Dark thoughts

Today (Monday 16 November) I worked with a new volunteer from the UK, G. A man appeared before us, most of his head swathed in bandages, with just one eye and part of the right side of his face uncovered.

“What happened to you?” asked G.

“Iran”, answered the man. Perhaps he hadn’t understood the question. Or perhaps he had.

“You were bombed?” I asked.

“Police”, he said. That was enough questions, clearly.

Our new American neighbours, who had been working at the children’s tent, told us about two children from Damascus, in Syria. They had had lots of fun, especially with the little girl, who was about eight years old, and very cheerful. Both children had severe burn wounds all over their bodies and part of their faces, and the little girl now had stumps instead of fingers. I try to imagine her future in Germania, where most of the Syrians are heading. Will she be able to get prosthetic fingers? I have never seen prosthetic fingers, as opposed to a prosthetic hand, and start pondering whether they could work.

It is hard to avoid succumbing to occasional waves of darkness, after the events in France on Friday. I try to lighten my own mood by watching F, who entertains the refugees with his juggling for hours at a stretch. He is getting better every day. But every time I try to film him, he hurls the ball high in the air, and then drops it.

I saw a black rucksack standing unattended in the middle of Oxy. Looking around for someone who might claim it, I was unable to suppress a sense of uneasiness, and stood looking at it, with unwelcome fantasies flitting through my head. I had an absurd fledgling fear, following the events of Friday the 13th, that some right-wing lunatic might take it into his head to target the camp, to target the refugees. (NB I have edited this post to explain what I was afraid of. I had not thought it necessary, since from where I stood it seemed obvious. But someone reading the post in Amsterdam thought that I was afraid that one of the refugees might have planted a bomb. I was so appalled that I immediately opened the post to clarify. If anyone thinks that such a thing is remotely possible, all I can say is: please, come and work with refugees yourself, and you will see how ludicrous this is.). I mentioned the bag to B, the former schoolteacher, who boldly went up to it, opened it up, and discovered that it was full of wet clothes. I felt a little foolish.

Many people expressed indignation about the reports that one of the Paris terrorists may have passed through Leros on the way to his murderous mission. The fact is that almost a million people fleeing from war and mayhem have passed through Greece this year. Some minuscule percentage of them may perhaps be intent on doing harm, just as a tiny percentage of Dutch, French or British people may be intent on doing harm. But terrorists are very unlikely to opt for this route, since those with the money to purchase sophisticated weapons can also afford to buy convincing false passports and plane tickets: and are they likely to hide in the woods for days, undertake a hazardous crossing in a flimsy little rubber dinghy and tramp across the Balkans if they can simply fly to London or Paris? I believe that I am more likely to pass the occasional person with murder in his heart while taking my dogs out to the park in Amsterdam or London than at a refugee camp.

One of our volunteers, J, became depressed when a countryman contacted him to say that if there was an attack in their country, he would blame J. Like the villagers blaming Melinda for the fire on the tourist boat, some people find refugees and those who help them an easy target, and are not much bothered by logic or rational argument.