Friday
This morning we were stopped by maybe a special forces and or police guy who might have stolen our passports and this afternoon I was mopping a roof. Only on Lesvos.
So its seven fiftysomething AM and exactly too late Arie and I step out of the door to go to camp, just like every morning. Two steps later we are stopped by an angry looking guy dressed all in black with a ski mask covering most of his face and sunglasses to cover the rest. Stay there, you can´t go out, show me your ID, he points to the door and asks if that is the only way entrance to the house. Ok this is new, we show him our ID´s and the guy tells us to wait in the house and we will get our ID´s back in like five minutes. Not wanting a random guy to walk off with our ID´s we ask him for his, a question he does not appreciate and he starts yelling at us to get back in the house, turns around to go back to the street where similarly dressed people stand around near a bunch of cars. Arie in particular does not like this at all and tells the guy to give us our ID´s back, we have no idea who he is after all. The guy looks at our ID´s: “you are from Germany? Do you ask special forces people in Germany for their ID’s when they tell you to do something?” We tell him yes and find out that he probably does not know his ABC’s (which could be the reason he does not realise he is holding my drivers license and not my passport). He looks at us like he doesn’t believe we believe everyone who tells us they are special forces back in Germany. At this point the fact he does not show us his ID, and we have no idea who he is, fuels our fantasy’s like nothing else. Arie makes up stories about what could happen when he does force us into the house (we are still outside) and I look at the guy to figure out which body part to kick when he lays a hand on one of us. At this rate we are never getting into camp on time so I message Melanie (shift leader) “We are late, police or someone won’t let us out of the house”. Two birds with one stone because it would not be the worst idea for other people to know what’s going on. The guy, seeing my phone, very impolitely asks me to show him my photos, of course. After seeing a picture of a bag of concrete one of his friends speaks to him, we get our ID’s back and 2 seconds later they drive off, tyres screeching then immediately breaking because they have to take a turn, all very cool and impressive.
We look at each other and head of for work.
About six hours later whilst mopping the roof of info 2 I realize this is an interesting place, Lesvos.
May we please give you a new tent?
Story: A family needs a new tent, a hole got burned in their tent so they are exposed to the elements if we don’t fix it. This tent is a UNHCR tent in a UNHCR camp so Dana (Housing coordinator) and I have to talk to them, ask them for a new tent. Different story: 2 people I work with ask me for a winter addition to their tent, everyone has got one of these extra inner tents except for them so they ask me if they can get one, its cold at night. This tent is a UNHCR tent in an UNHCR camp so Dana and I have to talk to them, ask them for new inner tents. Long different story short, UNHCR claims they have given them a winter addition, the people claim they have not received one. I don’t care either way, I just want them to have one. UNHCR says they need to check these tents and see the lack of winter addition themselves. OK. Back to the story. UNHCR tells us we can not put up a new tent (we do have a tent and the manpower), they have to do it “themselves” which is to say they have a contractor for this. Someone form UNHCR has to come first though and check if the tent really needs to be replaced. Fine. He comes and looks at the burned-a-hole-in- and lack-of-winter-addition-tents. He agrees we have one hole too many and two winter additions too few. He then informs us he will get a contractor to put up a new UNHCR tent (we also have a tent and the manpower to do this asap) these people however can not put in the winter addition because of the reason, a different contractor with different people will come to fix these. Fine. We agree that on day so and so the new tent will be put up and a couple of days later the additions will be put in, on day so and so Dana informs me that the additions have been put in but the tent has not been put up yet. Ok. We are about two weeks in our back and forth with the UNHCR and the day arrives that a white car with a new UNHCR tent very professionally strapped to the roof drives past me from the place where the hole in the tent is, towards the main gate. Wrong way! I ask Dana if she knows what’s going on and we get informed by someone in the office that the people living in the tent with a hole refused the new UNHCR tent. Right. Dana and I go over there with a couple of translators and this is the story: the people living in the tent are two families, one of these has a pregnant woman and they all figured that if they would stay in a worse tent than all the other people this would increase their chance to get assigned better housing or even a transfer. This, sadly, is not the case. We ask if they don’t want a whole tent instead of a hole-tent, no. Do they want to live in a tent with a hole? no but if we can give them a tarp they can fix it themselves. But will they be able to fix it properly, will it be good enough when the rain and really cold weather comes? no maybe not. May we please get you a new tent? Ok. So now I will bring them a tarp and Dana can go ask the UNHCR again to please get another tent to these people, via a contractor because we can’t do it ourselves. You might think this is a money issue, don’t replace what doesn’t need to replaced, you would be wrong. About a hundred tents need to go temporarily because of land reorganisation, all these tents will be thrown away. You can not make this stuff up. No way. Welcome to KaraTepe2 or whatever this camp is called.
Prayer is always appreciated.
Warm regards, Nick