I’m writing this from a beautiful house in the Swiss Alps. It’s minus two degrees outside and the mountains are covered in snow as far as you can see. It’s a world far away from Skaramangas, but the camp is still very much on my mind. Since I left, actually before even, I’ve been thinking about how to summarise, to describe, my experience and impressions of it and of being there.
On our second day we were speaking to one of the other volunteers on the bus home. She had already been in Greece during the summer, volunteering on Chios, one of the Greek Islands that people were arriving from Turkey on. She told us that being with the refugees (somehow it doesn’t feel quite right calling them this, especially after having got to know so many of them as individuals) would change us, that we would see the world differently when we came home. I was a bit sceptical about this, especially as I kept hearing that life on the Islands had been much harder, the volunteer work more ‘life saving’, than it was in Athens. In the camp we didn’t really see any obvious signs of physical suffering or trauma and as such I questioned whether we could do much to help and if not, whether we would be able to develop any significant bonds.
A number of people have said that they admire us for going there because it must be really hard. I don’t know if I was naïve before going, but I didn’t really consider or imagine that it would be particularly emotionally challenging. And even now I wouldn’t say that I am or was emotionally distressed about being there. Nevertheless, many things are occupying my thoughts and I do feel somewhat different now that I’m back. The rhythm of life in the camp, one that we somewhat adopted for our 5 days there, is very different to my daily routine in Zurich. There, we were passing our days with others, not on computers, not with a long to do list. There was time to just be with people, and because we couldn’t really speak to each other, just sitting with each other, sorting shoes together, exchanging a few words of broken English, or playing with the children, was the way to bond. Initially I felt like the camp was lacking a community spirit. There is a fair amount of vandalism, and a lot of measures are taken to prevent more of it from occurring. The children are often left to play on their own, and from this I assumed that the parents weren’t interested in them, but of course there could be many other reasons. It’s still hard for me to say what ‘the’ community spirit there is like. But looking back at my own feelings as well as the photos and comments from other volunteers, it is clear that we were part of a community there, one made up of both volunteers and refugees. This has also become obvious to me as I read some of our co-volunteers’ powerful and moving facebook posts about the impact the experience had on them.
Friends have asked me what it was like, whether I would recommend going there, if you can make a difference. I told them that the conditions in the camp seemed to be ‘ok’. Everyone has shelter and food, clothes to wear, wifi and people are also given some money each month. Whether these conditions are ‘good’ and or not is hard to say. I realised as I was sitting in one of the family’s ‘homes’ that it was a similar size to the ‘tiny house’ that I would like to live in one day. The food that is given out is usually vegan or vegetarian, also what I like to eat. And the people are mainly wearing second hand clothes. Similarly, hardly a day goes by when not at least part of my outfit is second hand. But for me these are all choices. And I am not envisaging my ‘tiny house’ being in an old shipping yard or housing seven people. These parallels struck me but I’m not sure (yet) what to make of them.
What I have told people most about the camp is the sense of boredom I felt hanging in the air. And, the helplessness and loss of drive that stems from waiting month on end, not knowing and not being able to influence what your future holds, was almost palpable. Boredom and lack of hope for the future, watching your life pass by as you stand in a shipping yard, are not immediately visible forms of suffering. Yet the more I thought about what this situation means for people, trying to imagine myself in a similar position – not being able to feel useful, capable, or wanted – the more I realised that refugee work is about much more than food and shelter. I wondered, and wonder, what is happening behind the closed doors of 421 containers as the days roll by. About what can be done for and by the people of Skaramangas to improve this situation.
Not feeling useful, capable, or wanted is, however, not an experience restricted to refugees. Being unwilfully unemployed can trigger these feelings as well. I spoke to a volunteer from Holland about this on another bus trip. She has been working with refugees for a long time and so I was interested to hear how she chose refugee work over other social justice work. I’m no longer exactly sure of her answer to this specific question, although I do remember some interesting options she suggested for dealing with this issue. She said that in Holland some people had been doing work to try to integrate refugees into lower class communities, but that this had not worked so well. She also said that there had been campaigns to make sure that people with low incomes, or the unemployed, receive the same benefits as refugees – for example access to language classes and other support or social programs. This sounds like a great idea to me. And a method I’d be interested to find out more about.
I’m sure that our five days in Skaramangas will stay with me for a long time, my impressions will become woven into my interpretations of many issues, helping to shape and being retrospectively shaped by future experiences.