Yesterday we arrived on Lesvos (an island in Greece that is just 4 miles from Turkey, so really on the border between the east and the west). Today we began our work with EuroRelief at the Mourovouni Camp (which simply means “Black Mountain” in Greek - the name the area where the camp is has been called for years).
I saw a lot that encouraged me. Compared to the conditions in Moria (the camp we served in 2019 that burned down in 2020), Mourovouni is so much cleaner and organized (there were also up to 20K people in Moria). There are also things like classes for children, a shop class where the POCs teach skills like woodworking, auto mechanics,etc, a social hall for women and another for men, and even a playground.
Everyone lives in isoboxes or in framed tents (which we found out are designed by IKEA).
We jumped right in today and helped with a variety of tasks (more about that on another day). The highlight of my day was having tea and cookies with some girls from Eritrea.
I will be able to show limited photos. They will let us take some with discretion but none of refugees. EuroRelief does have some approved photos to share which I may use from time to time. The ones in this post are all my own.
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| Our team getting ready to walk to camp |
At the end of day one
View of camp from the hill
So great to see a playground!
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| Lunch is made every day for the volunteers by two ladies - either one from Sierra Leone or Haiti (I couldn’t believe there were Haitian refugees here. They must have quite an interesting path). Anyway, we pay for these meals which lets the ladies legally earn money. This meal was better than it looked. It was Cassava Leaf Stew - the national dish of Sierra Leone. I loved it! |
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| Flags at half mast due to a train wreck in Greece |
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| The harbor at Panagouida. Panagouida is our home for the next two weeks. |
