And worse

This a post from Claudia Effe on Lesvos
WILD HORSES
Remove all of your clothes.  Dump them into a bucket with ice water.  Put them back on immediately afterwards.  Go sit into a refrigerator for the following four hours. We should stop referring to those fragile made in China killing instruments as boats. Add fear of drowning, hunger, and a shattered heart for having been forced to leave your child behind.

When the "boat" arrived to Skala with about 30 people yesterday, the camp was neatly combed and ready to welcome them, although it was in chaos a few minutes after their arrival. The refugees were not just a little sprayed with water.  They were soaked to the bone. One of them later said that he was shoved by the smugglers into the boat and ordered to drop his belongings.  His child was forced to stay behind.  Water had entered the joke-of-a-floating-device, and a baby almost drowned in it, if it wasn't for the other refugees reviving her en route.

I will never forget their lips as they walked into the camp.  They were almost blue, their teeth rattling, their eyes spirited, zombies, shells of a human. We took the women and children to a tent to change into dry clothes.  One of them was in shock, and cried “baby, baby.” She had been forced by the smugglers to leave her baby behind.

Another one, Ajmala (not her real name) unwillingly unleashed a herd of wild horses as she removed her veil, revealing long, shining, curly hair.  Her pure striking beauty would make any man go mad and start a revolution.  She also unleashed a storm of tears, most of them silent, in feeling so vulnerable and naked, and realizing the precariousness of her condition.  She was in my hands.  I struggled getting her clothes off to change her, and she could not help me because she was too cold to move. The kind of temperature of that bag of vegetables you forgot in your freezer.  All I could think of was a bunch of not very Zen-like cuss words.  None of my useless university classes taught me how to remove wet socks and put dry ones back on a wet foot fast enough.  The world was moving in slow motion, and I could not do one thing to make it go faster.

Ajmala princess of the deserts, beauty of the prairies, abandoned in my arms, does not want to remove her refrigerated bra. That’s too much loss of dignity for her to bear.  I hug her and whisper enti ameena, you are safe.  She does not agree with me, I can tell.  I should fake it better, but I know she is going to Moria Hell Camp soon.  She is pregnant and needs a doctor, but she must change her clothes now.  I shield her with a little towel from the view of the dozen of women in the tent, and command her to negate herself.

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Did you feel anything reading this post? Are you alive? Then, please, spread it far and wide.  Show your love and humanity by donating to the heroic volunteers at the Lighthouse - Refugee Relief on Lesvos.