Tuesday, March 28, 2017

First day on the job at Oinofyta refugee camp

I get to hold the fort at Oinofyta refugee camp for the two weeks while Lisa, the camp manager, is on a speaking tour in the States. This is my third visit to Oinofyta - I was here for six days last August and two weeks in October.  Now, a month.

I'm pretty familiar with the camp and its operations, but the issues I've been presented with today have all needed to wait for the expertise of Jess and Alee, the shift supervisors. At present Jess is asleep, having driven Lisa to the airport for her 6 a.m. flight and then remained there to help a family that formerly lived here and are now being reunified with family members in Scandinavia. 

Here are the current issues for today awaiting resolution:
  • The volunteers' bathroom has no toilet paper. I asked for some from the warehouse. It took a couple of hours before someone was available to check. Apparently the warehouse is short of toilet paper until sometime next week. One of the other agencies here is responsible for acquiring paper products, and the order isn't expected until the middle of next week. We need to buy enough to last until then - about 200 rolls for volunteer and resident bathrooms - but I don't want to set a precedent if this has not happened before. Still, toilet paper is toilet paper.
  • A couple of doctors donated money to be used for baby wipes. The warehouse needs more. Warehouse manager Alee needs to know how much money is left to use from the donation.
  • Three people successfully reached the asylum office via Skype and they have appointments in Athens tomorrow morning at 7. The agency responsible for transporting them - until the middle of this week, when they will no longer provide the service - will pick them up in the morning, but we don't yet know what time that will be. When we find out, we need to notify those three people. If they miss their asylum interview they won't have another opportunity.
  • The volunteer teaching computer use to the camp's "digital leaders" (five men and five women) is leaving next week. Two people arrived unexpectedly today, with excellent experience and three weeks to give. I'm pretty sure it will be okay but need to wait until Jess wakes up to confirm it.
  • Tools in the wood shop are going missing. We need to find a way to secure them. Volunteer Jamie, who leaves next week, will inventory what we have in a couple of days. 
  • A woman who volunteered at the camp in November would like to spend a few days next month visiting here for a project she's working on in the UK. Again, I'm pretty sure it will be okay but need to confirm it.
  • Tomorrow morning we'll need three cars and three drivers: two to buy a week's worth of food for the camp and for the volunteer house, and one to run a necessary errand in Athens. That will leave fewer volunteers at the camp to handle the ordinary and the extraordinary.
  • The organization in charge of education of the camp's children found out that they may be starting to attend Greek schools on Friday or maybe next week. Whenever it does happen - Greek time is not precise - another organization in residence will be responsible for transporting them. The coordinator of the school is leaving for ten days to attend to business at home in the UK, but she has two competent teachers remaining.
  • Two members of a Greek political party want to be notified when the school date is definite so they can coordinate a welcome for the children. This one I need to check out with Lisa via Facebook chat when her plane lands in Chicago.
  • Several Greek acupuncturists arrived for three hours of service to camp residents and volunteers. I introduced my husband Art and he has an appointment in 20 minutes.
It's now late in the evening. Almost all of the above issues were resolved once Jess woke up in the late afternoon. I am ready for sleep after this day.


6 comments:

DJan said...

Whew! Now that is one busy day. No wonder you're tired, Linda. What a service you are providing. It amazes me that you accomplish so much in such a short time. The world is a better place because you're in it. :-)

Arkansas Patti said...

Mercy, that is a day to drain a person. Thank you for tackling such a huge but necessary process.

Meryl Baer said...

A fascinating experience and wonderful, selfless thing to do. Good luck with the rest of your time, it is a challenging job.

joared said...

Sounds like you were pretty well organized so you knew how to handle even the things you couldn't resolve. Running out of funds, toilet paper especially, really would be challenging -- plus frustrating I would think, waiting for that guy to wake up.

Anonymous said...

Sounds like you have lots of responsibilities with little authority. Hope you can get that worked out in the next few days so the month can go more smoothly. You definitely need the authority to make decisions.

Linda Myers said...

dkzody, I do have the authority to make decisions when they're necessary. I don't want to override existing expertise early on, until I'm trusted to make good choices.