They came in the night and left in the light. Alas, the symbology does not assure a luminous ending. If that were the case, love that runs deepest would never hurt and families in flight would glide effortlessly towards aeries of refuge. Not so in Fortress Europe and not so in Afghanistan, the two opposing corners of the framework within which this snapshot of a much longer and endlessly replicating story occurs. No moral is intended except (perhaps) that some human messes are impossible to clean up or even contain, when that happens hold onto who you've got and hope that everyone comes out of the abyss without having forgotten how to breathe. Or maybe the lesson is simpler: be thankful you are not one of the millions of refugees in the world today.
As alluded to, this family's story began in Afghanistan and i can't even begin to imagine the chapters lived between the day they departed their village and the evening they appeared on the sidewalk beneath my balcony window in Alexandroupoli. i watched them drift across the square, about ten people: 3 men, one petite young woman and several children ranging from a few months to a few years in age. To be honest, i wondered at first if they were Roma because of all the kids, but there was a fretfulness about them that struck me as decidedly non-Roma, a sense of vulnerability that came from the clinging to each other, the constant swinging around of heads as though making sure they hadn't been followed. There was one small suitcase., secured with rope. When they had all regrouped on the sidewalk, a contentious discussion ensued, clearly about where to go next since there was a lot of directional pointing and the voices grew louder, more frenzied. Their language had a bit of that birdlike melodiousness i've come to associate with South Asia; they might have been speaking Urdu, Tamil or Bengali. i watched their debate for a couple of minutes, then left the balcony to do other things.
About 15 minutes later, i walked out of my room and there they all were in the pension, two men seated and talking with the proprietress, one pacing around with a cigarette, the wide-eyed children (one holding the baby) watching the adults, their backs pressed against the hexagonal corners of the room as if they were trying to be invisible or to steel themselves in case of suddenly being instructed RUN. The woman emerged from the toilet, obviously surprised by my presence and the sudden eye contact. She touched hand to heart (a typically Muslim reflex), looked down and flitted to where the children were. She was wearing normal European street cloths, a sheer floral scarf wrapped round the neck and tossed over the head, but her eyes were what ultimately answered the question of origin for me - those shimmering blue, thousand year old eyes that could only have come from the Baluchi-Afghani-Waziristan part of the world.
One of the men was speaking Greek with the pension owner, who was becoming somewhat agitated in a distressful sort of way. Finally she announced 'OK, OK, OK' and started urging mother and brood into the bathroom. The Greek speaker spoke with the pacer, who then spoke to the woman and then the men went downstairs. When i came out of the WC, there were sounds of splashing and lilted, childish screams. As the proprietress later told me, evidently the kids were unfamiliar with running water and reacted to the shower head with a little terror. But she had insisted they at least wash their feet and a couple emerged with wet hair, so she was more successful in getting them cleaned up than she'd at first anticipated. The last i saw of them was very early the next morning. The men were conferring again with the owner, the woman and children filed out of a room and quickly down the stairs, eyes cast downward - again that aura of desired invisibility. One of the men looked up at me and i offered a 'Salaam Aleikum,' he returned the greeting with a nod, but that was all. Too much worry, no risking a change in focus. Whatever they were doing next, it was not going to be easy.
Afterwards, here's what i learned about them. The father was a doctor who spoke some English and wanted to take the family to Germany, where someone from his village lived and had assured him he could find work. They came from Afghanistan, travelling without passports. The father claimed he had a lot of money (somewhere) but that it had also been very expensive to get as far as Greece. The Greek speaker with them was also from their village and had evidently brought them across the Turkish border, where they were given documents by Greek immigration officials that allowed them to stay 30 days. They were headed next to Athens, but the father didn't foresee being able to pay for the whole family to fly north (would they even be allowed on a plane?) so in all likelihood, the next balcony window they'd be standing under is probably in Piraeus, or some other port town where they might find a boat to take them - where? Through Gibralter and up to the Baltic Sea, dropping them in northern Germany? The mind boggles at how this was all going to be managed: how to decide who to trust, how much to pay, what living/stowaway conditions would be acceptable. Thousands are doing do this and how it will end for them... all i've got is a big bold chain of ????
According to the Greeks i was out with last night here in Thessaloniki, there is a lot of tension between these northern European countries and Greece because when the refugees are stopped, this is where Germany, France, et al. send them back to. In general, it's fair to say that people are generous mostly - or only - when they can afford to be; we all know that right now, Greece can afford little more than tear gas and well-catered debt and privatization negotiations. According to UNHCR's 2010 data, the largest number of refugees worldwide are coming from Afghanistan (1.6 million) and although rates of refugee return have been decreasing globally, the number of statistically stateless persons has been doing the opposite. Afghans whose refugee claims are being recognized was at 53% last year, which means that roughly 800,000 were either refused status or still waiting for a decision at the time the data was collected. Obviously this is an enormous topic which, if i'm actually going to post this story tonight, i can't afford to investigate too deeply at the moment. One thing i will add is that in Thrace, northern Greece, people of all stripes expressed a great deal more concern about illegal immigrants, refugees and sex trafficking than they did the economic crisis, which struck me as quite telling. Here's a video report on Daily Motion that tells other Afghan stories in the context of the Greek refugee crisis and includes interviews with immigration lawyers.
It's a harsh, sad tale of displacement, suffering and bureaucracy. We can read it as either one epic story or millions of short, seemingly inconsequential ones. Sometimes one can only see the forest by starting with individual trees and sometimes the forest is simply too dense to see anything. The story i've told here - the snapshot, as it were - reflects little more than this fact and as i've said, it's not even my story to tell. People travel for many different reasons; typically, reporting on other people's hardships is not one of them. i could just as readily have written about the woes of an Aegean fisherman i met, and maybe at some point i will. It really comes down to who the writer decides s/he wants to make visible, even if making total sense of that person(s) and/or their situation is untenable. The following afternoon, i noticed this new graffiti on the train station and ultimately, it is responsible for my decision to write about this family. No matter how common their story may be, to ignore it altogether would seem to subvert my own intentions for being here. Greece may be a 'timeless' place, but as a traveler, i can only see it in the time that i have. Day or night, looking for the light.
According to the Greeks i was out with last night here in Thessaloniki, there is a lot of tension between these northern European countries and Greece because when the refugees are stopped, this is where Germany, France, et al. send them back to. In general, it's fair to say that people are generous mostly - or only - when they can afford to be; we all know that right now, Greece can afford little more than tear gas and well-catered debt and privatization negotiations. According to UNHCR's 2010 data, the largest number of refugees worldwide are coming from Afghanistan (1.6 million) and although rates of refugee return have been decreasing globally, the number of statistically stateless persons has been doing the opposite. Afghans whose refugee claims are being recognized was at 53% last year, which means that roughly 800,000 were either refused status or still waiting for a decision at the time the data was collected. Obviously this is an enormous topic which, if i'm actually going to post this story tonight, i can't afford to investigate too deeply at the moment. One thing i will add is that in Thrace, northern Greece, people of all stripes expressed a great deal more concern about illegal immigrants, refugees and sex trafficking than they did the economic crisis, which struck me as quite telling. Here's a video report on Daily Motion that tells other Afghan stories in the context of the Greek refugee crisis and includes interviews with immigration lawyers.
It's a harsh, sad tale of displacement, suffering and bureaucracy. We can read it as either one epic story or millions of short, seemingly inconsequential ones. Sometimes one can only see the forest by starting with individual trees and sometimes the forest is simply too dense to see anything. The story i've told here - the snapshot, as it were - reflects little more than this fact and as i've said, it's not even my story to tell. People travel for many different reasons; typically, reporting on other people's hardships is not one of them. i could just as readily have written about the woes of an Aegean fisherman i met, and maybe at some point i will. It really comes down to who the writer decides s/he wants to make visible, even if making total sense of that person(s) and/or their situation is untenable. The following afternoon, i noticed this new graffiti on the train station and ultimately, it is responsible for my decision to write about this family. No matter how common their story may be, to ignore it altogether would seem to subvert my own intentions for being here. Greece may be a 'timeless' place, but as a traveler, i can only see it in the time that i have. Day or night, looking for the light.
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