Rev. Bob Janis

Day 2 in Samos:

It was a fairly quiet night last night, which is not to say I got a whole lot of sleep. A few of us worked the night shift at the port, to be there for any needs in the night, and in case there were arrivals under cover of darkness (a preferred time for the smugglers’ boats as less chance of being turned back on the water by military). As it happened there were no arrivals and one departure: a ferry left at four a.m. and a few refugees family waved happy good-byes to us and trudged on board in the middle of the night. Little kids waited on the tarmac bleary-eyed, ready as they could be for the next leg of what for them had become the pattern of their life: from change to uncertainty and then back to change.

I was called into service once or twice. Someone had need of a tent, so I tried to find a donated tent that wasn’t broken (the first two I tried were) and then assemble it. I am not much of a Boy Scout in the best of conditions, but it turns out, at three a.m., I’m completely useless. Two of us volunteers, along with the poor exhausted chap whose tent it was to be, were able to put up a simple one-man tent in about – well, longer than I care to admit. I organized a few donations to be ready for the morning, and our group went back to the hotel around five. I was completely exhausted, but I left a bit reluctantly. I felt responsible for the people there, even though I wasn’t capable of doing all that much. But there is a Greek doctor who is basically on call 24-7, the coast guard alert him in there’s a landing and multiple people spring into action to put dry socks and clothes on the tired, wet, people.

I had spent the morning away from the port, in a warehouse sorting through donations. After not knowing what I was doing at all the first day. I was happy to have work to do with clear objectives – here is a wall of cardboard boxes filled with items, and here is how you sort them. I stationed myself at “shoe mountain”, a giant pile of shoes, and got down to work, labelling each useful pair of shoes with its size, and putting them in bags labelled for children, women, and men. Lovers of fashion, you may want to avert your eyes at this point: any pair of high heels was immediately thrown out. Fashionable though Europe is, high heels are not ideal for hiking through it.

I was also glad to be doing some of the grunt work, because some of the volunteers looked a bit shattered with exhaustion this morning. While most of our Lifeline Help group are only here for under a week, there are some hard-core volunteers who have upended their life and are here for a month to six weeks. After about a week they tend to have a bit of a far-away look in their eyes. The sheer scale of what’s happening here is overwhelming: refugees come and go within a few days, but there are always more, sometimes dozens, sometimes thousands. After I sorted through the pile of shoes another appeared in its place. Two sets of refugees, one of twenty and one of a hundred, arrived as the day went on and volunteers raced into action, grabbing bags of shoes, socks, clothes and toiletries.

They sent me out to do a few simple errands in town – which as anyone who knows me would attest, is a huge mistake – but after a few minutes of staggering lost around the gorgeous streets of Pythagoras’ home, I was able to get rubbish bags, tape, and coffee. After a five-hour shift, for a change of pace, several of us went to another warehouse, a larger one for our shipping container that’s due to arrive. We cleaned out a large space which had been full of dust and broken tile. It’s hard to find space to fit all the donations, but they get moved out fast. Hopefully, the day will come when we have more donations then we need, when there are no more refugees and the last donations will have just been a waste of time. I would be happy to be organising donations in vain. But that’s not happening anytime soon.

Back to the port and chatting with some folks I had met last night. Waiting for where we’re needed next. With multiple volunteers, figuring out who does what when is a mammoth task its own right. Everybody’s just figuring it out as they go along. If you’ve been here for twenty-four hours, somebody considers you an expert in something. And you have to at least fake expertise, because if you don’t take initiative otherwise it doesn’t get done.

The port was in a fairly upbeat mood last evening. I’ve heard the detention centre is a more desperate place – people can be in camps there for a week or longer, in uncertain status – but most of the people at the port are just there for a day or two. The tents are on wood pallets which is a bit more comfortable than the concrete floor to sleep on, but only just. Aid groups and the local Greeks take turns to prepare meals. There’s not a whole lot of food; we ran out of soup and bread last night just as everyone got fed. The security company that secures the port came with a bag of restaurant food that they paid for themselves, to give out to people. A refugee who’s been there a little longer than most – and who spends his days helping all the others there while waiting for his papers to come through – offered me a cup of the mint tea they make every night at port. It was delicious.

Eventually a group of us volunteers went into town for some dinner. It was the last night there for a couple of them, and we had a great meal. The next table over were a refugee family, evidently one of the families with enough money to go out to eat. A few of our table had gotten to know them previously, and our kids and theirs played together as we ate. A couple of daughters adopted a little baby at our table as their own, and were showing him around. As we were leaving, everyone from both tables wanted to take pictures of our collective group. We enlisted the waitress, who then also wanted to be in the group – she had gotten to know us all. It was just a wonderful boisterous evening, everyone tired but jubilant to be together. It got me a little wistful, asking myself why the world couldn’t be more like that: people eager to gather together in one photo, and play with each other’s kids, and enjoy life. Well, a little bit of it was, at least. Two tables, for that evening, at least.

I think we’re off to meet our shipping container today and empty it out – very exciting after waiting for it to arrive! Love to you all, and love to all those hoping to get somewhere that might be home. ΚΑΛΗΝΥΧΤΑ

Samos Day 1

Today I arrived on the island of Samos and joined the Lifeline Help volunteers already here helping refugees from Syria and elsewhere. I came, with my typical perfect timing, at late afternoon when the heavy lifting had just finished. It’s all about moral support, right? smil First impressions:

The Greek people are amazing. Samos is a small island or about 30,000 people. There has at times been thousands of refugees here, who come and go within a few days. But far from complaining that they’re overrun with people, so many people on the island have pitched in to help. We’re staying in a lovely hotel that the owners have made available to the refugees, free of charge. A number of local people, including a doctor and many professionals, have dropped everything they’re doing and basically made it their full-time job (unpaid) to make life a little easier for the dispossessed. All this while having their own share of economic problems. It’s humbling to witness their outreach.

One of the most underappreciated parts of volunteering is you get to hang out with the coolest people. The volunteers themselves are Muslim, Christian, Unitarian and secular, women and men (and a family with a child), some who speak Arabic, some who have medical degrees, who come from all over. They put in 16-hour-days and then muster up a little more energy to hang out at the cafe.

Last and most, the refugees themselves. There are fewer here than there were just a few weeks ago. People suggest different reasons for this: choppy walkers make the already-dangerous journey even more hazardous; a recent crackdown on smugglers; or the fact that the legal obstacles facing refugees have recently gotten even harder. Whatever the factors for it, the port and the camp here are not as terribly overwhelmed with people as they were.

The people who are here have had quite a journey. Many have escaped Syria at great peril, crossed Turkey, and then paid smugglers thousand of euros for a boat. For all that money, the smugglers don’t even pilot the boat: one passenger gets free passage to be the driver, who then tries to figure out, amateurishly and for the first time, how to work the engine of what is basically an inflatable dinghy. It’s incredibly dangerous. Many of the refugees have been in dinghies that have capsized. You can see Turkey from here but making the crossing is no sure thing. It’s the most recent of many traumas for these folks, and what they are facing ahead might be just as bad.

Today the camp at the port was almost what you might call relaxed. Families played hopscotch; tea was made; people checked their phones or talked to family. Because of the cost involved many of the folks here are middle-class – the refugees with no money don’t get this far and are in Lebanon or Turkey at best. There were many families with young kids. Some of the refugees went back and forth to town for a coffee or a meal (the refugees have actually been quite a good thing for the local economy). A lot of these folks are highly educated: one conversation I had with a refugee and a volunteer was in French, Arabic, and English with a smattering of German and Greek (most of which I don’t speak). With all the people with fascinating stories and uncertain plights, and with the volunteers mingling around too, it felt a little like a cross between “Casablanca” and those teen bonding events in high school, like theatre or sports or church camp, where you feel like you know everyone well within a few hours and get all emotional about it. Only these are grownups, not teens, and instead of going forth into the unceratinties of adulthood, these adults and families are going forth into total uncertainty about where life will physically take them.

And yet there was a sense that these lovely people had been through a lot, and had much more to go. Some were outgoing and gregarious, and others were suspicious – given what they had been through already, with good reason. I waved at a child who shrunk into his mother’s leg with fear. They were sleeping in tents on the concrete port- UN temporary shelters were tantalizingly right there, but they are awaiting materials and have not been finished yet. We passed out baby carriers to the Mums who had a lot of walking ahead of them. One of the volunteers told me how hard it is to see the refugees come here with a feeling of “we made it” on their first step in Europe, knowing that it only gets harder along the way, with cold temperatures and sometimes hostile populations.

For now though, they get on a ferry – a proper car ferry, no ten foot long rubby dinghy here – which takes them to Athens. We saw several hundred on board and waved them off. As I say, it wasn’t particularly heavy lifting for me today, physically or emotionally, but when one African fellow said “God bless you” to each volunteer, one by one, I did lose it a bit. It’s painful to think how long and tiresome their journey will be, and how few good choices they have.

Also, there’s a seal. It finds a place to rest, and stays there long enough for somebody to put cones around it and a sign saying it’s an endangered seal. Nobody bothers her, except to gather round her and shower her with love. Apparently she loves people right back and tends to go wherever people gather. And there’s like a million cats roaming about. And the Greeks make good pizza. And it’s in the 60s here. Did I mention I like Greece?

Well, have to be up in about 7 hours, and do some heavy lifting in the warehouse, so I bid you all good night. Love to you all, and love to all those hoping to get somewhere that might be home. ΚΑΛΗΝΥΧΤΑ

Day 5 in Samos

Travelling home today. Since I’m assuming you don’t want to hear about the familiar drama of almost missing a connection, or the agony of passengers who have the unfortunate luck to sit next to a Unitarian minister who’s been wearing the same clothes for a week, I’ll use this space for a few concluding reflections. As with my post for day one, I’d like to return to the Greeks, the volunteers, and of course the refugees.

The people of Samos have done something that sounds ordinary, only it’s not: they have treated the refugees like human beings. Past the terror of the rubber dinghies, and before the long and weary trudge through Europe, the normalcy that Samos offers to the refugees is a gift and a blessing. The refugees are dehumanized in so many different ways on their long journey, that it’s difficult to keep track. But the everyday people of Samos are not lining up to protest the existence of the refugees, or the impact on their lives. On the contrary, quite a few of them are actively helping their plight, and most of the rest are civil and respectful. I’m only one perspective, of course, and I’m sure the islanders are not completely immune to bigotry or heartlessness. But on the whole, they have welcomed these refugees from many lands as visitors (and as tourists: the more well-to-do refugees contribute significant income to the economy throughout their off season). One Greek volunteer told me how the awful economic times they are going through have opened their hearts, rather than closed them: it made them aware of how hard life can get, they said. Epicurus, Samos’ philosopher, wrote, “Of all the things which wisdom provides to make us entirely happy, much the greatest is the possession of friendship.” The Greek people may not be entirely happy, struggling with mass unemployment and financial woes. But when it comes to happiness and wisdom, and the human relationships that constitute the good life, they seem enviably wealthy.

Which brings me to the volunteers. After going to visit some of the more troubled people on earth, it would be understandable, I suppose, if I were coming back today entirely pessimistic about the human condition. But I find it hard to muster up the necessary cynicism for such an outlook. Our perspective is biased by the people around us, it’s true, and my week has been filled by the kind of people who drop everything to go and help people they’ve never meet. How could I not feel that the humanity I know and love, the humanity of decency and compassion and friendship, is every bit as real as I always suspected? This is not to say that evil doesn’t exist in the world – we all know what people are capable of. But I have been reminded again and again of how astoundingly generous and kind human beings can be to each other. These stories don’t always make the news, so I wanted to post at least the gist of them here.

And the refugees themselves are simply amazing. Many of them were helping too – one guy in particular stood out for me, turning up everywhere to smooth over crises and help out the other refugees, so much so that I began to wonder if he really was waiting for his papers, or he just stayed around camp as a kind of genial living saint (not literally a living saint, as that’s perhaps not an appropriate compliment for a Muslim, but you get the general idea). While some of these travellers have the means to buy provisions or even stay in a hotel, some have nothing, and pretty much all of them have had a litany of horrors in their life that we in comfortable circumstances could barely imagine. As I said, they were tired and hungry and had no clue where they would be in a week. To see so much graciousness and kindness from people going through that is humbling and inspiring.

Another thing I want to point out about the refugees, as obvious as it may sound, was how human they were. If you were here the personality of one would remind you of your favourite cousin, another’s quirks would make you think of a coworker, while a child in a makeshift conga line was just like – well, every other child in a makeshift conga line. Sometimes with all the news photographs of the huddled masses, we can forget that these are ordinary people, with introverts and extroverts, creative types and more straightforward thinkers, and every other human variety under the sun.

Immigration and human migration is an important issue – it probably will be one of the more important issues of the next 100 years. And it’s famously complicated, involving the global economy, national security, war and peace, population growth, the limits of moral responsibility to each other, and a host of other issues. My purpose in these posts is not to convince us into a single point of view – given the complexity of the issue, it’s understandable that there is a wide range of opinions on how to best tackle it. Rather, my purpose is to insist to us, if I may, that the refugees be thought of as real people. They are every bit as real as our own brothers and sisters, as real as our parents and children. This fact is obvious. But it needs to keep being made. There is enormous incentive to dehumanize the refugees in our own heads. After all, once we consider them as real as our own families, our responsibility seems to slowly ratchet up a little bit, and we discover we are deeper in this “situation” than we are comfortable being in. I speak as much of myself here than anybody else, and I’m not casting blame. I’m saying we must always fight against the inclination to distance ourselves from the lives of refugees by thinking of refugees as a number, or a problem, or a monolithic group, a “them” in contrast to an “us”. I come back with a buoyed awareness, a lived awareness, that the refugees are us, vastly different in their situation but as human beings very similar. I hope you might share that with me.

Knowing my propensity to babble on, I’ll probably post even more reflections in the weeks and months to come. For now, I want to close with a note of thanks. While the vast majority of people who travelled to Samos did so entirely as volunteers, I did not. The congregations I serve paid my salary while I was out here, serving people 1,500 miles away. Not only that, the Merseyside Unitarian Ministerial Partnership paid for my airfare – and on top of that, several congregations have made contributions to Lifeline Help. I’m here because of them. I’m extremely proud of them, and I did my best to serve them well, on the other side of Europe. An enormous thank you to the people I serve. And I also want to thank all of you who offered “likes” and shares and beautiful, thoughtful comments and notes. I haven’t gotten around to answering them all, and probably won’t for a little while. As shallow as it may be to be motivated by Facebook likes, I’m not ashamed to admit that the idea I was there with a whole host of other people, in spirit, gave me strength for my short but intense time in Samos.

Friends, if you’ve read this far and want to help, it would mean a lot to me if you would take a moment right this second (I say this because if you’re anything like me, if it goes on the to do list it’ll never get done) http://www.lifelinehelp.org/donation/ and give $25 (or any amount). The volunteers paid their own way to get there – many after putting together massive donations for the shipping containers – so the money goes all to helping refugees, or to paying the salary of its massively underpaid director Yashar, who regularly travels to Lebanon, Turkey and even Syria to make a difference in the lives of refugees. He’s an amazing human being. Or if you prefer to support another organisation instead, that’s fine too. But having been with the refugees in Samos, it’s clear to me that financial support makes an enormous difference. It’s the difference between no resources to help and some resources to help, and that can be a critical, even lifesaving distinction.

Going to get some rest now in Munich Airport, or as I know it, “heavenly nap city”. Love to you all, and love to all those hoping to get somewhere that might be home. ΚΑΛΗΝΥΧΤΑ