Yesterday was a normal day at work, but now I’m packing up my family along with a few necessities and heading to Turkey. My family and several others from the neighborhood are all planning on leaving. We have to cross several borders. We will literally run across some of the borders and pray we do not get shot. We have been trying to stay in our country because it is home, but everything is literally blowing up in our faces. After giving the baby a bath last night and just seeing the scars and how some of the burns still itch, it was finally too much. The kids are sad about leaving their friends, and even the baby seems more fussy as if he knows something is going on. Our neighbors determine the best time to leave and avoid too much disturbance to our trip.
After much traveling and avoiding some authorities we make it to Turkey. We have looked into starting our asylum process. The government has said there is a six year wait list. I will not keep my family in limbo that long. I have heard rumors of smugglers that can take us to Greece. The asylum process is supposed to move much faster. There is something set up so that if we are safe to stay in Turkey we are not allowed to move on to Greece. With this in mind we will have no other option than to look into the smugglers.
We are about to board a boat headed for Lesvos, Greece. The smugglers required thousands of euros for each family member. We’ve been in Turkey for several months trying to negotiate pricing. Since winter is starting to set in the prices have dropped, also the island that was being pushed by smugglers switched. Lesvos is very close to Turkey, so this is what we settled on. Our neighbors that we had been traveling with have started going separate ways. The one couple that moved on first headed to Germany. The economy there is better, but feasibly my family cannot all make it there. As we wait to load the boat it is dark out, but the space looks so limited. The actual process of loading is rushed, but also seems to take forever. The smugglers point out the island and it really doesn’t look that far, but I also noticed they were very stingy with fuel rations in the motor. Our family all gets thrown life jackets, as we cram into a boat that is probably only made for 14 people. As the boat fills I lose count after 65 people. There are mother’s trying to clutch tightly onto their children while those along the edges of the boat try to maneuver to the center. We are launched out into the Aegean sea. The wind is so sharp, and those sitting on the edge have fallen in multiple times. It is so hard to stay warm even with this many bodies.
Our motor cut out sometime last night. Some of the single men have jumped out to swim the rest of the way. My family would not be able to make it. Finally we get into a decent current, and then another boat comes to help. There is so much commotion as people get out of the boat, everyone is ditching their lifejackets while trying to accumulate the little belongings that they were able to bring along. People have dropped all sorts of things in the bustle, even passports and important papers are strewn about. I keep hearing people say stage 1, Molyvos, and other words that I cannot make out. Nearly all the people on the boat spoke Arabic or Kurdish or both, but now there is a mix of English, Greek, Danish and French as well.
We are taken off the coast a short ways. There are doctors available for those that are really in need. The rest of us are told we will head to stage 2 for the night and then be seen the next day. When we get there we are ushered into a large tent, given some blankets, food, and water. Some of us were able to get a little sleep, but it was not restful or comfortable. In the morning we have the option of walking or bussing to stage 3. The walk would take us about two days and the bus ride is about 90 minute. Our family opts for the bus.
The bus gets filled with about 80 of us. I had been under the impression that we would be staying in a camp, but they are calling it a detention center. After 90 minutes on winding roads we pull up to a concrete and razor wire fence facility. There are police bustling around, some of which have shields and all sorts of equipment. The bus is parked in front of a large gate with razor wire. We are yelled at to find out if we have any family or if we are alone and which country we came from, but it is all in English and Greek. We are ushered through a series of locked gates and there is a tent almost identical to the one we spent the previous night in. The main difference is that this one is already bursting at the seams with people.
We have made it as a family, all in one piece. We have not yet had to deal with any of the illnesses we see around us. As we unload we are issued a small sheet of paper as they continue trying to figure out who is with who. We are given some basic provisions and added to the already squished tent. Another unpleasant night, this tent is a little warmer than the one at stage 2 because of all the body heat. There is a worse stench in this camp, probably because of the sheer number of people. This center has a capacity of 1,800 people, but I have heard people say there are over 5,000 people here. We get settled into a little section of the tent, and meet some of those around us. We hear about EuroRelief, and how they are working to assign housing. There are tents, tarps, and isoboxes spread out and being filled throughout the center. There are so many different organizations here. You would think that people here would move out quickly with so many workers, but I’ve heard stories of people being in this place for over a year.
It’s been three days, and we are still in the area called new arrivals. We are basically locked in this area. Some of the police are friendly, but there are others that do not want to even acknowledge us. There have been volunteers coming into the tent and pulling out families, but never ours. We have heard about a family camp that is nearby. The stories make it sound much better. It sounds cleaner, quieter, and safer than where we currently are. First things first, we have been told we need our ausweis before leaving camp. The first slip of paper we received seems to be some sort of appointment. This date is still a couple of weeks out, and it sounds like it might be rescheduled according to those that have been here longer.
A volunteer finally came in to get us today! We were told we have a new home in section A, and we would receive cards. The volunteer then informed us that only 5 of us could live there. Our father was not listed with us so he would be locked outside of this section and not be living with us. We asked the translator to explain, but it was not helping. All of our stuff was taken and put into this new space, but without our father. He will remain in new arrivals until he can be placed.
It has now been a couple weeks and I think we will be able to live as a complete family again. There is a tent with three other families living in it, and the volunteers have tried to clear a space for us. At first the leaders of the other families were completely appalled and would not accept us. The volunteer and translator just kept repeating themselves over and over again. We were finally okayed and placed into one corner of the tent.
We have settled into our little community. Our next step is to finish getting checked by the doctors. The baby got checked the first day, but now the other kids are starting to get coughs. I tried to go into the gated area where the doctors are, but was told I needed an appointment. I’m unsure of how to get an appointment without going in, but the language barrier was just getting on my nerves and making everyone upset. Our neighbors in the tent finally told us just to go up to level four. The doctors there are so friendly and willing to work with us, but seem slightly more limited than those in the other area.
We were all able to be seen by the doctor. They have determined that we are not deadly contagious with anything. The ausweis is our next thing to get. There are a couple of appointments that have been set up, both of which are somehow related. It has been very hard throughout this process to see those around us able to leave and get asylum all throughout Europe. Even some of the volunteers and workers have moved on, but here we sit. We were late to our interview because of some riots happening outside of our tent. This means that we have to step back and our papers will have to go through several extra hours or processing.
The riots are not an uncommon thing here. They do not always start the same way, but often end up with huge rocks being rained down on certain regions in camp. Even though most of us are in similar situations we see others as threatening. The riots often send people to the hospital or to seek a safer area. The kids have started hanging out with a few others they met in section A from when we first moved here. Section B with unaccompanied minors have also adopted them as siblings. Our family’s ‘new son’ was injured severely with this past riot. He was hit in the face with a huge rock and has a fairly significant gash. Getting him to the hospital did not seem to be a priority, but he got stitched up at the doctors on site. Sometimes the police are reluctant to call an ambulance. Apparently there are only two for the entire island, which is frustrating for everyone and sometimes hard to understand when actually in an emergency situation.
It’s been about 3 months and we have our final interview. We will have to push through the masses just to get into the EASO cage. We manage to get our family through, but the baby is screaming because of all the commotion. When we leave our interview we are approved for asylum in Athens!
There is excitement, but also the anticipation for the unknown that is going to continue bombarding our lives. We return to our tent and start to pack up the belongings we have. Then we end up waiting several days until there is a bus that will take us to the ferry for Athens.
There is so much rejoicing as 400 of us have been approved to start our next journey in life. We cram towards the entrance of the camp and can’t wait to leave this overcrowded place. At the same time there are many of our new friends that will have to remain here on Lesvos for the unforeseeable future.
There has not been any part of this process that was remotely easy, and as we start in Athens we are facing yet more unknowns and possible hardships.
This is not a true story, while parts do apply to some of the situations we encountered in our month in Greece it is not just one person’s story. One of the main things that I determined during last month is that most of the people that we met, who are sometimes called refugees, are just like us, but we are nothing like them. Their lives were once similar or better than many of us that were volunteering. They have seen so much more than we have ever seen or encountered.
Please continue to pray for this crisis.
Some of the concrete, razor wires and fences.
Lost passport along with some deflated rafts that are used as boats for 50+ people that have been abandoned along the coast.
Stage 2 rules and some fancy isoboxes in the background.
