A Different Kind of Boat

I’m going to take a break from our journey through the history of the Aegean and talk for a moment about the present day. You may have noticed I haven’t said much about my daily life here in Chios. Apart from the historical research, I haven’t been quite able to describe what I’m doing. Well, I’ll try and explain some of it now, but what’s been stalling me is the fact that putting the situation into words seems impossible. As if any language I use to describe it essentializes the real issues into meaningless concepts.

I’m sure you are all aware of the refugee/migrant crisis in this part of the world. My Plan A for Greece didn’t pan out and my Plan B has become part discovery of history and local culture, part volunteering with the Chios Eastern Shore Response Team (CESRT). I’ve never been one for volunteering, much, but this is something very different from any service work I’ve done before. CESRT provides emergency clothing for new arrivals and meets the boats in the middle of the night. We also teach English, organize activities for children and adults, and do our utmost to treat these people like people. Sometimes this means going to people’s tents and drinking coffee with them or their family, going to the beach together, or just sitting in the park and talking. Doing “normal” things in the midst of absurdity.

This morning, I received a call at 4:53 AM. A boat had just come in from Turkey. Fifty-one people, including three infants and many children. In the sweaty dark, roused from sleep and quickly becoming covered in dust, it’s easy to dehumanize the people you are helping. A pair of pants here, a shirt there. We need plastic bags and water over here. Blankets everywhere. Beams of light from phones and flashlights illuminating the inside of small shacks with bags of donated clothes, picking your way across blankets and over people huddled on the ground to find the right size socks.

And as the sun begins to creep over Turkey to the east, the faces become real instead of half a dream that you may or may not be having. And you think, every single person I know in those camps, every single one of the people I count as friends and have laughed and played with, have taught English to, was once one of these people. Sitting in wet clothes on damp, dirty blankets after escaping from Turkey in the middle of the night, completely unsure of what would happen to them when they arrived. Most of them don’t speak any English, although there are some who can understand us. Today we had to tell a young girl that no, she would not be going to Germany immediately. That she would be here in Greece for months, maybe longer.

There was one man who had come across as a single parent, bringing his two small children. There are almost no resources or systems in place for single dads. Mothers, yes, but not fathers. We don’t know what will happen. Even for these people I don’t know at all, my heart was breaking. And as I walked home I tried to imagine the faces of my friends who had also sat there and been cold, exhausted, wet, and bewildered. Or the friends and family I left back in the States.

It is impossible to imagine.

There have been many moments in these last couple of weeks that have stood out in my mind. But the one that keeps playing over and over in my head was a week ago, sitting the park and having a small good-bye party for someone going to Athens. Everyone, volunteers and refugees alike, were saying, “We will meet again in Germany!” “We will meet again in France!” “Somewhere in Europe!”

And one person just calmly said, “In 10 years, we will meet again in Syria.”

The sun breaks over Turkey while we greet refugees here in Greece.

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(If anyone is interested in volunteering in Chios, *please* let me know)