First day. We met Omar at 8:15 and he showed us how the Olive Grove Camp grew - now over 2000 refugees living in tents and tarps. Some have used wood pallets to make a floor and raise the tent above the water that floods each time it rains. They are preparing for the cold, winter [...]
Long haul but here we are in Mytilene, the capital and port of the island of Lesbos. Scott missed his connection due to engine failure but was re-routed and will be arriving tonight. We are taking a siesta and then heading to meet Omar from Refuge4Refugees. We will go over to the camp tomorrow to do an orientation [...]
This Saturday, October 20th, Hands On Global team of 10 fly to Greece to work again at Moria Refugee Camp. Those of us who have been there before are dealing with the anxiety of impending heartbreak. Right now we cope by going into task mode, which believe me, there are a lot of tasks to get [...]
Up early buying cooking pots, cooking utensils, small wood cook stove, washing buckets, spices and food to distribute to the African-Sri Lanka tent. Thanks to the generosity of YOU we purchased this small stove, cooking pots, cleaning buckets and good vegetables and spices. These will be shared by many people. Our last gorilla clinic today. We [...]
Mark is recovering but still coughing and resting. Something we have noticed in ourselves and as a team is that we have experienced a shift, we are less raw, less emotional somehow coping with the constant state of heartbreak, the shock of the crisis. Being here witnessing and serving consumed us. We learned to maneuver ourselves [...]
Our Dr. Mark is sick, coughing, cold, whatever. Virus the camp has he has. He had his face up close and personal with many a sick persons and he has succumbed. He is mega vitamin dosing and resting, his cough sounds terrible. Brian departed this morning for Athens - bye Brian!! We went back to the [...]
Today we are all tired but we showed up and saw 48 patients. One young woman from Cameroon, beautiful 20 year old, said she was 2 months pregnant. She complained of her breasts hurting, vomiting and acid reflux. I told her that was part of being pregnant, sadly she is alone. Has been at the camp [...]
I hit the wall today and so did Mark. Exhaustion and heartbreak. We saw 67+ patients and closed up, found the medicinal hot springs for a soak. It was lovely, but my whole body was just rubber when I got out, I could barely walk to the car. Came back to our bnb and went to [...]
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 [...]
To all who donated, thank you! We were able to buy these medicines - enough for 5 more days. We have ordered some more z packs for pneumonia and we are good. Thank you from all our refugee friends from Iraq, Iran, Syria, Afghanistan, Sudan, Egypt, Pakistan, Cameroon, Congo, Mali, Eritrea, Sri Lanka. If you'd [...]
