Life on Kos
Rachael Swancott writes about the migrant situation
In November I travelled to Kos to volunteer for the local refugee aid charity Kos Solidarity, and was supported in this by individuals and Meetings. From saying I would ‘quite like to go’ to arriving in Kos was about four weeks. I’m a ‘doer’ as a rule. I like action and movement and ideas. I stop and think about why I may have been led a certain way after following, rarely before. I must admit, however, that when I found myself wandering alone in Kos completely lost, at six in the morning, I thought: What on earth did I think I was doing – I’m just one woman and I can’t even find my hotel?
Kos Solidarity’s day is split into shifts. The first is a divided night shift. The second shift is the dinner distribution shift, followed by the port departure shift, which is when the refugees who have bought their ticket for the departing ferry to Athens get things they may need for their journey, like more shoes, a back pack or a better fitting coat. For most people the time between their arrival on Kos and their departure is around four days.
The job I most enjoyed was volunteering on the night shift. This involved meeting the men, women and children who had arrived that night and providing them with food and blankets, the information they need to register themselves officially, and, most importantly, dry clothes. This shift gave me a new perspective on many things, especially the importance of the folding and sorting that I had (somewhat begrudgingly) done in the warehouse on my first day. There are few things as disheartening as having to tell a man with wet, cold feet that we have no shoes left. I began to understand the excitement when a box is opened filled with small size men’s trousers or a good jacket. I became elated when a shipment of socks arrived and laughed with the other volunteers when we unpacked the days’ third pair of stilettos.
For my first couple of days I didn’t know how to act around the refugees. I was nervous and unsure of myself. Was it all ‘business’ or did I have time to chat? Did they need rest or company? On my second breakfast distribution we were packing away, having come to the end of the queue, and a young man called to me to throw him an orange from the box I was carrying. I did this and he caught it and cheered. Then his friend called ‘my turn, my turn’ and moved further down the port wall to try to ‘one up’ the distance of his friends’ catch. We eventually had several players and several ‘balls’ (the rest of the oranges) and an elaborate game, variants of which we played several mornings of my stay. I bonded with a man called Mohammed. He had his headphones in one morning and we talked about music. I had a long and fascinating conversation with a woman called Amani, who had been studying to be a make-up artist in Syria. She taught me how to apply my mascara and told me how she missed her collection of eye shadows, so I gave her some of mine. She was more grateful than some of the men are for their dry trousers! Although, in their defence, the trousers are often too big!
Since coming home I cannot watch the news without becoming furious. The debate about the Syrian bombing made me cry, as I thought of Amani‘s husband, who she had left behind. She was sure she would not see him again. All these experiences were precious lessons to me. In Kos I had the most profound confirmation of ‘that of God in everyone’. I am going back in January.
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