A beautiful day , sunshine and warm weather finally. We hooked up with a pharmacy today that sold us most of the drugs we needed and ordered more for us. Thank you to those of you who have donated for the medications. They are really needed, we have been seeing a lot of pneumonia.
We met with Medicines San Frontiers again this morning. They were great. They also not working inside the camp but outside the wire. They are only treating women and children so they were sending us the men. They said the African men are underserved and they are the ones that get deported first. They explained that inside Moria camp is actually a military base and there are some soldiers posted there. Also inside there is the prison for the men who will be deported. How sad to wait for so long to be sent back. Msf said they were not tracked so nobody really knows what happens to them. Or why they are deported? There are 10-15 deported each week. Back into the hands of repressive regimes.
We started today again with the Africans who have our hearts. They are so polite and so grateful, others are too but I guess we have soft spots for the underdogs. We bought soccer balls and gave them away and they just came to life kicking the balls around. It was good to see. After providing care for our African friends the gorilla van moved to our other spot and there was our Syrian translator waiting with patients. Our Iraqi translator came by to invite us for food but we couldn’t find him at the end of the day.
We saw 60 patients today and packed up because we again were out of meds but are picking some more up tonight. We saw again so many victims of torture and injuries that were so cruelly inflicted leaving life time disabilities, a man who was hit by police and his jaw was broken, knocking out teeth and now he cannot chew and has so much pain, it was never repaired. Another man’s arm was broken so badly, untreated and his arm is frozen, he is in his 20’s. These stories are heard over and over and they don’t get easier to hear. We are able to handle it better, giving warm hugs and able to talk to them easier.
Massage has been wonderful, loving healing hands they just let down and relax. A brief respite from their pain and misery. We are planning to return in September because we know this is not over and bring 4-5 massage therapists and acupuncturists. Mark has been doing some acupuncture and that seems to help. Mark is so kind to his patients, he gives them his full attention and I know they feel cared for.
It was an easier day. We have our rhythm and our gorilla van is efficient. We are comfortable here now. We have made friends and the refugees themselves make us feel safe. Last night a boat crossed from Turkey with 54 people. Omar found them in wet clothes on the road and got them to the camp.
Thank you everyone who donated. We were able to buy enough drugs to last us the next 5 days . We will need to buy some more Z packs for the pneumonias but should be good. Thank you so much on behalf of our refugee friends from Syria, Iraq. Iran. Afghanistan. Egypt. Cameroon. Congo. Eritrea. Sudan. Mali. Palestine. Sri Lanka. Togo, Yemen, Senegal, Pakistan, Algeria, Spanish Sahara, Gabon, Gambia, Somalia, Burundi.
