At the entrance of oinofyta a cluster of men living at the refugee camp are gathered in small groups, smoking cigarettes, thumbing cell phones, face-timing with faraway relatives scattered across the globe, mulling over the uncertainty of their fate, after the international office of migration (iom) made the announcement today that the camp would be disbanded within the week, and that a number of families would be moved into apartments in athens while other families, including young unattached men, would be sent on to other camp sites scattered throughout greece.
Anxiety spread throughout the camp like wildfire. where they were to go, when they were to leave all remained in question. they were simply told to pack up their meager belongings and to be ready to leave by week’s end, at the latest. they would find out where they were assigned once they got on the bus chartered to take them there.
A mother of five, whose children ranged in age from 3 months to 8 years old, complained they never even had a chance to respond. the official made the announcement curtly and walked away from the gathered crowd, saying they would either go willingly, or be deported from greece altogether, their choice.
Set up in an industrial part of central greece, in an abandoned car factory about twenty-five miles north of athens, oinofyta camp was one of the early disaster relief camps. at the height of its occupancy, about 750 families were housed here. on this day, only 250 families remain, and these are the families who’ve just received the news that they too would have to leave soon.
The camp is staffed by youth from england, the united states and other parts of the world, who work as volunteers for the non-profit organization do your part, of the church of the latter day saints, whose founder lisa campbell has until recently been coordinating the relief effort in collaboration with a patchwork of other small non-profit organizations such as i am you and armando aid, who collaborate to piecemeal supports in various aspects of the camp’s daily operations, ranging from logistics coordination, to running computer labs, to teaching migrant children in four age-appropriate classrooms.
We’ve come here as part of the 9th team of volunteers who have been offering acupuncture treatments to refugees at this afghan camp and at the nearby syrian camp at ritsona through acupuncturists without borders. while my colleagues are setting up the acupuncture clinic in an area where 4 smoke detectors are alternatively bleeping their need for a new battery, i set out to recruit people who may benefit from an ear treatment.
People in the corridors, faced with uncertainty, are eager to connect: hello. “who are you?”, “where do you come from?”, “what are you doing here?”. all but “where are you going?”, the single greatest unknown question in these parts.
Four women stand in a cluster stunned like pillars in the midst of the children’s turbulence around them. a young woman with a baby daughter in a stroller who’s just been told she’s been granted an apartment in athens with her husband, braves the envy of the other women. “why was she chosen,” they ask. it isn’t fair. she’s only been here eleven months. they’ve lived in limbo in this camp for nearly two years, and they’re now told they have to start all over again, in yet another camp. this is no way to live, to be treated like herding animals.
Once she is alone, the young woman tells me their apartment would be subsidized for 6 months and then they would have to find a way to pay the rent on their own. each refugee is given a subsidy of 50 euros a month on a debit card for all of their expenditures. given the dismal state of the greek economy, the lack of job opportunities, not speaking greek, having few marketable skills as well as having a baby, she worries how she and her husband would make it. she fears living on the streets again as she did while she was pregnant and ending up back in another camp to start the process all over again. a restless cycle of migration that once began from country to country has now shifted to moving from camp to camp within greece, as the magnitude of the need dwarfs the country’s ability to absorb the waves of migrants coming here.
The women are not interested in getting a treatment on this day, at this time of day. they are worried about how to digest the news of their imminent departure. they are worried about missing their turn in cooking their families’ dinner tonight as each family has a set shift of a half an hour to use the communal kitchen. only aziza is interested in receiving a treatment because it’s helped her in the past and she is struggling with pain in her stiff wrist, a swollen knee joint and shoulder tension. the men, however, are more willing to try a treatment that may help them feel calmer, sleep better.
The next day:
A young hazara teenager who lost two brothers to the taliban, was sent away to europe with his younger brother because his family who pooled together thousands of dollars for their journey out, feared for their lives back home in afghanistan. He has been living at oynifita for a year and a half now and today, he was due to take an exam for his greek language class in Athens but he had to miss it, he says with regret. He stayed behind at oynifyta as if on standby to glean any news as to his future.
“Here, the only way you get any help is if you are crazy. And this life itself is enough to make you crazy. There is no incentive to get ahead,” he said, “You are just stuck here, waiting in limbo for the rest of your life.”
Normally, he attends classes in Athens on weekday mornings from 9 to 1 pm in the hopes of being able to integrate Greek society and to find outside work. He then returns to the camp to work in the afternoon as a tailor in the sewing collaborative here. But that doesn’t pay much either and the roundtrip cost of getting to Athens from the camp is 5 Euro. In the span of a few days, the life he’s known thus far is coming to an abrupt end and, once again, he doesn’t know the way ahead.
Marina at Oinofyta
Eight-year old Marina flips through the thin blue notebooks she’s filled over the past two years, through the additions and the subtractions, the drawings and the English words she’s acquired, as the contents of what she’s learnt at school at Oinofyta camp come spilling out.
At the top of the pile is a parting gift her teacher has just given her, a handmade card of a heart a-glitter. The young English woman, a volunteer teacher who is studying migrant education for her college thesis back home, resumes sorting through the pictures, dismantling the colored garlands from the walls and packing up the remains of the classroom on this day, the last day the camp remains open.
Marina shuffles off towards the sheet-rocked cubicle that serves as her family’s home, housed inside an abandoned car factory in an industrial zone that has fallen prey to Greece’s economic downturn, to put away her treasures.
“You were here from the very beginning,” she tells me when she returns even though it is my first time here, and I realize she is referring to my teammates from Acupuncturists Without Borders who perform “Tebé Sozani”, the ear acupuncture that brings relief to grownups at this camp.
“This is the blue classroom,” she points, it used to be her classroom when she was younger. She is giving me a tour of her world as it is coming to a close on this day. There are four classrooms in all, she gestures, including a geodesic dome that is for the bigger kids.
She dodges into one of the classrooms and drags out a cardboard box with a steeple roof taped onto it, representing a home. She plunks it down on the ground and we crouch next to it. She’s talking about the jostling of the crowds, the little friend she’d made before getting on the boat. The one who was 6 years old, like her, and a “Bé Gona” (an innocent), so sweet that everybody loved her. She’s racing now, talking about when the big truck backed into her friend, and how her mother cried and cried and cried and cried and cried and cried, even though she is now in heaven.
Abruptly, she walks away leaving the cardboard house behind, returns a few minutes later. A boy of about seven joins us and wonders aloud if he could get the teachers to give him some marbles now that they are closing the school. Hopeful, he wanders off in the direction of the classrooms.
“Do you know how to play marbles?”, she asks. She picks up a pebble and hits another with it. We throw some around while she continues: The worst camp was called Moriah. It was crowded and there was a lot of fighting there. A fire happened there once while she slept. She slept right through it, she says with widening eyes. But her parents were NOT asleep, and they protected her. She continues, her face a gathering of clouds. A family of five was not so lucky. They perished in the fire before it was extinguished. Even the two-month old baby died.
She studies my face, searches for my heart through my eyes. Meets it, nods and wanders off again. This time she brings along a friend with a pink shirt who is a half a head shorter than Marina and smiles a delicate shyness. “She was with me when we lived at Moriah camp,” Marina adds. Her friend winces at the name. “Though she was younger then. She is 6 and I am 8 years old now.” They exchange a fleeting look. The depth of their bond is palpable. Slowly, they walk back to the factory with their arms around each other’s necks.
They re-emerge hobbling over the gravel each with a rollerblade on one foot, their regular shoe on the other, in a waddling lilting dance as they approach. At Oinofyta, Marina continues, a twelve-year old girl was taken from her father one day by bus to study somewhere else and they never lived together or saw each other again.
She pulls out a laminated blue mask with a wooden spatula for a handle. She places it over her eyes and peers at me from behind it. “Here. This is for you,” she says handing me the mask. “It’s something to remember me by.”