and afternoon shifts. In the morning, S. D. and T. B. take one of the cars over. Since it is S. D.’s first time at the warehouse, T. B. explains the packing process on the way over.

Soon after RS took over the warehouse, volunteers constructed a long, two-level shelving structure out of wooden pallets and chipboard panels. Each compartment was then loaded with crates containing sorted clothing items, shoes, toys, and other things. Because the pallets and panels will be used in the move - the former to stack crates on, the latter to create a second “floor” in the trailer-truck - the structure must be taken apart. F. S. and N. Z. managed to get some of it dismantled last week, and so armed with a drill and a hammer, T. B. continues to work on it today. In the meantime, S. D. sorts and stacks crates onto pallets, and then wraps them tightly with stretch wrap.

The volunteers finish the morning shift around 1 and head to K. S.’s cafe for lunch. Afterwards, for the afternoon shift, B. C. is assigned to play with the children. It is another scorching day, now well over 100 degrees, and both the shop and the plaza are almost entirely devoid of life. Only one boy wants to play, so B. C. gets some colorful modeling clay from the storeroom and sits with the boy under the tree by the soccer pitch. They make plasticine snakes and hamburgers, and the boy also molds a blue-and-green globe.

Other boys and girls show up later in the afternoon; most of them were at the camp school in the morning. The boys kick around a few soccer balls, taking turns shooting at a makeshift goal: the wide doorway of the building that faces the plaza. It is easier this way, as there are no nets or backstops behind the goals on the soccer pitch. Nearby, the girls play basketball and throw around a frisbee. The younger children are captivated by B. C.’s hand fan, which she happily lends them on this hot day.

A scuffle breaks out between two of the boys when one of them refuses to share the ball. The instigator is I., the same boy who had been jumping on the car during yesterday’s bread distribution. As he had done to M., he slaps this boy, too, and pushes him to the ground. The smaller boy lands awkwardly on his right arm and begins to cry, while I. rejoins the other boys.

Seeing no medical staff or adult residents around, B. C. runs over to check on the boy. After helping him calm down and assessing the injury as mild, she calls I. over to apologize to the boy and help him off the ground. I. returns and extends his hand out to the boy, but when the boy reaches out to take it, I. slaps his hand away and kicks him. The boy begins to cry again, but now an adult resident comes over to check on him. The boy gets up and runs off to the residential sector, while the man goes over to I. and berates him. Now it is I. who begins to cry.

So it is in Alexandreia on the 21st of June.

[alexanderdroznin]

Day 1: Tuesday, June 20, 2017 (Ramadan 25). Refuge.

The RS volunteers gather in the dining room of Hotel Manthos at 8:30 AM, where they have breakfast together before the morning briefing. I. N. gets them to practice their Greek as they come down the stairs: “Ti kanis?” (”How are you?”), she asks, to which the appropriate response (as written on her sheet of useful phrases) is “Ime kala, efharisto” (”I am fine, thank you”). Breakfast is served buffet-style; as the volunteers shuffle in, T. K. offers to prepare eggs to order for anyone wanting a heartier meal.

Three volunteers are returning home to Barcelona today after having spent two weeks here. B. S., her son F. S., and his friend N. Z. had never done this kind of volunteering before. They join the group for breakfast before their late-morning train to Thessaloniki. The rest of the volunteers will remain for at least another week as RS wraps up and transitions out of Alexandreia. There are eight of them in total - all are women, all but one are university students in their early twenties, and all but one have been at the camp for at least a week. B. C., E. H., and S. D. (whose first day is today) are from the UK; D. B. is from Cyprus; E. S. is from Latvia; A. B. is from Australia; T. B. is from New Zealand; and M. O. is from Mexico.

Toward the end of breakfast, the group is joined by A. R., an American in his mid-20s who has been working full-time here as a site coordinator; and J. S., a South African-born Briton in his 60s who is the co-director of RS (https://www.refugeesupport.eu/). With the other co-director, P. H., away on a fundraising tour of the UK, J. S. has been overseeing RS’s ground operations across four Greek camps. He will leave Alexandreia later in the day and drive to Ioannina, 137 miles to the southwest, where he is needed for a World Refugee Day event.

Indeed, today is a day for raising awareness of the situation of a staggering 25.4 million refugees and 68.5 million persons of concern (as estimated by the UN) around the world. If the global population of refugees were to constitute a country, it’s population would be larger than Australia’s. If all the persons of concern were to do the same, their country would be larger than Italy, France, and the United Kingdom.

Breakfast ends at 9, and A. R. and M. O. (who has been operating in a volunteer-coordinator capacity, despite being one of the youngest members of the group) begin the meeting. They go around the room asking about the previous day’s work: what went well, what didn’t go well, what could be improved. RS’s work has gone through many changes over its fourteen months in Alexandreia - when the camp first opened in 2016, there was effectively no infrastructure, and living conditions were brutal - and with it being RS’s last week here, some services have already wrapped up. The camp boutique, for instance - where volunteers maintained a sewing station and distributed clothes, shoes, and various non-food items to residents - was closed last week.

Yesterday, the volunteers operated four stations: the kitchen, the shop, children’s activities, and the warehouse (which is 3.5 miles south of the camp, in the village of Niselli). These stations are expected to continue until RS’s last day at the camp.

In the kitchen, the volunteers help two male residents, A. A. (22; Damascus, Syria) and O. A. (27; Mosul, Iraq), prepare dinner. The typical fare is a combination of meat stew, rice or bulgur, and Arab salad. Despite there being a mess hall adjacent to the kitchen, it has not been used for the last month - it is Ramadan, after all, so the residents take their food back to their units to be eaten after the sun sets around 8:30. A. A. and O. A. speak English very well and have formed close bonds with the volunteers, who often rely on them as translators in interactions with other residents.

In the shop, the volunteers distribute food and toiletries to residents through a points system, which supplements the stipend they receive monthly from the Greek government. Adults and children over the age of 13 get 100 points/week; children under 13 get 75 points/week; and pregnant and nursing women get 150 points/week. Residents generally come in once a week, and families will either shop together or delegate shopping duties to one person. Although the points system is non-monetary, 10 points corresponds roughly to 1 euro.

RS subsidizes the cost of fruits and vegetables, and most toiletries are complimentary (although residents are asked to take only one per person). Most of the foodstuffs are non-perishable canned goods, but there are also fresh fruits and vegetables, milk, eggs, cheese, and butter (the shop has a refrigerator). Because of cost and storage constraints, meat is not provided. The shop is usually staffed by two volunteers, one of whom checks and updates a database of item values and individual point allocations, while the other helps the shoppers find, weigh, and bag their items. On particularly busy days, a third volunteer might be called over to keep the younger children occupied - there is a small arts and crafts area at the front of the shop - while their parents shop, or to help resolve disputes.

The most common causes of disputes are: an individual trying to shop for a neighbor, or presenting an ID card belonging to someone who has already left the camp; and how points are allocated or added up. The language barrier between residents and volunteers sometimes results in miscommunication, in which case the volunteers call over a resident who can translate. Fortunately, many of the children who come in to shop with their parents have some basic English skills. After a shopper’s information is confirmed, they proceed into the main area of the shop, where they can browse for as long as they like through neat shelves, display crates of fruits and vegetables, and the refrigerator.

Children’s activities serve three functions at the camp: they allow for a kind of structured chaos that breaks up an otherwise monotonous daily routine; they give the children something to do outside of their housing units and the makeshift camp schoolhouse; and they help manage overcrowding in the shop. Depending on the children who are out and about at a given time, the activities can involve sports or arts and crafts. The camp’s central plaza has a basketball court, a small soccer pitch, and a playground (which RS volunteers helped build in the early days of the camp). Sometimes the children organize games among themselves as the volunteers look on, while other times the volunteers are more involved.

There is little shade in the plaza, and the recent heat wave (during which temperatures have regularly risen above 100 degrees) has made sports a less popular choice than arts and crafts. Crowding around one of the trees or picnic tables by the central plaza, the children play with chalk, sticker packs, coloring books, and colorful modelling clay.

As in the shop, the volunteers deal with disputes here, too. The most common issues are a child feeling that others are getting more (or better) toys and materials, not wanting to share, or trying to take things home with them. There have been cases of children throwing rocks at each other. For the volunteers, dispute resolution falls in a gray area of appropriate conduct. Besides separating children who fight and subsequently notifying their parents or a responsible adult resident, there is little that can be done. On top of that, the language barrier adds to the difficulty of communicating discipline to the children. Like the activities themselves, perhaps the playground squabbles also grow out of the tedium of refugee childhood.

3.5 miles south of the camp, in the village of Niselli, RS rents out a warehouse that serves as the logistical hub for its operations in Greece. Although there are smaller storage facilities near all of the camps, the one in Niselli is the first stop for construction materials, non-perishable foodstuffs, and donated clothing, shoes, and toys. Volunteers sort items upon arrival into boxes and crates, and place them onto wooden pallets or on the warehouse-length shelves that were built by the first volunteers. As needed, items are packed into cars or moving vans, and transported to Alexandreia or the other three camps.

Because of RS’s impending departure, the final week at the warehouse is spent differently: shelves are deconstructed, loose items are sorted, pallets are loaded to capacity and stretch-wrapped, and a final inventory is taken. Most of the items will be loaded onto two trailer-trucks next Tuesday and transported to a smaller facility near the Katsikas camp. Inessential or unportable items will remain in the warehouse, access to which will be given over to the Greek military officer at Alexandreia for him to manage as he sees fit.

Back at the morning briefing, M. O. assigns today’s roles (which are rotated throughout the week) to the volunteers before ceding the floor to J. S. He begins with an expression of gratitude to B. S., F. S., and N. Z. for their work, and reminds the group to keep raising awareness about the refugee crisis after they leave Greece. He meditates on the origins of World Refugee Day and relates it to all that RS has accomplished in its short lifetime. Finally, he welcomes S. D. to the team; her ability to drive stick will be indispensable as the need to shuttle people and materials between the camp and warehouse increases over the next week. J. S. asks her and the other volunteers, should they decide to stay on for subsequent weeks, to be flexible about which of the other camps they are sent to.

The meeting is adjourned at 9:30, and the volunteers are given some time to return to their rooms, gather their day-packs, change into camp-appropriate attire (blue RS T-shirts for all; full-length pants for the women), and fill up their water bottles. The group, now joined by I. N., gathers outside the hotel for one final photo with B. S., F. S., and N. Z. before bidding them farewell. The remaining volunteers pile into the two cars; S. D., being a British driver, is immediately unnerved by the realization that the steering configuration and rules of the road are for right-hand traffic. Today, the short drive to the camp is a slow and steady one.

Driving eastwards from the hotel along Greek National Road 4, which merges into Road 1 about three-quarters of a mile down the way, the camp is impossible to miss - it is to the right of the road, just outside the town limits. To the west of the camp are the local athletic club and soccer pitch; to the north and east are expanses of farmland; and across the road are a gas station and an auto repair shop. A small concrete-block wall surrounds the camp. Above it, a chicken-wire fence and two lines of barbed wire complete the barrier. A passer-by can easily see over the wall and through the fence. There is a tall structure resembling a water tower by the western wall. From the road, one can make out several derelict one- and three-story concrete buildings.

The camp is on the site of a decommissioned military installation, roughly 9 acres large, and is administered through a joint effort of the Greek government and military. There used to be a helicopter division stationed here. Security for the camp is provided by the local police department, which sends one or two officers at a time to man the guardhouse by the entrance. As the volunteers drive in, the young man on duty disinterestedly looks up and waves them through. Technically, all residents, aid workers, volunteers, and visitors must show identification upon entering the camp. The rule is almost never followed. Moreover, the guardhouse is observed to be empty a few times over the course of the week.

The residents of the camp live in containerized housing units organized into six blocks: A, B, C, D, E, and M. There are between twenty and forty units in each block. Past the guardhouse, to the left, is the mess hall, where the kitchen and pantry are located; straight ahead lies the residential sector; and to the right is the central plaza, which includes picnic tables, a basketball hoop, the playground, and a small artificial soccer pitch built by previous RS volunteers.

RS operates from the north side of the plaza, out of the first floor of a three-story building next to the UN Refugee Agency’s (UNHCR) container. There are three rooms: a shop, a boutique, and a storeroom. Across the plaza, two one-story buildings have been turned into a school and a medical and counseling clinic, and behind them is a public toilet. On the west side of the plaza, a lone one-story building serves as a women’s center.

With regard to utilities, the camp is electrified by a pair of diesel generators that are refueled by a local energy company; plumbing has been installed only in the public toilet and a special building in the residential sector where residents wash their clothes; garbage is collected by a local waste management company; and there is a weak Wi-Fi signal throughout the camp.

The containerized housing units are, compared to tents and collapsible refugee housing units, a longer-term solution to the problem of shelter. As with most of the infrastructure here, they were set up by UNHCR in the fall of 2016, replacing the preceding temporary emergency relief tents. While the climate in Alexandreia is Mediterranean, a particularly cold winter and heavy snowfalls forced the change from tents. Each steel-frame unit is 20 feet long and 8 feet wide, with a lockable door and two windows. These new units have given the camp an air of permanence.

Although the units were put in prior to the winter, UNHCR did not install HVAC systems until the spring. Consequently, during the coldest months, the temperature inside the units was only slightly higher than outdoors, often dipping below freezing overnight. Residents kept themselves warm with blankets and space heaters, the latter of which were confiscated by site management after the winter due to fire safety concerns. By the spring, full electrification of the units allowed UNHCR to bring in HVAC systems, small refrigerators, and electric hot plates. After the military ceased hot-food distribution in the spring, the residents started making home-cooked meals using products from both the local supermarket and RS’s shop.

UNHCR recommends that each unit have no more than four occupants, but to avoid breaking up families, this guideline is often ignored. If possible, larger families are housed in two adjacent units, which may be connected to each other by patio-like spaces built from plywood and tarp left over from the tents. Another common scenario involves a small group of unrelated young men (who arrive at the camp around the same time) being housed together.

The volunteers gather in the shop for a final meeting before dispersing to their stations. The day is broken up into morning and afternoon shifts, with a lunch break in-between. With the boutique now closed, and the kitchen operating only in the afternoon (for the preparation of dinner), the focus this morning is on the shop and the warehouse. Before opening the shop at 10:30, the volunteers sweep the floor, restock the shelves, remove spoiled produce and replace it with fresh produce from the storeroom, and check the database to get a sense of how many shoppers should be expected. While the number of morning shoppers varies, Ramadan sleep patterns and a spate of muggy weather have kept the shop relatively quiet in the mornings.

As a Ramadan treat, RS has been providing the residents with extra food this month. In the shop, they are given 0.25 kg of dried Tunisian dates, per person in their housing unit. These do not count against their point balances. The residents appear to enjoy the dates, which are especially popular with the children (since the shop does not carry sweet items beyond sugar, jam, and honey).

In addition to the dates, the volunteers have been going door-to-door, once a week, to distribute pita bread. There are few vendors in Greece who sell Syrian-style bread, and the major distributor is located far away in Athens. Instead, RS has been buying the bread from a Bulgarian vendor; it is only 60 miles to the Bulgarian border from here, whereas Athens is over 200 miles away. Bread was never stocked in the camp shop, but residents would purchase flour, salt, baking powder, and yeast, and bake the bread on their electric hot plates. It is a time-consuming process, and the product is quite different from oven-baked bread.

Today, the bread distribution team consists of D. B., M. O., and S. D. First, they load the bread into the trunk and back seat of the car. S. D. will drive; M. O., who has helped with distribution before, has a list of all the units and how much bread is allocated to each; and D. B. will carry the bread from the car to each unit, going down the rows in each block. Although it is still morning, the temperature has already risen above 90 degrees, and the group must get through roughly a hundred units before lunch. There is almost no shade in the residential sector of the camp.

The expedition starts in blocks A and B, which run parallel to each other on the southwest side of the camp. It is a quiet morning - most of the residents sleep in during Ramadan - but a few children are already up and about, playing outside. They rush over to greet the visiting volunteers. A teen boy, Y., rides up on his bike and offers to help with the distribution. He and his younger brother, J., are often in the shop, helping the volunteers unload grocery shipments and translating for older residents. Two very young children, a boy and a girl, also amble over to the car; they are too young to help, but enjoy the volunteers’ company. As M. O. calls out unit numbers and bread quantities, D. B. unloads them from the car and starts making her trips.

Before block A is halfway finished, A. A. appears and offers to help. Although he is fasting, and his primary role is in the kitchen, he is always willing to help where he can. He takes an order from M. O. and runs (literally) the bread over to the next unit. Being a resident himself, A. A. often knows the whereabouts of residents who are away, which is helpful in cases where no one comes to the door. Because there is only one distribution per week, the team makes a concerted effort to make certain that no one is home. Three knocks, and if still no one answers the door, the team moves on; bread cannot be left on the doorstep or with a neighbor. A. A. tells D. B. to knock on the lower half of the wall rather than the door, since the residents sleep on floor mattresses.

A. A. says that many residents have gone to Thessaloniki or Athens today for their visa sponsorship interviews. Indeed, this trumps even bread and water distribution - it is their ticket out of Alexandreia to more prosperous places in the EU.

With A. A.’s and Y.’s help, the team finishes blocks A and B in less than 20 minutes. As they head over to blocks C and D, a group of boys comes by to check out the progress. M. O. shoos them away each time they try to get into the stacks of bread in the trunk, but it’s all playful. Blocks C and D are finished quickly, too, but as S. D. starts to drive towards block E, two of the boys - I. and M. - grab onto the car. M. O. says that this happens pretty much every time, and that the only way to get the boys to stop is to ignore them. Eventually, one of the older boys in the group convinces M. to leave the car alone, but I. doesn’t budge. He pulls at the door handles, slaps the windows, tugs at the rear windshield wiper, and finally climbs onto the hood of the car. After jumping around for a bit, he gets down, slaps M. across the back of the head, and runs off.

I. does not look like the other boys at the camp. His curly black hair grows in patches, and his scalp is covered in burns.

Before the team makes it over to block E, a boy a bit older than Y. comes running over from block B. He says that his house hasn’t received any bread. M. O. checks her list - the delivery had been marked as completed. The boy is part of a large family that lives in two adjacent units. D. B. does not recall seeing the boy yet this morning, but remembers going to one of the two units. The boy thinks for a moment, then jogs home and returns with his mother. Clearly he has just woken her up, and she is skeptical of his claim. D. B. offers to accompany the pair back to their unit and sort out the situation there. When the older son opens the door, D. B. recognizes his face from before and asks if he had already received bread. The young man yawns and points to a stack in the corner, and the woman playfully scolds her other son before going back inside to sleep.

Blocks E and M are known as the “bachelor blocks”; the majority of young men who arrived at the camp all alone are housed there. They reflect a broader demographic shift. In the first wave of arrivals, almost all of the residents had come with their families, and the camp’s social order was maintained by the elder male heads of household. With the departure of some of these families and recent arrivals of more young men, however, the social dynamic has changed. No serious issues have yet been reported, but some residents have complained about loud music and late parties, and families with teenage daughters feel less at ease. M. O. says that some of the female volunteers also feel uncomfortable going to blocks E and M on their own, choosing instead to go in pairs or asking a male NGO worker to go with them. Today, distribution goes by without a hitch, although the young men are significantly more difficult to wake compared to other residents.

For lunch, the volunteers head to a small roadside cafe a short walk west of the camp. It is a small family business whose proprietor, K. S., runs the establishment with the help of her mother, husband, and daughter. The fare is traditional Greek, and the volunteers mostly opt for vegetable wraps and meat gyros. It is also an opportunity to restock on water, since the water at the camp is not potable.

Just like I. N. and T. K. back at the hotel, K. S. says that the local economy has not recovered since the financial crisis, and in fact only the presence of refugees and NGOs just next door has ensured her business’ survival. She worries that her daughter will not be able to receive an education abroad - Greek universities are free, she says, but not very competitive - and that her family would never be able to emigrate if the economic situation continued to worsen. She says that the incumbent left-wing party has good intentions, but repeatedly gets taken advantage of by Germany and the EU. The Germans, she says, are a different kind of European from the Greeks.

After lunch, the volunteers head back to the camp for the afternoon shift. Some join A. A. and O. A. in the kitchen; others gather art materials from the storeroom and set up at one of the picnic tables outside, soon being joined by a group of younger children; a few head back to the warehouse; and M. O. is in the shop. A minor dispute arises when a shopper questions the accuracy of M. O.’s addition. She compares the items on the counter with those that she logged into the database, and everything adds up. The man doesn’t believe it and asks for a calculator, and when the same result comes up, he laughs and leaves the shop with his groceries.

There will be a series of World Refugee Day events in Thessaloniki later in the evening, and UNHCR has chartered three buses to transport interested residents there and back. Their site coordinator at Alexandreia asks A. R. if he would be willing to spare some volunteers to come along as chaperones, but the group is tired after a full day of physically demanding work. Moreover, the buses are scheduled to return no earlier than 10, and the volunteers might not get to have dinner. Those who had been here last week recounted how UNHCR had taken F. S. and N. Z. along on a similar trip, only to forget about them and leave them to find their own way back to Alexandreia late at night.

Just after 7, the volunteers lock up the shop and the kitchen, gather their belongings, and drive back to the hotel. Not only does the security guard not seem to mind that the group has stayed past the non-resident curfew, but he doesn’t even look up from his phone.

So it is in Alexandreia on the 20th of June.

[alexanderdroznin]

Day 0: Monday, June 19, 2017. Alexandreia.

The typical way of getting to Alexandreia from the United States is to fly into Thessaloniki - laying over somewhere in Europe - then take a cab ride to the central railway station just west of the city center, followed by a 28-mile train journey along the Thessaloniki–Bitola railway.

As it rumbles westwards through the Roumlouki plain, which is largely farmland, the train passes through Sindos (pop. 9,289), a small suburb of Thessaloniki; then crosses over the Vardar (which the Greeks call Axios), which begins in the mountains of Macedonia and is that country’s longest river; goes through the village of Adendro (pop. 2,079), known recently for the tragic train derailment (3 killed, 10 injured, a collision with a house alongside the track) that took place there just two months ago; passes over the Loudias River and enters Imathia, Thessaloniki’s neighboring regional unit; goes through the villages of Platy (pop. 2,084) and Lianovergi (pop. 1,593); and finally arrives in Alexandreia. On both sides of the tracks, the landscape is almost entirely rural.

Before 1953, Alexandreia was known as Gidas, the largest village in the sparsely populated, Ottoman-controlled Roumlouki valley. Being a feudal property in a rural area, most of its residents were farmers or shepherds. The town was liberated from Ottoman rule in 1912, during the First Balkan War, and became an autonomous community in 1918. After nearby Giannitsa Lake was drained in 1932, an extended irrigation network was constructed and thousands of fields became available for agricultural use. To this day, the area is extremely fertile and known for its production of peaches, apples, pears, apricots, sugar beets, cotton, and tobacco. In 1953, to honor the region’s connection to Alexander the Great (who was born in Pella, the historical capital of the ancient kingdom of Macedon, just 10 miles to the northeast), the town council of Gidas voted to rename the town Alexandreia.

From the train station, it is less than a mile - a straight shot down Vetsopoulou - to Hotel Manthos, where the RS volunteers stay during their time in Alexandreia. It is a modest place, located near the outskirts of town, but as the only hotel in an area with a virtually nonexistent Airbnb scene, it performs an important service for tourists. For the volunteers, the hotel is conveniently located about a mile west of the camp, which is on the same street. The heart of the town, which is a few blocks south of the hotel, is quiet during the day, but livens up in the evenings: older folks fill the outdoor tables along Vetsopoulou, while the youth crowd into the modern restaurants and bars.

Hotel Manthos is run by I. N. and her brother T. K., a pair of locals who have seen many RS volunteers come through the hotel since the Alexandreia camp opened in April 2016. I. N. says that the presence of RS and other NGOs has helped keep the hotel afloat as the country struggles with post-recession austerity, and has contributed to the revival of the local economy. The latter point is immediately apparent: people wearing T-shirts and vests with various NGO logos on them flitter around the bar across the street.

I. N. checks her list of resident volunteers and copies down passport information. “You’re coming from far away?” she asks interestedly. There is a girl here from Mexico, another from Australia, and one from New Zealand. The rest are from elsewhere in Europe. I. N. hands over the room key and pulls from her desk a sheet of paper on which she has typed out 11 useful Greek phrases.

“Kalos ilthate sto xenohodio Manthos” (“Welcome to Hotel Manthos”), she says.

“Efharisto - kalinihta” (“Thank you - good night”), I answer back, looking down at the paper.

So it is in Alexandreia on the 19th of June.

[alexanderdroznin]

Philotimo: a prologue.

(Before anything else, there are a few explanatory points to be made about this post and the blog in general: (1) this first post is an introduction to the blog and explains its raison d'être; (2) the blog describes a singular and likely non-representative experience; (3) the blog is a work of stylized reportage; (4a) the people, places, and organizations mentioned here are real; (4b) as of the summer of 2017, the Syrian and Iraqi civil wars are ongoing conflicts that have produced millions of refugees, many of whom are not yet safely through to asylum countries, many of whom still have family and friends in their home countries; (4c) refugee camps are traumatic spaces; (4d) the anonymity of all involved persons - refugees, volunteers, aid workers, administrators, and locals - is maintained; (4e) for organizational and camp policy reasons, any photographs that may have been taken are not published here.)

In the past year, I was particularly struck by how “literary” journalists - namely, the late Ryszard Kapuściński (writing about Haile Selassie’s court and final days) and Svetlana Alexievich (writing about the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the Chernobyl disaster) - were discussed in my graduate seminars. “Is he writing within a colonialist framework?”; “Did she interview her subjects in an ethical manner?”; and so on. I will keep these and other questions in mind as I write, and not forget that I am fortunate to have freedom of speech and of worship, freedom from want and from fear, and relative socioeconomic stability. I am fortunate to be able to return to a safe and stable home when my time here is done. I am fortunate to be able to say “when my time here is done” in reference to a refugee camp.

I am currently (as of June 19, 2017) working at a refugee camp in Alexandreia, Greece - roughly 26 miles west of Thessaloniki - with the Greek chapter of a UK-based NGO called Refugee Support (RS) (https://www.refugeesupport.eu/), whose mission is to provide “aid with dignity” to refugees. RS operates in 4 camps in Greece - Alexandreia, Filippiada, Katsikas, and LM Village - and has been at the Alexandreia camp for 14 months since it opened in April 2016. The majority of its residents - whose numbers fluctuate around 400 - are Syrian Arabs and Kurds, while Iraqis make up the largest minority. Most of the residents have come with their families, and close to half of them are under the age of 16. There is also a growing population of young men who arrived alone. The camp is administered and serviced by the Greek army, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), Refugee Support (RS), the International Rescue Committee (IRC), the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), the Danish Refugee Council (DRC), the International Organization for Migration (IOM), PRAKSIS, and a Slovak medical team. After July 1, major camp operations will be taken over by the army, the IRC, and the NRC, while RS plans to shift its focus and resources to its other sites in Greece.

I try to keep up with international news on a regular basis, and I’ve been following the Syrian civil war and refugee crisis since they began in 2011. I’ve also been able to travel recently to Israel (in 2013 and 2015), Jordan (2015), and the West Bank (2015), where I was not only geographically close to the conflict in Syria, but also had opportunities to interact with Syrian refugees (Arab, Kurd, Muslim, and Christian) in Jordan, as well as Palestinian refugees in the West Bank.

My catalyst for getting in touch with RS and booking a flight to Greece was a combination of personal dissatisfaction and a desire for service opportunities. I had really enjoyed the first year of my Slavic graduate program (and even produced work that I was proud of), but often felt doubt about the positive impact potential of my chosen career path. In addition, one of my closest friendships had recently fallen apart, as had my relationship; my writing and art projects had stalled; I had started to feel the tightness of my student budget; and my seasonal depression was in full swing by late January.

While researching and emailing back and forth with several NGOs that work with refugees, I came across an article in Al Jazeera about Greek fishermen who, in the worst days of the refugee crisis, went out to sea to pull people to safety. They were poor, for the most part, and living in a country that is still struggling to recover from the global financial crisis of the last decade. The author of the piece chalked their actions up to philotimo, an untranslatable word “considered to be the highest of all Greek virtues, the standard for family and social living; the core concept is that of respect and walking in right paths. In its simplest form, the term means ‘doing good’, actions that ensure that a man's behavior be exemplary and demonstrate his personality and the manner in which he was raised. Philotimo to a Greek is essentially a way of life.”

Eventually, I settled on RS after some email conversations and a phone call with the organization’s director, and booked a flight to Greece.

I will be at the Alexandreia camp until RS pulls out on July 1; plans for afterwards have not yet been solidified.

What follows is a paean to Greece, featuring vignettes from the encamped lives of refugees and the people who work with them.