On a more serious note...

Good morning/afternoon/evening my dearest compatriots –

As I sit in my dimly-lit, totally overpriced cabin on this gigantic rocking ferry (read: Titanic-esque cruise ship), I feel compelled to put down a few thoughts that have been rolling around in my head these past few days.

First, to start: I arrived in Lesvos, Tuesday morning. I spent the day getting acquainted with my surroundings. Mytilene, the capital is a beautiful tiny town that makes me think of all the “by the shore” towns I’ve visited in the past: a funky, graffitied combination of Nice/San Juan/Cinque Terre village with some of the most delicious food I’ve ever tasted (Gyros, people… gyros all day.) Tuesday evening, I met with my contact at Pikpa, a refugee camp just outside of Mytilene. When I arrived, I was greeted with a multitude of smiling faces, warm handshakes and a cup of tea.

Over the next few days I would meet people from all over the world: refugees from Syria, Afghanistan, the Congo, you name it. I would talk with people of all different ages about topics ranging from their own personal plights to “what is love?”

One conversation I had that really stuck with me was one I had with my contact at Pikpa, a man named Constantine (known as Dino to his friends in Lesvos) who left his life in Boston behind and, in his early 40’s came to Pikpa to brighten lives and to literally rescue refugees from possibly dire fates in the ocean. Dino volunteered in Pikpa and worked as a yoga instructor at the camps around Mytilene and in a yoga studio in the city itself. Last year, he and a number of other volunteers from Pikpa, joined the Coast Guard to rescue refugees from the middle of the ocean. These refugees had paddled shoddy boats through the ocean in order to escape their former home countries (typically by way of Turkey). Dino, with shaking hands recounted much of his experience. The all-night boat rides, searching for people in the dark, praying to find them alive. His account had led to a more philosophical discussion on the many reasons as to why outsiders such as Dino came to the camps to help. What drove people to drop their lives and help strangers in their time of need? Dino mentioned the word selfless in response to this question. According to him, the best volunteers, the ones who help the most are the ones who want only to bring fulfillment to others’ lives. The worst kinds of volunteers are those that arrive with the hope that a picture with a poor refugee here or a selfie there would bring them the kind of saintly self-promotion that many people desire and work hard to achieve.

Perhaps I’m a bit jaded. I don’t really believe in selflessness. In my, once again, humble opinion, everything that we do, everything that we are, is selfish. It’s important to understand the motives that drive each person but, at the end of the day, we all gain fulfillment and, in certain circumstances, self-actualization by doing whatever it is that makes us happy. I wish I could have stayed at Pikpa. I wish I could have done more than to ask questions and fill myself with the understanding of the reality facing its residents. I wish I could continue to see the smiling faces every day because, to me, there is nothing more beautiful than a face that smiles genuinely. That is what I saw at this camp. Having spoken to many volunteers and workers, it seems to me that my sentiments are experienced rather universally. Selfishly, we feel self-fulfilled at the idea that we make a difference in the lives of however many or few people we are able to influence. Granted, this type of selfish behavior differs from the kind that Dino described in those that use these smiling faces to promote themselves; however, whether we are promoting ourselves to the outside world or to our own egos, the fact remains that we all desire a reality in which we are the best versions of ourselves, however that is defined.

This blog post has turned out to be a rather monotonous monologue in which I have rambled about nothing outstandingly exceptional and perhaps have made myself seem a bit pretentious. I’ve discovered that blogging makes me rather self-conscious as I don’t feel I have anything very exciting to write about. I suppose I could write about the people I met during my time at Pikpa or at (karatipe) but that would feel wrong, I think; as though I were somehow exploiting the narratives of those that I had met and who had spent time with me. I hope that the film I am working on will do their stories and backgrounds justice.

I will emphasize one piece of the refugees’ stories that struck me the most: the impatience in their voices. Each individual that I met, that was kind enough to share his or her story with me was waiting to receive documents, allowing passage to other countries in Europe. A lengthy and tedious process, one young gentleman told me that he had just undergone his third interview after which, he expected to receive documentation that would allow him to go with his family to his uncle in Germany. He had been waiting to receive these papers for 9 months, living in various refugee camps, with no right to work or study. His life was in limbo. A young boy, determined to learn and receive an education whose entire life rested on the eventual receipt of a piece of paper.

I am undergoing a very constrasting set of emotions at the moment. On the one hand, I am dreaming of the day I can return to Pikpa, to lend a hand, to see the smiling faces. On the other hand, I hope that very soon, the need for camps like Pikpa and volunteers like Dino will be eradicated. It even brings a little light to my heart to think that I may never see those smiling faces in Pikpa again, for perhaps that will mean that these beautiful people managed to make it to their ultimate destinations, build new homes for themselves and future generations in Germany, France, the United States, wherever they will be welcomed warmly. I hope that one day the impatience in these people’s voices will be replaced with hope and joy for their bright futures.