Nea Kavala Update #3

I’m driving out to camp to visit A who has invited me over for coffee and cake. The local radio is blaring a Prince song I used to dance to nearly thirty years ago, which only adds to the surreal quality of the drive down the dusty highway to Nea Kavala refugee camp in Northern Greece. On the way I pass many men, women and children, who are walking or biking in to town, or to the Lidl that is halfway between Polykastro and the camp. It takes about an hour to walk into town.

The landscape is flat. Mountains dominate the horizon. Cotton seems to be the main crop in this part of Greece and all the roads are lined with white fluff, as if a giant container had dumped a load of cotton balls over the land. The dust, the ribbons of cotton balls, the stray dogs, the refugees pushing shopping trolleys past boarded up businesses give the journey a bleak, dystopic feel. Today the sky is low and grey, and threatening rain.

I park the car at the gate and start the long walk through the camp. A’s container is at the very end of the alley that was once a runway. It starts to rain as I make my way through the hundreds of metal containers that house the refugees lucky enough to get one. Some have to live in the two giant tents on the edge of camp. Rumour has it that they will all be relocated before the winter sets in. Inshallah they will be able to move soon.

Many containers are painted with murals: peace doves, colourful landscapes, happy images to brighten up the clinical white metal. Others are covered in graffiti. One poet has written his verses on the walls.

Some of the refugees have started little businesses to make some extra money. There are a number of barber shops, a bakery, a falafel stand. Most containers have makeshift extensions built with bits of scrap metal, palettes and plywood. One family has started a little garden patch. Portacabins with men and women’s toilets, along with showers are set up throughout the camp. There are also outside double sinks where people can wash dishes or handwash clothes. I pass a portacabin that has a series of washing machines.

The alley is buzzing with traffic. Children push smaller children around in shopping trolleys. People pass by on bicycles. (The bike scheme is very popular, though most women had to learn how to ride one!). Everywhere are small children and cats. I stop to admire three kittens in a shopping cart that two tiny children are minding. The walk should take about ten minutes, but it takes me double that as I am hailed by both those I know and those I don’t know with a “Hello Teacher! How are you?”

An African woman is slowly making her way down the alley softly singing to herself. She is impeccably dressed in a tailored dress and matching shoes. Her braids are long and sway as she walks. I stop and speak to her in French. She is from the Congo and tells me that there are Africans from the Congo, Senegal, Zimbabwe, Sierra Leone and Cameroon. I have hardly seen them, except on the football field. They are less in numbers, and they do not mix much with the people from the Middle East.

This is not my first time making the long walk up the alley. A few days ago, SH invited me and Hope (the other volunteer in Women’s Space) to eat dinner with his wife ZH. They live in one container with their six children, aged 15 to 3 years old. SH proudly showed us the small porch that he built to keep the rain off the shoes that are lined up outside the doorway. In Nea Kavala everyone removes their shoes before going into a home. He also built a wall in the container to create a small room, making their living space even smaller but allowing for some storage and privacy for those who are not sleeping.

The main room was crammed with 4 bunk beds, a small fridge, and a tiny folding picnic table with a two-ring electric hob. The place was impeccably clean, but K, the eldest daughter made us wait while she went in and gave the floor a quick wipe. Hope and I sat on a thin mattress on the floor, and SH made a big deal about offering me a cushion, while ZH busied herself at the hob. The dinner smelled delicious. Two daughters and their adorable little son Y joined us, as well as a neighbour. The family, like many in the camp are Khurds. ZH and SH are from Syria as is the neighbor who has joined us. When the dinner was ready, SH rolled out a rug, and ZH arranged two steaming metal pots of fragrant rice, stuffed vine leaves, eggplant, courgettes, tomatoes and onions, and a plate of sliced lemons on the floor. She put out metal plates and plastic glasses filled with water, and handed us packets of airplane cutlery and serviettes. The food was amazing, and I marveled at ZH’s skill in her limited kitchen. We ate and laughed, and showed each other pictures of family and friends: Pictures of our fathers and mothers, sisters, brothers. children. Y, their three-year-old son (whom I thought was a girl because of his long hair) is clearly the family’s darling. He loved the pictures of my dogs and cats back home, and of the agricultural show in Clonakilty last summer, especially the cows. Hope and I stuffed ourselves with the delicious food, wiping up the sauce with ZH homemade flatbread.

ZH and I bonded when she came to our computer afternoon in the Women’s Space. She sat watching music videos and singing softly to herself. Suddenly she started crying, hiding her face in her headscarf. I had a moment of panic as her tears turned to heavy, heaving sobs. ZH speaks no English. I speak no Arabic, nor Khurdish. I felt helpless to deal with her deep sadness. Then it was obvious: just do what I would do with anyone who is crying. I took some tissues and handed them to her. She took them and wiped her eyes. I got a glass of water and she drank it. Still crying, she thanked me. I sat next to her and patted her arm as she blew her nose. When she calmed down, she explained through gestures and simple words that she had been watching a video of her mother’s home town of Mosul. It was a song that her mother had loved. Her mother had passed away several years ago, before the war. I told her that my mother had died two years before and that songs she loved also make me cry. We shared the moment, together in our grief and she handed me a tissue. Since that moment we greet each other with hugs.

I finally make it to the end of the alley and A’s container. The runway continues out in front of me, and I think of how ironic it must be to live here, trapped in a tiny space with a runway at your doorstep and its teasing promise of freedom.

A is not there. Inside is a man sitting on the floor eating beans and flatbread. He seems too old and grizzled to be A’s husband. She is in her late forties, but still beautiful with light almond eyes that sparkle when she smiles, which is often; though sometimes, like many women here, her gaze will drift and her face take on a sad, haunted look. He tells me that A is his “wifey” and has gone to get me some coca cola and the cake that she baked for me (I mentioned in class that I like coca cola, but don’t like Pepsi). While we wait for her, he shows me dozens of pictures of them in Turkey, of his sons who are in Germany, of the Christian church he attends in Polykastro. I am shocked to see a much younger man than the one sitting with me on the mattress. His legs are swollen and he needs a cane.  He talks a mile a minute in simple English: He is waiting to go to Germany for medical treatment, and to be reunited with his sons. He tells me that they come from Northern Syria, but that the war has destroyed their town, that they went to Turkey, but that it is not a good place for Khurds, that he has papers to leave, but A- who arrived after him – does not, and that she does not want to stay in camp alone. A arrives with the cake and her 24 year old daughter who speaks English well. She is painfully thin. She was studying in Syria before the war and is here with her husband. Neither she nor A wear headscarves, and both are dressed in Western clothes. ZH joins us for coffee and cake, along with IB, a young man from Syria who has brought along a Swiss woman who is volunteering with DROP IN THE OCEAN.

Time flies as we eat cake and chat, and it is soon time for me to open up the Women’s Space, so we gather up our things and all head off back down the alley. We are joined by ZH’s two daughters with little Y. The rain has stopped and the setting sun is lighting the mountains with a fiery display: all reds and orange. Our little group walks together down the alley, waving at friends and stopping to chat with people lounging outside their homes, and I wish I could wave a magic wand and erase the containers, and the puddles, the portacabins and toilets; and transport us to the beautiful boulevards and parks I saw in their family pictures. To anywhere were we could just be what we are: a group of mothers and children out for a stroll on a fine Autumn evening.

If you would like to help, please donate to my Go Fund Me page:

https://www.gofundme.com/woman039s-space-nea-kavala-camp