Today the sun was shining again. It makes such a difference.
Mark did more ultrasounds in the tent and there were some with significant findings. They get referred to the clinic and hopefully will eventually get treatment. As I have said before, the system is so broken. But in defense of Greece, this small island with a population of 35,000, now finds itself with 5,000 refugees and has never had the medical capacity for these numbers. Medical volunteers are really needed here – especially mental health. Everyone has ptsd, so many victims of violence, abuse, etc. I saw a beautiful 2 year old girl with wide staring eyes. She sat on my lap, no eye contact, no smile, even when I gave her a doll. Her mother said she has not smiled in 5 months. What did this little girl experience in her short life that took away her smile?
It was a busy day. There was a buzz of organized activity. We have this camp down as far as serving tea, numbers for appointments, ultrasound, massage, meds intake. We have a really good team! Marcia and Georgia are still at the clinic. They are working long hours.
After we finished today we brought out the buckets for our drum project. Funny, I asked for plastic buckets, modeling this project on “Chicks with Sticks”. Well we were instead given aluminum cans sealed on both sides. Kind of wondered how it would work but yeah, it worked great.
Refugees started drumming, then singing and there was an atmosphere of JOY. So great! We have more to distribute tomorrow.
Omar sent me a text several hours later saying they were still drumming in the camp. Thanks to Stormy from Chicks with Sticks for the instructions for rubber bands on the ends of drumsticks. They had 2 sounds. I brought 24 drumstick pairs and there are 24 buckets. We only gave out a few so far, more to go and the camp will be LOUD and hopefully full of JOYful moments.
