Thebes II by Laura Kwong
Thursday, August 6, 2009 at 04:09PM Important words to know: προβλεμα = problem, οχι = no, καλο = good
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
It is unfortunate, beyond unfortunate, that these young men spend twelve hours a day in the shade of their concrete brick shelter, sleeping, chatting, and drawing, just to trying to keep cool and pass the time. They are aspiring doctors (“because Afghanistan has no doctors”) and engineers, with strong muscles and ready minds. It is a shame they cannot go to school, or at least work.
No work, no money. Problem. How do these men get by? They work when work is possible (and when Greeks, who respond to their “καλιμερα” with “Fuck you,” are willing to give them a job), but even then they only earn €50 for a twelve-hour day. They don’t pay rent, don’t own automobiles, and don’t have to (or get to) worry about tuition or health insurance payments, but they still must eat. How do they provide food and other necessities, few that they are, for ten people? Dumpster diving, reusing other’s refuse, must help, but it certainly isn’t enough. Adel says that his father send hi money via Western Union. His father sends him, the emigrant, money? That’s not how it is supposed to work.
But I guess that’s what happens when one flees his nation, not for economic opportunity but to escape being caught in the cross-fire. Maybe, someday, they will have good jobs in Italy, France, Spain, England, Canada, or America and they will be able to send money back home. Right now the problem is not money but danger. At least they and their families are still alive. Except for Izet. His fifteen brothers and sisters and both of his parents died in a bomb blast. He has no family except for these brothers with whom he has walked across nations.
There were frequent cell phone interruptions during our conversations, which I thought was funny because cell phones are not objects one usually associates with struggling refugees. Cell phones are extremely important to the men’s well-being. Phones keep them connected to their families in Afghanistan, their brothers in Canada and England, their friends in the US and other Afghanis in Greece. It allows them to keep up on the situation at home, to laugh with friends far away, to watch music videos and to kill time. They all have phones and fifty percent of the time someone has a phone I his palm, either talking or texting or listening to music. I’m not sure how they keep these phones charged, but I am glad they work because they are so vital to communication and entertainment.
I got the boys to draw a map of their homeland and route to Greece. From there out came paper and a pen and we drew for the next few hours. Actually, I have no idea how long it was. When you are enjoying company and have nowhere to be and nothing else to do, time is not important. There were some not-at-all realistic drawings of animals and a sketch of the living area by Ali (who would like to be a painter), before we started drawing portraits of each other. I drew Ali and he drew me. When he say my drawing of him (which I would be ashamed to show either of the art students I am living with in Athens), I think he was unhappy with his drawing of me because he wouldn’t sow it to me but instead immediately started on another drawing. His sketch was quite funny, as were all the other drawing the guys made of me, because in each on I had a foot-long afro! They really liked my hair! I wish I had saved those drawings, but I think they all got burned.
Reader Comments (1)
and I am an immigrant and I know what this means life in Europe...everything is hard... is still much racism