Not the dirt road

On Saturday we set off to Skala Sikamineas, half an hour’s drive away, to see how the aid effort is organized there. We hummed and hawed about which road to take. Our friend A had urged us to take the so-called "dirt road", the coastal road, since that is the most travelled path, and provides the most interesting experience. But we didn’t dare; technically it is “off road”, and our car rental firm had explicitly forbidden off-road driving.

Even following the bigger road we got lost, but eventually we arrived on the beach at Skala, another gorgeous, picturesque little harbour ringed by fantastic restaurants. And for some reason the haunt of hundreds of extremely friendly cats, who sidled onto our laps whenever they saw an opportunity. After the meal I went off to see how the Skala operation worked. For some reason, eighteen little dinghies had set off almost simultaneously from Turkey to Lesvos earlier that afternoon, forming a ragged line along the coast. I accosted an UNHCR worker who seemed to be taking stock (they always do seem to be taking stock) and asked her how many people there were in each boat: as many as 50? Or 60, she said. So the Skala camp was busy, providing dry clothes and serving food, as we do. It is on the beach and is smaller than Oxy; everything seems condensed. But Skala has the services of a remarkable Malaysian volunteer chef, Rayyan Haries, who (as depicted on Facebook) wears a high-vis vest inscribed #askmeforfood and “tea, soup and refugee”. He makes sweet black tea and a huge tureen of soup every day. Unfortunately I didn’t see him, as he was off buying ingredients. He funds his cooking by getting up at 5 a.m. and continuing his full-time work as a digital strategist before getting down to cooking.

The two women who joined us for lunch, an English and a Dutch woman, ordered vast quantities of food for lunch. They felt they had deserved it, since they had had a near-death experience. They had taken the dirt road and had been forced off the road by a truck driving much too fast, which did not stop when they screeched to a halt with one wheel hanging over the edge of the cliff. Fortunately some locals soon came by and lifted the car back onto the road. Hearing this story, we were glad of our cowardice.