I turned around and there were a dozen people and a half dozen microphones and cameras in my face. The questions came rapid-fire:
What did you say to him?
What did he say to you?
Why did you do that?
What NGO are you with?
Did you see that he had a camera?
How did you get here?
Where are you staying?
How did you pay for it?
What do you know about rumors that the borders are opening?
All I did was go up to a group of soldiers on the border between Greece and Macedonia to say good morning and thank them for their service. I’d just watched a masked man walk back and forth by the border and yell profanities at them before a cohort of other refugees approached and convinced him to leave. The soldiers are people too. I got to the fence, asked if they spoke English, and was waved off. In Greek: “No, only Macedonian.”
“Thank you,” I responded (also in Greek, I’m pleased to say. I can also say ‘strawberry’ and count to one.) I walked away, because you don’t argue with the man driving the assault vehicle. It’s just not a good plan.
I was, frankly, unprepared for and embarrassed by what followed. I figured someone might take my picture an move on; I was just being pleasant and saying hello, for heavens sake. (My dad chatted up a Secret Service agent when McCain came to campus back in ’08. I come by the friendly thing honestly.)
Cue “Meet the Press.” And while I had no problem saying that I went to go say hello to the soldiers – “I’m pretty sure he doesn’t want to be here any more than the refugees. It’s not like he chose to close the border.” – and why, the questions turned more toward who I was and why I was here, and honestly, I wasn’t okay with that. I pointed to the camp “I’m not the story here; they are the story.”
“Everything’s the story,” said one journalist, barely looking up from her notepad.
Perhaps that is the problem. Perhaps people are far more interested in the sensational than the practical. I sat and watched a rally of about 50 people today with a man from Syria. He used to work in media for a subsidiary of Petrocan, a Canadian oil company. He nodded at them and said to me, “Those are just bad guys. They make it worse for the rest of us, and cause problems. They don’t help.”
I did the mental math as I was talking a few minutes later with a photojournalist named Craig. “50 people in a camp of 15,000 gets reported as widespread unrest? How does that work?”
He smirked, “Yeah, someone came up to me this morning after they saw you at the fence and asked what happened. I said ‘what really happened, or the media version? What really happened: nothing. The media version? “After tense interactions on the border, a foreign agitator approached the fence to speak with military forces.”‘ It’s ridiculous.”
Don’t believe everything you see in the news.
I was pleased to spend some time speaking with him; he’s been working in the area for several months since the start of the camp, and has a far better grasp on the situation than I do. “I can almost understand the confusion when it was closed 3-4 days at a time and then opened again, but it’s been forty days.” We agreed that it was a very complicated set of circumstances, but not insurmountable. He works with a small organization providing help where they can, but compassion fatigue set in a few weeks ago, and badly. “I started noticing my temper would flare all of a sudden. I knew I needed some time. I cut way back and everyone else is taking a couple weeks.”
I shared that I saw the same thing happening in the volunteers, and voiced concerned for their wellbeing after months of regular upheaval, which led me to comment at the lack of mental health services for anyone – refugees and relief workers alike. We’d already shared some of our work history as we were chatting.
The conversation shifted. “It’s not the borders I’m worried about,” I said, “it’s the kids. The kids here remind me more and more of the kids I worked with back home. They go off on each other with a hair trigger and they sit crying and no one does anything. I’m not worried about now; I’m worried about thirty years from now when these kids remember this camp.”
Which led to a discussion of acculturation between Islamic immigrants and their new European home countries, and how those things are problematic on both sides of the equation. “It’s not like America,” he said, “the immigrants aren’t looked at like they are over there. It’s not like the Irish or the Italians or the Greeks. It’s racism here. The second generation that ISIS is recruiting is European born and bred- but they feel alone because no one is connecting with them.”
I shared that I had received a rather lackluster letter from my Representative in Congress. I still think they could have at least changed the font of the salutation and the form letter to match. (But I digress.)
It was a long day at the camp.
I attempted, and failed, to build a functioning kite for some children.
We played with kids in front of gaps in a fence defining the barrier for the food lines so no one would jump the queue.
But it wasn’t over.
Tonight we had a prayer meeting, and as we lifted our voices to intercede for the people at Idomeni, I heard hearts opened to God and love pouring out. Yes, we are few, and yes, some days the work we do feels insignificant, but we are not deterred in our desire to help or our willingness to keep going. We have a determination borne out of a single truth: God loves them. So, too, must we love them. They are people, and we want to love them in Jesus’ name.
I ask you to add your voices. I ask you to join with us and bring the needs of the people of Idomeni before the King. I haven’t any idea how any of this works out in the end, but I trust that He does. My job is to keep loving, praying, and trusting, and steward ell the responsibilities He gives me. Then I let Him handle the rest.
