09.06.2023

It’s another rainy day in Athens. A rare day, we’re told, but we wouldn’t know that from personal experience as it is our second day here and the second day of supposedly rare rain showers. The racket the thunder made last night seemed to be amplified by the concrete apartment buildings that threw the echo about their courtyards. This, paired with jet lag, were a fine deterrent to sleep. As I recall there were several rounds of gummy melatonin distributions.

We are learning a few practicalities of travel along the way. For example, we discovered straight away that the most frugal possible path to travel is not necessarily advisable where small children are involved. If, at one point in your life you made your way through Athens by way of the cheapest hostels available you will now have to filter your lodging searches through an entirely different set of criteria. Sure, the little studio Airbnb with a couch to dump your kids on for the night is the smallest possible and cheapest level of lodging for you, but you should go ahead and factor in all the possible destruction that happens when too many inhabitants occupy one space. 

We are two nights in and we have an increasing tally of broken things to account for. One shattered goblet and bowl, complements of the fast and dexterous one year old. A chipped coffee table – the result of table knives employed in playdoh play. And a busted coffee mug that was my husband’s contribution. (I do not have the story on that one.) The tiny table that is attached to the wall on one side is practically falling off and bringing the wall down with it – it is aided by the aforementioned solidly chubby one year old we keep removing from it’s surface. In the future we will prioritize slightly more spacious accommodations. 

 We were welcomed to this corner of the world by a DNI/i58 team who have been located in Athens for the past 4 years. They went out of their way by serving us meals in their homes, lending us their children’s toys and books, and showing up at our door carrying a warm breakfast casserole among other things! 

Our time in Athens has given us the tiniest peek into the world of refugee ministry here. It is a world of constantly shifting dynamics. One of our contacts here stated that when they are feeling dissatisfied with some aspect of their lives currently they remind themselves that in six months from now it will all have changed. Because Greece is primarily a gateway to other European countries most of the refugees are here temporarily. More recently the government has made a move to relocate refugees from the cities into camps. Ministries that have been centered in the cities now need to re-strategize for the future. All told, I think it would be an accurate observation to say that ‘no normal’ is the only normal in this setting. And given our rainy week, I’d say that apparently goes for the refugee situation as well as the weather patterns! 

~JR