We’re in Lesvos now and still have a week left. My next post will go in depth about some of the NGOs that we have met with and the amazing work that they are doing on the island. Now, I’ve been thinking about the incomprehensible juxtaposition of working in a refugee camp on a destination holiday island, so here’s a poem about it:
My photo library hosts 146 new images
pink clouds that hover above cute sailboats
itty bitty cobbled streets speckled with green shutters.
Lesvos in tourist moments through tourist eyes
In the early mornings I sit on the edge of the sea and watch the wind blow tiny waves against a rocky jetty.
I watch the sun shine over Turkey
I feel like I could reach out across the Aegean and touch her with my fingers.
I can’t help but also feel that these pictures are phony.
If I posted one on Instagram it would get at least 164 likes
About one like per Iso Box.
After breakfast with a view against classical music under trees
I go to Kara Tepe.
It’s considered good
It is for the vulnerable
As if everyone here isn’t vulnerable
I guess it is pretty good.
I go to Moria and decide that Kara Tepe can be called good.
We don’t take pictures in Kara Tepe.
A Somalian woman who cannot read my desperate Google translate
Begs with tears in her eyes
She needs to get herself, her daughter, and a wheelchair to the hospital
And I don’t have the words to tell her there is no transportation back
The bus back from the camp struggles to pass through the itty bitty streets
Packed full with people
Backing up and trying over and over again
Maybe if I really could touch Turkey with my outstretched fingers
I could pull the boats in
Safely
No seasick journeys and
No limp bodies
Just a boat guided smoothly to asylum.
NAU in Greece: The Refugee Crisis in the European Union 