To Arki and back - again!

On Saturday afternoon, June 11^th, we went over to Pikpa to help out. Apparently 300 Pakistani refugees have just been brought to the hotspot and 30 refugees had been brought in by the rescue boat from Agathonisi. During the afternoon a new family was brought over from the hotspot and assigned places in the dormitories, without any reference to the volunteers who are supposed to be managing Pikpa and who have to find sheets and so on. We went home for a quick dinner and came back to help give the post-fast meal out to the refugees. They each had a bag prepared by the volunteers, with help from some of the children, containing flatbread, dates and half a banana to break the fast. The dinner was delivered as a lentil soup and salad for starters, but in very weak plastic containers, one on top of the other in a plastic bag. By the time the food arrived, the soup containers had broken, so that the salad was swimming in a bag of soup and broken plastic, so there was a lot of cleaning up to do before we could distribute it. The main course was a foil container of rice - apparently yesterday the meal had been the same but the food had been inedible –  the rice had a strange smell and taste – so most of it ended up in the bin. Fortunately today Keith had agreed with Matina to allow three of the Syrian women to prepare big bowls of tablouleh, which they spent the afternoon preparing, which was delicious. The plan is to try to pass responsibility for the evening meal to the refugees, but this depends on getting everybody’s agreement to this (including Mercy Corps, who provide the funding for the meal and organize its preparation and delivery), so the tabbouleh is a dry run. After helping to wash up, we went back to the boat.

At the moment Pikpa is full, but there are reportedly only about 700 people in the hot spot, which has a nominal capacity of 1000, whereas most of the other camps in Greece are over-full. Marietta told us that people in the hotspot are ‘selling their bodies’ for 10 euros. Pikpa is also under constant pressure. The mayor of Leros has been an inveterate opponent of Pikpa and he can mobilise some support from the right wing inhabitants (and even bring in the neo-nazis). There is a constant stream of complaints – the latest being about noise in the afternoons (at siesta time), and late at night, so now the doors are closed for the afternoon until 5 pm and there is a curfew, with everyone to be in (nominally) by 9pm. It would be very easy for the opposition to close Pikpa down – they just have to find a breach of fire regulations or some health and safety issue and they can ship everyone to the hotspot.

On Sunday, June 12^th, we went in the evening to Anna’s end of year concert and award presentation for the Greek children in her language school. The event took place in the restored cinema 

and was great fun (and not too long). The different age groups sang a couple of songs and then those who had achieved the various levels came up individually to get their certificates.

After the concert we went back along the quay to see the travelling theatre company on the Estonian schooner, Hoppet, who had invited the refugee children from Pikpa onto their boat 

Ahmad

Lin  and Nagm

Reger and Ahmad

and then organized games and music and dancing for them.

Reger filming

Some of the kids filmed the dancing.

Aweda filming

Samir

Meanwhile Anas and his dad Mohammed were fishing along the quay. They had caught one little fish.

On Monday June 13^th we left Lakki early to take advantage of a rare southerly wind and sail up to Arki for a couple of days as there is no school until Friday. Strong wind was forecast for Monday night and Tuesday and Arki is one of the few places sheltered from a south wind. We got to Arki about 10.15 to find that there was room on the inside of the quay, where it is quite a squeeze to get in because there is a shallow mud bank only about 30 metres offshore. As we motored slowly into position an irate Englishman yelled at Simon, calling him a prat, and claimed that Simon had touched his anchor chain with his keel – if he did, it was insignificant, no damage was done and we managed to drop the anchor on the edge of the mud bank and get securely onto the quay. The Englishman was expecting a friend, whom he advised to come between his boat and ours, but before the friend came Richard arrived with his grandchildren, Daisy and Elliot, and took the space, giving the Englishman even more opportunity to rant and swear as Richard maneuvered his unwieldy boat into the narrow space. We had a really good couple of days with Richard, Daisy and Elliot, though Richard was finding it increasingly difficult to cope with repeatedly losing to Daisy at backgammon.

The cloud built up through Monday afternoon and we had a bit of dirty rain overnight before the wind got up on Tuesday, blowing hard in the afternoon before dying overnight. We are glad we came up here – apparently the marina in Lakki was barely tenable in the blow.

On Wednesday morning we motored down to Arkhangelos (no wind) to meet Simon and Christiana, who were coming up from Lakki. We went for a long lunch to Stigma, our favourite taverna on Arkhangelos. Only Georgios was there – Evropi, Dimitra and Tassos had been in Lakki the last two days because it had been too windy for any boats to anchor off. Georgios produced a wonderful lunch and the others returned with a boat load of shopping before we went back to our boat.

A butterfly flitted around us for the whole of lunch.

We were very pleased that they had put the christmas card, made by Charlie, and our photos which we sent them for christmas on their noticeboard.

Dimitra told us that there had been two small earthquakes over the weekend (3.8), centred off the East coast of Leros (though this does not appear on any of the earthquake monitoring sites). Simon and Christiana went back to Lakki. We had planned to eat aboard in the evening, but Dimitra told us that Georgios was making his stuffed pork for the evening, so we went back and shared a plate. It was even more wonderful than we remembered (belly pork stuffed with feta, red peppers, oregano, lots of garlic, with a bit of mustard on the outside and a glass of white wine) and the view over the bay in the evening sun is always stunning.

On Thursday morning, after a quick swim, we motored back to Lakki (again no wind) and tied up in the marina. Apparently refugees have started to arrive from Turkey again, with three boatloads arriving on Farmakonisi. The hot spot is now full, with a lot of people brought in from Lesbos, and tension is high in Pikpa, where there have been quite serious fights between some of the men, over trivial issues. There are a couple of men in particular who create most of the problems. Everyone is reluctant to involve the police, but there are no other sanctions if the men will not see reason.