Sunday 8 November 2015. Eftalou

Sunday 8 November 2015. Eftalou

Today we set off from Molyvos for an hour and a half’s walk (at my slow pace) to the beach at Eftalou, where many of the refugee boats land. It is at Eftalou that people board their first bus, the one that takes them to Oxy. We hiked on the scenic route up and down through olive groves and I needed my stick. Lesvos has 11 million olive trees, our cab driver had proudly told us. First we passed the football field. Refugees who are rescued by the Greek coastguard are technically under arrest and they are brought here to be registered and then taken straight to Mytilini instead of going to Oxy. But today the football field is being used for an actual game of soccer, with thirty men along the sidelines shouting encouragement: Molyvos versus Petra? We didn’t find out.

As we walked in a slow arc around the hill of Molyvos, we passed a man beating the branches of a tree to harvest olives, and a stack of beehives in someone’s farmyard. Several dogs came out to wag their tails in welcome, not barking. There are lots of dogs and cats here, but almost all seem healthy and well fed. Eventually we arrived on the other side of the hill, and saw the castle from the east.

As we approached Eftalou, we started to meet oncoming groups of refugees who were walking to Oxy instead of waiting for a bus, mostly young men. We waved and said “welcome!” and they smiled cheerfully and said hello. This is probably the best part of their journey. They are relieved to have survived the brief but treacherous crossing in a flimsy dinghy and exhilarated to be safe, away from war and devastation and in Europe. They have met kind, welcoming people at Eftalou, and will meet more at Oxy. Life is good! Then they will go to Mytilini, and from then on, for many of them, things will rapidly go downhill.

When we got to the beach, we started to see the expected mounds of orange life jackets. Also an occasional punctured black dinghy at the waterline, sprawled and shifting in the tide like a lazy stingray. Refugee families sat around on mats on the beach, almost like a picnic. Children played, their parents looked a little dazed. There was no bus yet.

We walked towards the hot springs of Eftalou, a popular tourist spot, though it seemed to be closed now. A Scottish photographer pulled up and parked at the side of the path to the springs and leapt out to take some pictures. Then along came a Slovenian man who wanted to serve tea to people waiting for the bus. A volunteer, R, was explaining that it was not sensible to serve tea too close to the bus. So the Slovenian went off to set up his tea tent behind the Scottish photographer’s car. (Later in the day we saw an irritable message in the Whatsapp group asking who had set up a tent on the path to the springs without asking permission from the local authorities).

We went to see the arts and crafts workshop of Eric and Philippa Kempson, who work with wood. Philippa makes jewellery, and Eric creates extraordinary sculptures from olive wood, which is notoriously hard wood: most people consider it almost impossible to carve. At the entrance to the workshop stands a magnificent model village, complete with hilltop church, carved from a single trunk of an olive tree, the paths and little houses following the natural caprices of the wood. Stunningly beautiful.

At the side of the workshop in a roofed-over storage area are shelves stacked high with plastic boxes. These boxes do not contain art materials. They are marked “children’s trousers”, “socks”, “women’s underwear” etc. Ever since the refugees started arriving at Eftalou in large numbers, towards the end of 2014, Eric and his wife have helped them to disembark on the rocky beach in safety. Soon Eric was getting up early every day and scanning the horizon with a pair of binoculars, warning the Greek coastguard if a boat was in trouble. After several months he was joined by groups of volunteers: in particular, the Dutch Boat Refugee Foundation, who have their own large tent (with permission from the authorities!) on the beach, a team that includes doctors, and the Norwegian outfit Drop in the Ocean (“drops”). There are also a couple of Starfish people there, providing assistance and arranging for supplies from Molyvos when needed. There are often numerous other people, sometimes helpful, sometimes less so. The press, too, ranges from journalists who put down their cameras to help someone in distress to the occasional photographer who pushes an aid worker out of the way to get a better picture of someone struggling ashore.

On our Facebook page there has been a discussion about the fact that there are often too many people on the beach and too few at the camps. Although most people who come here are very well-intentioned, some are eager for the adrenaline rush of welcoming a boat arrival, and less willing to hand out sandwiches, sort clothes, or pick up rubbish.

We spoke to the people at the Dutch Boat Refugee Foundation tent, newly arrived and still fresh. How different from the sad doctor who left last week, who wrote movingly about his feelings of despair after trying to reanimate children who had spent far too long in the water after the terrible shipwreck of 28 October, and had lost some.

I saw a fishing boat out at sea, and thought of the Greek fishermen who go out every day and who have saved hundreds of lives. Who will give them counselling, aftercare? On our Facebook page, someone suggested setting up a fund to help them. But someone else pointed out that they would be too proud to accept. Plus they would anyway refuse money, since it might appear as if they were saving lives in order to make money. And it would create a strange distinction between them and the many other locals who make sacrifices to help the refugees. It’s complicated. Everything here is complicated. Sometimes it seems as if right now, this is the most complicated patch of land in the world.