Letters from Samos — Day 5

The indispensable Elena was off sick today. She works every day and night with the refugees, coordinating the volunteers, municipality, NGOs, authorities and other charities to fill in the gaps between resources. She also has a job and a husband, neither of which I suspect get the same amount of attention as they did before the refugees started arriving. I am surprised she is not sick more often as her work rate is astonishing and beautiful yet unsustainable. I worry that without her things here would be a whole lot more chaotic.

Many of the volunteers left today and the team is reduced dramatically. All of a sudden most of the people who I asked questions of are gone and people have started asking me. In the valley of the blind the one legged man is king.

I was disappointed today to hear a number of the volunteers gossiping about each other and it made me feel insecure about what people may have been saying about me. It’s a very stressful situation with people often working in enclosed spaces for long hours and I suppose it is inevitable that people get annoyed and frustrated with each other but it is a great shame nonetheless.

We arrived at the detention centre to clean the cabins after a big departure and the police decided we were not allowed inside without the official permits. That is the correct procedure though they hadn’t been enforcing it until now but some volunteers had annoyed them somehow and we didn’t have time to get the correct paperwork that day.

We decided to clean outside instead where a makeshift campsite has sprung up with forty or so tents. Now I have been to many festivals and camped in cramped conditions but this was truly disgusting. The ground was littered with all sorts of rubbish including food and nappies and wet blankets. As I started filling bin bags it made me gag and I had to really concentrate to control the nausea reflex. I buddied up with a Christian Iranian engineer to carry wet carpets to the skip and shared some laughs rather than ask him his story. The reward for seeing the clean camp is enormous compared to the effort required.

Immediately seeing the impact of your energies is something I miss back home…

Previous day: https:[email protected]/letters-from-samos-day-4-6970ff9eee47#.4safpoa2q

Next day: https:[email protected]/letters-from-samos-day-6-9167e9593dc5#.1r58ubpc8

This piece is part of a series of letters one impossible user sent daily to his wife while he was volunteering on Samos, Greece. He has shared them with us as an insight into what is happening there and how much help is needed.
We’ll be posting one letter each day for the next 6 days. Follow us.