27th October 2024

Vanishing PointsHi everyone.  I hope this finds you well.

Here’s a few snapshots from what has been an eventful week, some of the names have been changed for obvious reasons.

Liz and I felt that we could do with a change of scenery and the tiny island of Hydra had been highly recommended by many of the locals.  We got the ferry from Piraeus and two hours later we were there.  We checked in to a perfect little hotel that we could just about stretch to ...and duly collapsed.

We fell asleep immediately, and during the deepest of naps in which we would have been attempting to process the intensity of the last couple of weeks; the sights and the smells, the poverty and the hopelessness, capped off with the grossest of obscenities, that blimmin' luxury yacht! (I'll come to that in a minute), we were abruptly awoken.  The man whose voice boomed through our open window and woke us up could have actually been The King's Man, or even The Devil wearing Prada, because in that blurry moment he sounded exactly like Stanley Tucci and was staying in the neighbouring room.  I should point out that I like Stanley Tucci, the actual Stanley Tucci who among other things, played the marginalized husband alongside Emma Thompson in “The Children Act” ...but not that guy in the next room who just woke us up ...not there ...not that day.

It's fair to say that Liz and I were both pretty drained by the time we stepped off the Ferry, and were seeking a day or two's respite from the tragedy and decay of compounded man made issues of poverty and gross imbalances that we'd been shown in Athens, and had looked forward to a couple of days on that beautiful island (it really is stunningly beautiful).  However, more recently Hydra has become synonymous with something quite different; wealth is flaunted as if it were a virtue, and excess oozes from every marine-side boutique and each one of the luxury yachts that are moored up, one of which had actually been unashamedly named, “Who Cares” and was sailing under a Greek flag!  A cold hearted temerity that I'm still struggling with.

It rankled ...just a tad.  So no, I couldn't exactly take to my hotel neighbour Stanley Tucci; his monotone accent of calm pronouncements, neatly sewn into snugly fitting statements delivered as matters of indisputable fact, invading our room.  Because in that disconnected moment of re-entry into the day, he appeared to fit the bill perfectly as yet another one of those particular humans, eternally comfortable and well fed, whose chance of birth has placed him in the centre of a world that makes perfect sense to him, eulogizing his own certainty in such tones as to be simultaneously arrogant, misguided and untouchable.  Maybe if I hadn't allowed my blood sugar to drop, or whatever had compounded a brief period of emotional exhaustion that I was struggling with, I might have realized that from Stanley Tucci's perspective, I too might have appeared similarly offensive for some reason.  But I think that maybe my energy cells had performed a sort of triage and decided that if any part of my consciousness had to be sacrificed that afternoon it was perhaps my self-awareness.  And so to Mr Tucci, for those unspoken things I was thinking, I now sincerely apologize.

Gillis is still here.  My disconcerting roommate is still eating the exceptionally good value food, and sleeping in the immaculate, clean sheets that are all prepared by the same hard working refugees as he says are the root cause of so many countries' problems.  I don't know where he goes to at night but for the most part, his days are spent in bed so I don't have much opportunity to talk to him.

We took some of the boys from the Refugee Centre to a local park this week.  It was only a short walk but it was good to see them in a different environment.  We had two members of staff with us, the Centre's social worker and one of the Educators.  We took the football (obviously) and had a kick around, and then played some volleyball (sort of).  It was sunny and the temperature is back up in the mid-twenties (sorry, Simon at Trevaylor Campsite, but it is what it is) and I noticed a large number of gnats buzzing around my legs and realised that we hadn't taken the insect repellent with us.  Since being bitten by something exotic thing on the Italy bike ride that I did some years ago I have had a bad reaction to insect bites so I quickly applied my antihistamine cream by it was completely ineffective.  I had to leave them all in the park and get myself away from the trees or whatever was attracting the gnats.  I got to a pharmacy and was given some different cream and stronger antihistamine tablets which I now take duly.  That night wasn't great for me and in the morning I had these very large swellings on my arms and legs.

Rahim was around the hostel when I got up.  He's a brilliant young guy, a former Afghan refugee who now lives in Greece, volunteering to work at the hostel and providing support for other refugees in the city.  He took me to his doctor at Victoria Square, and Liz sat with me as I explained my history.  The doctor, Anastasios Alexopoulos was very reassuring.  He said that following the incident in Italy all those years ago, I was clearly hypersensitive to insect bites and my body now overreacts to them.  He wrote out a prescription and we all walked back to the hostel.  As we rounded the last corner, Liz nudged me and said, "So, you're a hypersensitive over-reactor ...who'd have known!"  I am pleased to report however, that at the time of sending this, everything is pretty much back to normal and I feel fine (thanks for asking!).

At the Refugee Centre, we've asked some of the boys where they've come from and many have replied that they come from Egypt.  We now realise that for some of them, this is the standard response that they give to anyone who doesn't really need to know; people at school maybe, or in the street; people who might possibly take issue with their place of birth, their culture or their religion.  The staff at the Centre tell us that some of the boys do actually come from Egypt (they are Egyptian), but some of the boys began their journeys in either Syria, Gaza, Afghanistan or Lebanon and it is therefore a half truth for those boys to say that they came from  Egypt, many of them coming through  Egypt and then on to Turkey before somehow making it across the Aegean Sea.  Some others are more candid and say exactly where they came from.

By and large, the boys who began their journeys in the Middle East or Afghanistan are considered to be refugees regardless of which countries they passed through along the way.  Those who began their journeys in Egypt and classified slightly differently, they are considered economic migrants.  The Centre doesn't give preference to one group or another, but the refugees (those fleeing war and terror) are often carrying more baggage, but with it they may have more of a case for citizenship within the EU.  Such a distinction often seems rather harsh, as those Egyptian boys (those who are largely considered to be economic migrants) are searching for something better than the widespread poverty, prejudice and discrimination in countries like Egypt.  But I suppose that from the authorities' perspectives, there is a need for categorization across the refugee/ migrant spectrum, and that such labelling inevitably brings with it a large degree of generalization, especially when the colossal numbers are taken into account.

One of the boys at the Centre is little Bashir, an extremely thin boy with a beautiful permanent smile.  Liz was teaching one of the other boys Sudoku while I was sketching with another lad at the other end of the common room when Bashir came up and introduced himself.  He was being prompted by an interpreter who works at the Centre and between them, they explained that at the age of thirteen, Bashir had escaped the mass conscriptions of children that take place in Somalia.  His parents didn't make it out alive, but he somehow made his way to Athens and after a good deal of research, was located by his aunt in Birmingham. This connection for a minor should have allowed him to legally enter the UK to be with family.  However, his visa application was declined by the UK Home Office and the solicitor who works at the Centre was telling me that they have now appealed the decision, which has involved him (and his aunt) taking DNA tests.  The appeal will be heard in London towards the end of this month.

The sketch I was helping the other boy to do was of the Refugee Centre building, as viewed from across the street.  The young boy said that he liked one that I had done on my first day, and I was showing him how to establish "vanishing points"  in the far distance of landscapes to help create perspective.  I put the words into Google Translate so that the term might make some sense to him.  When he saw the words in Arabic, he nodded and asked if he could use my phone.  He took a screenshot (see photo) and sent it to his own phone, as he appeared to like the imagery of the words.

Should little Bashir's visa application appeal be successful he will leave this place, which in spite overwhelming difficulties has given him safe haven, and will vanish into the UK; some unseen place in the far distance to which the entirety of his modest hope is channelled.  He will vanish into the distance of another culture to which he will have to adjust.  I just hope that whatever divine hand has protected him so far, doesn't desert him when he needs it most.