We went to visit a refugee camp today. On television, the images brought back of such camps always seem so desolate; flies crawl over screaming babies, tin shacks filled with a family of thirty, and children staggering around seemingly in a daze at their surroundings.
In contrast, the visit was shockingly normal. As we drove out to the camp, we drove through green farmland, and the sun was shining in a cloudless sky. It was truly beautiful. If not for the signs lettered in Greek and the red-tile roofs that dotted the landscape, I would have thought I was driving through the Fraser Valley in British Columbia, leaving Langley and bound for Kelowna via the Coquihalla highway.
That truly was what struck me the most. Not the smells of the camp, smoke and waste and excrement, which I had smelled in a thousand different places in a thousand different circumstances, nor the sense of desperation among the people. I will confess that a balloon popping shortly after our arrival was the single most traumatic moment of my day (which is not to say that there were not situations that could have been dangerous or gotten out of hand; rather, they were well managed by the excellent organizations working on the ground.) The atmosphere was tense, but not oppressive.
No, the thing that truly struck me was how at home I felt. The landscape was like coming home; imagine all the sights that bring you joy, the familiar creatures and sounds that make home “home”, the sweeping beauty that makes you feel as though your soul has suddenly come back alive after being separated from its native clime for a while.
Now put 15,000 refugees smack dab in the middle; people hungry, tired, with inconsistent medical care; people who in another life were educated, respected professionals- doctors, lawyers, teachers. The mental images of boats coming into Lesvos have been replaced by what was, for me at least, a far more grim reality.
The homecoming suddenly became very jarring. Somehow the landscape seemed incongruent with the inhabitants, as though someone tried to settle an elephant in a robin’s nest. The cognitive dissonance clawed at my brain, choked off my air, and brought tears to my eyes. It was so like home, which made the tragedy of the situation an even sharper knife to the heart.
Yes, people are hungry. Yes, they are desperate. Yes, the same four children go through the food line 6 times even though we all know they’ve been through. Yes, we know that the man over there will argue and yell and threaten and potentially pull out a knife if he doesn’t get his way. No, these are not exaggerations, and no, I am not being glib. The news would love to talk about that man, but it will ignore the hundred others who walked through my line today, took a loaf of bread, and said thank you in lightly accented English. I have yet to see footage of a child smiling, though I witnessed it a hundred times today,
Part of the feeling of homecoming is the feeling of affinity for these people, as though by somehow adopting Greece as a surrogate Pacific Northwest, the refugees have become my surrogate guests by extension. If they showed up in Vancouver and were sitting in the bay, I hope I would want to love them just as the people of Greece have loved them so far, and just as I am given the opportunity to love them now. A few hours in the camps is not enough to get a full handle on the situation; I know that in the coming days and weeks ahead, the layers of the onion will peel back and we will see more of the fullness of the camp at Idomeni.
For now though, I see people who are tired, traumatized, and terrified. I want to feed them, love them, and tell them that things will be alright; I truly believe that some day, somehow, they will be. Regardless, I have an opportunity to love people in the midst of difficulty, and I am honored and humbled by that responsibility.
Tomorrow will bring its own share of experiences. I am reminded of Paul’s words that “faith, hope, and love” will endure.
