Moria No Good

“Moria no good!” Het is een standaard uitroep die ik elke dag wel een keer te horen krijg wanneer ik met mijn team het kamp of de naastgelegen Olive Grove in ga. Ik ben de supervisor van het Health Promotion team van Artsen zonder Grenzen, dat mensen in het kamp adviseert wat te doen om de meest voorkomende gezondheidsproblemen in het overvolle kamp op Lesbos te voorkomen of beperken. Ik ben het met de mensen hier eens: Moria is inderdaad No Good. 

Ik schud zachtjes een opgehangen slaapzak die als deur dienstdoet, en word door een vriendelijke stem gemaand hem open te ritsen. Het hutje is te klein voor mij om rechtop in te staan, maar de bejaarde vrouw die er in leeft, zegt me op de grond te gaan zitten. Wanneer ze dichterbij schuift zie ik dat ze beide onderbenen mist. Of ik misschien weet waar ze een rolstoel kan vinden, vraagt ze. Of desnoods krukken. Een direct antwoord heb ik niet, want rolstoelen zijn niet zomaar voorhanden hier in het kamp. 

Uiteindelijk komt het hoge woord eruit: of ik dan misschien kan helpen een andere plek te vinden om te wonen, in verband met het toilet. Ze is al heel dankbaar, want haar man en kinderen moeten een steile heuvel af voor een toilet en washok dat ze delen met ongeveer 50 anderen, terwijl zij zelf naar het toilet mag in de container waar hun hutje tegenaan leunt. Het toilet daar is echter een hurktoilet, en erg hygiënisch is dat niet in haar situatie. Wederom moet ik haar tot mijn spijt vertellen dat ik daar eigenlijk niets aan kan doen. 

In Moria staan de tentjes en zelf getimmerde hutjes drie rijen dik aan beide zijden van de containers, die oorspronkelijk als tijdelijk verblijf voor mensen in transit bedoeld waren, maar waar nu mensen soms meer dan een jaar hun asielprocedure afwachten. Aan alles is een tekort hier in het kamp, niet alleen aan ruimte: ook aan voedsel, drinkwater, sanitaire voorzieningen en waardige huisvesting die warmte en bescherming biedt.
 
De wachttijd voor de screening die plaats hoort te vinden binnen een paar dagen na aankomst, om te zien of iemand medische of praktische hulp nodig heeft, is inmiddels opgelopen tot zes maanden.Zelfs na zes maanden wordt het dan vaak nog verzet wegens een gebrek aan personeel. Tot die tijd moeten mensen maar zien te overleven in het kamp, net als deze vrouw, kruipend over de grond.

Soms zijn het onverwachte dingen die me aangrijpen. Een Irakees meisje van drie jaar dat tijdens de overtocht in de rubberboot haar schoenen kwijt was geraakt, heeft een nieuw paar weten te bemachtigen via een organisatie die gedoneerde kleding uitdeelt. Helaas zijn het twee rechterschoenen. Een nieuw paar kan ze pas over 6 maanden komen halen.
 
Een andere keer, op weg het kamp uit, werp ik een blik richting het hek. Daar, tussen twee containers in, op een deken op een stapel pallets onder een slaphangend zeiltje, ligt een oude vrouw te slapen. Haar plastic mapje met papieren in haar hand geklemd: dit is nu haar ‘thuis.’ Een jonge man uit Afghanistan die vloeiend Engels en Duits spreekt, vraagt me of wij misschien vrijwilligers nodig hebben voor wat voor klus dan ook: de volgende stap in zijn asielprocedure is nog niet in zicht en hij wordt gek van het niks doen, al maandenlang.

Op grotere schaal zijn de problemen soms niet te bevatten: in de zomer kwamen er zoveel meer mensen aan op Lesbos dan er naar het vasteland vertrokken, dat er op een bepaald moment meer dan drie keer het bedoelde aantal mensen in het kamp verbleven. Nu een klein deel daarvan naar kampen elders in Griekenland verplaatst is, dient het volgende probleem zich aan: de herfst.

Dat betekent koude nachten en vooral flink veel regen, wat het hele kamp onder water zet. De meeste mensen hebben hun tentjes op pallets geplaatst waar het water onderdoor kan stromen, wat geen overbodige luxe is gezien het feit dat ze van steen tot steen tot aan de tentopening moeten springen om geen natte voeten te krijgen. In de Olive Grove is de situatie nog erbarmelijker: daar staan de mannen uit alle macht geulen om hun hutten te graven om de modderstromen buiten hun tent te houden.
 
Kinderen lopen buiten in de kou zonder jas en schoenen, want alles wat ze hebben is doorweekt en wil in dit weer ook niet drogen. Het is slechts een kwestie van een paar dagen tot we ze bij ons in de kliniek zien, hoestend en snotterend. Het ergste is nog dat we ze behandelen en dan weer terug moeten sturen naar hun natte, koude tent. En dan moet de winter nog komen…
 
Welkom op Lesbos. Echt waar, Moria no good.


(blog oorspronkelijk gepubliceerd op de website van Artsen zonder Grenzen)

I am sorry

Today it is exactly one year and one day since I moved to Lesvos. I'm going to celebrate by spending the night sitting next to the sea, boat spotting to assist rubber boats if they arrive from Turkey.

Because after a year and a day, nothing has changed: people who have survived prison, torture, being beaten, shot at, bombed, and starved still get on dinghy boats in the middle of the night to reach a place of safety and protection - yet they do not find one.
Because after a year and a day, the island is still filled with people desperate, humiliated and literally driven to madness by our systems designed to control and deter them.
Because after a year and a day, Europe still holds on to its image of civilization and being a champion of human rights, while letting people rot away, waiting more than two years for the next step or even simply a decision to their asylum request.

And in a year and a day, I still don't know what to tell people other than I AM SORRY. I am sorry we aren't better than this. I am sorry your lives are deemed disposable, valueless. I am sorry that despite all the efforts of some of us, we still seem incapacitated in the face of the forces that insist on grinding you down and spewing you out. I am sorry you feel more unsafe here than in an actual war zone, and I am sorry because I know you are right. I will keep trying, but after a year and a day I have nothing to say but I am sorry, I am sorry, I am sorry.

The Mediterranean is burning

I saw a movie – a documentary, actually.
It was called Fire at Sea.

(Which is just the name of a song.)

A little boy on the island of Lampedusa was feeling anxious.
He had a lazy eye and he threw up when the sea underneath his father’s fishing boat got too rough.
Less than 10 years old, but he didn’t have the manly qualities he felt he should have.
Though his slingshot never missed, he needed to stand on the pontoon during rough weather to train his legs.
And learn how to row.
“Everyone on Lampedusa knows how to fish.”

Meanwhile, we heard the dj playing melancholic love songs from mothers and wives for sons and husbands at sea.
Or stuck on land, when the storm whipped up the waves so high that no one would go into the water.
They were in the kitchen preparing the food.

In between were the calls for help from the ships arriving from Libya.
As if they were normal features of daily life.
They are. They have become a regular part of life.
Eighty, one hundred and fifty, two hundred and forty people on a ship.
Divided in layers according to price, with no air at the bottom and only some on in the middle.
The ship just floats, no petrol no steering wheel no direction no possibility.
Out at sea.

I saw the coast guard get to a ship in time.
Wobbly legs going from the wooden vessel into the rubber speedboat onto the big ship.
Emergency blankets.
Registration.
Picture taking.
Numbering.
Organizing.
“There’s one with chicken pox, he’s coming on board last!”
A friendly pat on the back, almost unnoticed.

I can tell the Eritreans from the West Africans from the Syrians and I wonder why I am looking at them this way.

I saw the coast guard get to a ship too late.
Dehydrated bodies are pulled out first, handed over by arms and legs still strong enough.
They fall into the rubber boat as if life has left them already.
Only breath is left of them.
Maybe a heartbeat.
I can’t tell.
The others climb out by themselves until the boat is empty.
It’s just a metal hull now, surrounded by waves, until the camera moves inside.

Arms.
Legs.
Hips.
Necks.
Shoulders.
Wrists.
Ankles.

We don’t see whole people, only parts.
No faces.
Stacked together in death like they were in the dream that got them in this ship.
They died like this.

Maybe we should see their faces to know who we did this to.

Maybe it is a last act of dignity to not expose them in their last suffering.


Once on the ship the men sit still and the women cry openly.

Once on the island, the men play football and the women watch.
The machine continues -
Numbering.
Registering.
Photographing.
Waiting.

The little boy with the slingshot has a patch on his eye and trouble breathing.
The doctor listens to his lungs and heart and says he will be fine.
I’m not sure the little boy believes him.

There is a Fire at Sea.
The Mediterranean is burning.
 

Running Orders

[for Gaza, once again]

They call us now.
Before they drop the bombs.
The phone rings
and someone who knows my first name
calls and says in perfect Arabic
“This is David.”
And in my stupor of sonic booms and glass shattering symphonies
still smashing around in my head
I think "Do I know any Davids in Gaza?"
They call us now to say
Run.
You have 58 seconds from the end of this message.
Your house is next.
They think of it as some kind of
war time courtesy.
It doesn’t matter that
there is nowhere to run to.
It means nothing that the borders are closed
and your papers are worthless
and mark you only for a life sentence
in this prison by the sea
and the alleyways are narrow
and there are more human lives
packed one against the other
more than any other place on earth
Just run.
We aren’t trying to kill you.
It doesn’t matter that
you can’t call us back to tell us
the people we claim to want aren’t in your house
that there’s no one here
except you and your children
who were cheering for Argentina
sharing the last loaf of bread for this week
counting candles left in case the power goes out.
It doesn’t matter that you have children.
You live in the wrong place
and now is your chance to run
to nowhere.
It doesn’t matter
that 58 seconds isn’t long enough
to find your wedding album
or your son’s favorite blanket
or your daughter’s almost completed college application
or your shoes
or to gather everyone in the house.
It doesn’t matter what you had planned.
It doesn’t matter who you are
Prove you’re human.
Prove you stand on two legs.
Run.

by Lena K Tuffaha

To protest or not to protest

It struck me when I got here: how tired people are. Tired of ‘the situation’, tired of protesting, of deciding who to protest against or what for, of not being sure if all that protesting would actually lead anywhere or change anything. Weary, they seemed, with their vision of a better Egypt somewhere hidden among the exhaustion of trying to get to it and no longer knowing where to find the motivation and the strength to overcome differences and once (or twice, or so many times) charge ahead and fight for what they’ve been fighting for since January 2011 – almost 3 year now.

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On a wall between AUC Downtown and Garden City.

Last Sunday evening, as I left my Arabic class in Downtown, I realized that the streets were rather empty.  While I slowly walked towards Tahrir Square to cross the bridge behind it on my way home, I noticed a strange smell, something in the air that stung my eyes and nose. Tear gas. Most shops along the road were either closed or closing, with a few people still sitting on chairs in front of their doors.

From a street to my right I heard people chanting, but as the road towards Tahrir was more or less empty, I kept going to see if it was still possible to cross the square or if the army had blocked it off completely. I ended up behind the tanks with a few fire engines, ambulances and about seven people. By now I could see the protestors on the other side of the tanks and the police trucks in the next street off the square. I asked one of the seven people who was who. They are Muslim Brotherhood, he said, and we are with Sisi.

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Protesting behind the book stalls, Downtown Cairo.

The police trucks advanced on the protestors, aided by a water-spraying fire engine. Then more tear gas. The protestors retreated to the next side streets, chanting slogans and holding up four fingers. A guy who was standing next to me behind the army vehicles rolled some perfume on my hand to counter the burn of the tear gas. We talked and he invited me to come see the other side – so we turned into yet another street and found our way towards the demonstration a bit further into Downtown. These are not just Muslim Brotherhood, he told me, a lot of them are university students. They are angry because a few days ago the army killed a student on a campus. The protestors had assembled on a crossroad of two of the wider avenues, and were standing there, chanting slogans led by two teenage boys on top of their friends’ shoulders. The little stalls selling corn and fries were having a good evening, serving those in the demonstration as well as the people who were shopping in the streets around it.

At some point, there was talk of moving. The mass of people turned towards what my newly-made friend said was the courthouse, but stopped as the police trucks and army tanks had blocked the road next to it. People slowly moved forward, in small groups, while the street vendors started packing up their wares. The police fired a few tear gas canisters, moving the protestors back to the crossroads. Some people from the demonstration tried to tear of some tree branches to make a fire, but others came to extinguish it. A young guy who picked up a stone was told to put it back down. From a small alley a woman came running, screaming Get lost! Go away! We don’t want you here, you are not Egypt! WE are Egypt! You aren’t! Angry people tried to argue with her, but then the police started firing tear gas again and everybody just ran, ran, ran in all directions. We hid in a little alley where a pissed-off waiter was stacking chairs as his business for the evening had come to an end.

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Protesting on the intersection of two avenues.
 

Just as I came out of the alley again, the police truck passed, a few young boys in front of it running towards the protestors with stones and empty bottles. Instead of ducking and running back into the alley, the few people around me told me to stand still – to quietly wait until the trucks had passed. They yelled encouraging remarks at the police trucks, thanking them for dispersing the demonstrations.

By that time, the protestors had run off in so many directions, it was hard to know if there was anything left of the demonstration. Life returned on the avenues, the shops reopened and the vendors uncovered their stalls again. My new-found friend asked me if I had enjoyed the action. I demonstrate every Friday, he said. I asked if he thought the government was listening. He said it’s not for the government, but because we need to send a message to the Egyptian people that we don’t think it’s right, what is happening now.

I admire their stamina. I do not yet have a deep enough knowledge of Egyptian politics to agree with one side or another, but I believe that with a new (draft) constitution that allows for citizens to be tried in military courts and that severely restricts the right to protest, it is important to keep standing up against the system  – because it oppresses you, or because it oppresses those around you, because once those are down, who knows who will be next. Beautifully said by Omar Robert Hamilton: … tyranny is upon us again. We do not need to agree on the details or what exactly comes next. We just need to say no.

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Tanks and soldiers blocking off Tahrir Square, Downtown Cairo.

To protest or not to protest, that is not the question.