Tag: Humanitarian
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Everybody Has a Story
An old Arab gentleman ushers a curious volunteer into his tent and gestures with his wiry thin arms to have a seat. Sit, he says with his eyes. The shrapnel wounds down his legs tell more than his words. Min-ga-la-ba she smiles, uh, hello, she corrects herself. But it’s her clear, shining eyes that express…
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Let us be angry, this is a crisis after all
The wind howled through camp the last two nights, hurling pine needles and poorly pinned laundry across the grounds. Spring is coming, but before the orange trees burst into flower I will be gone from this island. Providing the weather stabilises, we will be leaving on a ferry bound for Kavala tomorrow morning. Will I…
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The Days with no Boats
I’m sitting in the reception, a small brightly coloured room at the entrance of Pikpa. To my right is a pile of drums taking a break from their usual residence in evening drumming circles, landscaping sketches are taped to the walls behind me telling stories of beautiful things to come. This room is the hub…
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Uncertainty and Empty Oceans
Once a week I let go and get away. I escape to the relative normality of a cafe overlooking the ocean and I let the weight of the world fall on me. Sometimes there are tears, sometimes despondence. Usually I manage to get some work done in there too. Todays emotion of the moment is…
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Some Mornings
I know the contours of these mountain ranges like the lines of my palms. Turkey mesmerises me as I gaze into it’s coastlines each morning watching for boats, the faintest white flash somewhere between here and there. Mobile phones beaming light out to the unknown shores, their light reaching us up on our cliff-top lookout as…
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Overnighting at the Olive Grove, Moria.
As certain migrants were refused entrance, they began to give up hope. Despondent shells of humans began to sleep in the mud under the olive trees dotted down the slopes outside Moria.
