If you ask me where I come from,

If you ask me where I come from, I have to converse with broken things

-Pablo Neruda

 A man, strongly resembling Shel Silverstein, demonstrates how to throw clay on a wheel as eager eyes look on and curious fingers reach forward. Small hands pound and shape clay; a bowl, a cup, a clay man, a spoon, a mortar and pestle. Practical hands belong to these children who have been formed in the midst of struggle. Clay is shaped and reshaped countless times before the promise of lunch is able to coax young artists into surrendering their sculptures. 

A young Yazidi girl with pale skin and thick hair, talks of her home and of the dog she used to have. As she chats, she unsubtly smuggles most of her lunch to the scraggly, stray dog under the table.  

"Do you think you were made in Heaven, that you are better than us?" An Afghan boy quickly crossing into manhood, shakes with impotent rage and wounded pride as he is called out for not wanting to stand next to a little black girl. 

A little boy from Congo cries silently, his eyes overflowing through every daily activity. He wants to be involved, he wants to come to each activity, but he just simply needs to cry. And perhaps one day, when he has cried the entire sea that he has crossed, his heart will be dry and finally safe. 

A young girl, all lanky arms and legs, with chalky knees and dusty feet, wraps her slender fingers around the neck of a violin for the first time, her smile is open and free. 

A hot container crammed with stinky staff and kids giggle through the chorus of "Shake it off," Taylor Swift sounding her best through the filter of multiple accents and laughter.

A pair of shoes is left behind, dusty and torn. There are plastic bags shoved into the toe of each shoe, enabling little feet to walk, falsely leaving the imprint of an adult. 

A little girl, perhaps 5 years, wanders the camp all day going from container to container. She has the wide eyes of a Dr. Seuss character and an innocent face, but this child is destruction personified. She listens to no one and breaks anything that she can get her hands on. She breaks much the same as she has been broken by parents who do not love her. She looks like me. Who will save her?

And then there is a night when the moon hides behind her hazy veil, children laugh and parents hush. In the relief of the cool evening air, the mournful wail of a child fighting against sleep echoes faintly. There is a makeshift table comprised of a cracked board on a bucket, set outside a tiny container, a minuscule home, one home in a row making up another row, forming a patchwork grid of community drawn together by desperation and hope.  Crooked chairs surround the humble table as chai is liberally sweetened and set before an unexpected wide-eyed American guest. Conversation floats comfortably over the smell of cinnamon and the sea. And as night eases into calm, the women begin to sing.

 

What you see depends on where you Stand.

Getting to Lesvos was hard. I endured Chicago traffic, an 8 hour flight to Dublin, a 20 hour layover, a 4 hour flight to Athens that left just before dawn, a 6 hour layover in Athens, a 50 minute flight on a teeny propeller plane, after of course getting off a previous plane with a broken engine and all of these little miseries, I endured while lugging around a massive suitcase crammed with 10 ukuleles, 30 music books, 15 egg shakers (which caused people to eye me strangely as I walked by..) and other countless items found in a typical music teacher's tools box. I arrived exhausted and poured myself into bed despite not having eaten dinner. Getting to Lesvos was hard.

Getting to Lesvos was hard. A refugee may have fled in the night, risking hypothermia and dehydration in the Sinjar mountains, a risk preferable to certain slaughter in the valley. A refugee may have fled a bombed city, finding the way on foot, with everything that can be carried or nothing at all. A refugee may have walked a thousand miles through hostile territory, broken up by months or years in a refugee camp. A refugee may have boarded an overflowing shameless excuse for a boat, perhaps alone or perhaps clutching tightly to a hand of a loved one. A refugee may have watched in terror as large waves crested over the sides of the boat. A refugee may have stumbled cold, hungry and exhausted onto the muddy shores of Lesvos, knees giving way in grateful relief. Getting to Lesvos was hard. 

The choice to come here was absolutely political. I sat fuming into the small hours of the night on January 27th, my husband out of the country and my president signing an executive order to ban the travel of those who needed our compassion the most. I was enraged and ashamed and my first defiant thought was "well if they can't come here, then I must go there." I scoured the internet for ways in which I might help, even if just a little bit and I stumbled on a tiny posting for a voice teacher in the Kara Tepe camp on the Island of Lesvos. I sent off a resume and within days, we were talking of potential dates. And now I am here, for what seems a frivolously short span of a month to try to organize, teach and share music to the best of my ability. 

This is where my part in the story ends and I begin to simply share the vignettes and pictures being gifted to me. It is a privilege to stand in a new place in order to see.