Minister of Migration Policy, please resign.

Dear Minister,

The time is 6:13 in the morning.

At this time yesterday I was sleeping for the first time after a week because from December 1st until the 8th, I was in Lesvos volunteering for the third time. 

It's at this time that the last boats that leave Dikeli and other shores around 4 in the morning full of refugees (28 Kurds/Iraquis, 50 Pakistanis, 42 Syrians and so on), now arrive to the southern part of Lesvos. Since the EU generously gave Turkey billions of euro, so I gather the Turkish police have begun patrolling the Assos region. Hundreds of refugees had to get drown for this decision to be taken apparently (or are they thousands?). 

Right. But mainly, mostly children must start drowning to start patrols which of course haven't managed a thing but to shift the place of their departure. 

So, yesterday I woke up in my bed in my home for the first time in 8 nights since being on night patrols, which took place by just us THE VOLUNTEERS FROM DENMARK, HOLLAND, GREECE, SPAIN and other countries with chartered coaches from the UNHCR and driven by Kostas, Dimitris and another 2-3 exceptional bus drivers from Mytilene.

Together with Nefeli and Ramazan who work for the UNHCR. 

At the same time other VOLUNTEERS again were on alert in Moria waiting for the full coaches to arrive to take care of the refugees. Specifically, the Danes with Palestinian roots, quit their lives in Denmark having sold homes and left jobs behind, are in the middle of the sea searching for refugees with their jet ski but after that they are in trouble as they need to pass by the Greek bureaucracy in order to to do it legally. Until then, how many lives should be lost in the Aegean sea, mister minister?

Silly me, while I was thinking I could rest and delight in some moments of tranquility with my partner and my animals, you were deciding it's wise to return back to Athens 2,500 immigrants from Idomeni, that were there waiting for God only knows how long, hoping to cross the borders that the E.U. decided to close in absentia of any humanity and human rights. 

So I took my car and filled it with toys, shoes and clothes plus some basic supplies I bought after reading someone's list made vite-fait yesterday and went to Faliro the evening of December 9th, hoping many other supporters had done the same.

I went there alone, thinking of meeting my friend, a German reporter from Switzerland who had also been in Lesvos from December 2nd and for 5 days in order to experience volunteer work up close and meet all those people that are coming from every corner of the planet, to photograph them and write stories for a well-known foundation with humanitarian action based in the States. 

My friend of course wasn't allowed to pass through. He was given a Ministry's telephone number which of course nobody answered at 22:30 and returned back to the hotel not being able to accomplish anything. 

At first the policemen wouldn't allow even to me pass through. They wanted me to leave the things I had brought with me at the entrance and leave... They probably hadn't realized that if I wouldn't enter, I wouldn't leave. So I entered once your employee realized I'm not joking.

There I met some volunteer supporters, two from Morocco and of course many Greeks, cooking and distributing lentil soup and pasta with sauce... So "I joined" in "the game" and until 2 in the morning I handed out food. But the Greek and Moroccan supporters had left at 1 (who had been there much earlier than me) and my friends Nikos and Katerina remained behind (who had hurried there at midnight) with me. Nikos had to take exams in a few hours but it's OK, since I announced the need for water IMMEDIATELY on facebook, he rushed over with his girlfriend (who's been helping me to help refugees since months ago, in Lesvos and here in Athens) and they arrived with 42 large bottles of water & plastic cups to put it in. I had also bought 312 small bottles (my expenses) of water from the Flocafe (they gave for free 12 bottles) which is infront of the Village mall, together with Giorgos who came over from the Notara occupied building "to check things out" as he was sure that the 2500 people would be brought over there.

Of course they were consumed in no time but I had to argue with the scouts who didn't want me to start giving out water since, as the guy said, I wasn't in charge and had to follow the structure.

TO WHICH STRUCTURE was the lad referring to, I'm still wondering.

Probably the structure that allows 700 small bottles of water to sit in storage but not to have them handed out so as to refrain from any conflicts since the stadium had 2,500 people and not only 700.

At that structure that keeps blankets in boxes, that had come from Corinth after our plea on facebook, locked-up in storage due to the same fear. 

FAIR ENOUGH.

So now I am texting with Joann, an American residing in England (who came to Athens for 3 days when I was in Lesvos to check-out the situation and inform her American friends what the needs are for Athenian camps and to start sending shipments) was asking me if it's worth the trouble to cancel her birthday party on Friday and RETURN to volunteer at the stadium with the 2,500. Wondering if she'll be allowed to enter and help? She says she can provide 2,500 meals and that many bottled water, if the government of (totally destroyed) Greece can't. What should I answer her, Minister? Should she order the tickets? 

As for me, will I ever be reimbursed by the STRUCTURE for the 180 euro I gave for the water that I shouldn't have distributed, according to the boy scouts? Or should I also request reimbursement from the woman from Venezuela, resident of America, who set up the Go fund me page so I could go to Lesvos the 3rd time I went?  

Ok, in the end, now that I think about it, so what, since that's about how much I'm receiving from the government as a retirement since my mum died on 2008, so that could be one more donation in her memory. On the name of the refugees this time.

Minister, as I'm informed by an Arab-speaking volunteer based in America, another dinghy just left Turkey (around 8.22), so the lifeguards from Lifeguard Hellas, Thanos and Dimitris as well as Salam with Zamzam from the Danish rescue team Team Humanity and the Spanish Proactiva & Proaim-aid are standing by, don't worry. EVERYTHING'S FINE. 

And the "scavengers" will be there to collect the boats, the plywood, the engines and the petrol so the other Ministry, which has legal jurisdiction over these things as soon as they're on Greek land won't be bothered, thinking what will they do with the things and who will collect them under. 

Luckily the Lesvos Prefecture takes care to send Municipal workers with trucks each morning to collect the heaps of life jackes that Jai (A 25 year old Greek Architect who first made the lives of refugees in Jordan more viable) rightly thought to convert them into bags so they wouldn't be wasted. 

What's really a pitty is that with your past Minister we ALL expected much more from you. And just when I was saying that if the time comes for me to become a mother, to consider giving birth in water at the alternative clinic... 

But really, where did so many years of activism go? I don't understand. My degrees aren't worth anything it seems. My IQ hasn't developed I suppose. 

PS. Eleni and Anetta, what's happened in reference to shoes for refugees, you didn't find any donators to send to Lesvos, Chios and Samos? "Thank God" for the climatic change so it's NOT SO cold as it was 10 years ago during December in Greece, so the refugees can ALSO go barefoot to the Balkans through Athens, why not!? 

Eliza, 29, unemployed with 2 degrees.

http://beingethical2014.blogspot.gr/2015/12/minister-of-migration-policy-please.html