These are some of my memories and
thoughts from the camp – I tried to be honest with them, and any possible mistakes
in the facts are mistakes of my own.
First impressions
My first impression of Tabanovce
refugee camp was not a shock over the quiet, almost empty camp, with white
containers, dusty roads and some tents. I had already heard from my friend
before arriving that there were more dogs than refugees at the camp. Not an entirely
correct description, but gives you an idea of what I was to encounter; there
were around 30 refugees (and the numbers rose up to 90 overnight) at the time
and probably the same amount of helpers from different organizations. And yes,
a lot of hungry stray dogs. There was nothing to be too shocked about the
refugees eithers; I didn’t see many when I arrived but they all seemed more or
less healthy and well.
One of Tabanovce's many dogs.
The shock I experienced was more
of a cultural type. Once I got into the camp, we were taken straight away to an
air condicioned container, used as an office, and there we stayed with our laptops
and phones, using the wifi and killing the time. A tour around the camp?
Nothing more to see, I was answered. People did not seem very interested in working
with the refugees, even if that was their job (this does not go for everyone working
at the camp but it was a very strong first impression). Before arriving I had thought
that working in a refugee camp had to be a calling for anyone working in there,
that I would find there people who would feel compassion for these people and
would feel happy to be able to be where they were needed. Instead I found out
that to these workers it seemed to be like any other a job, and not even a very
interesting one. I’m not saying they were disrespectful towards anyone, but it
seemed more like an introduction to a local working morals. Whatever the
reason, I was disapponted.
So in the container I had time to
chat, to continue my works from CID and to watch series. Before leaving the camp,
in the afternoon, we might pass by the outdoor kitchen to see if there were any
refugees, and play cards with them for a while. Taking a photo with them was
obligatory as well – to prove that the workers were actually doing something,
and to not to loose followers on social media, as I was told.
I was also told there was nothing
to do – but how does it matter if there are ten refugees instead of one hundred
at the camp? They all value the same and deserve the same attention, even if it’s
”less exciting”. The refugees at Tabanovce had their humanitarian needs
fulfilled – they had clothes, food and a place to sleep. What should’ve been
our job was to take care of their mental health by the means we had to offer,
which were interaction, discussion and play. To release stress and provoke a
smile.
Although, it is also true that
during July, when I arrived, it was constantly so hot in the camp that everyone
preferred to stay indoors in airconditioned spaces. The camp was full of sand
and dust, the sun was so bright it was impossible to look anywhere without
sunglasses and the hotness was something I had never experienced before. The
camp was quiet and sad.
Background on the Macedonian refugee situation
Why were there so few people at
the camp then? The Macedonian borders have been closed since March 2016, so all
the passing through the country (along the so-called ”Western Balkan route”) has
from then on been illegal, or, how we prefer to say, irregular – because no
human being can be illegal. Before the spring 2016 Macedonia was a transit
country. People would take a train, a bike, or walk, from the Greek border in
the South of the country and travel through Macedonia until the Serbian border
in the North. That was the time when, this is what I was told, ”bikes were more
expensive than cars”. The people passing by were taken advantage of in other
ways too, like charging them more for a train ticket, for food and a couple of
euros even for simply taking a shower (three euros is a lot for a shower in a
country where people earn around 200 euros a month on an averige).
I was told that by the summer
2017 there had not been more than 1 to 3 asylum seekers in the country – I cannot
remember the correct number anymore but in any case it was close to zero.
People simply wanted to get to Serbia, and from there usually to Croatia,
Slovenia and to the Western Europe; to Austria, Germany, or where ever.
Furthermore, the camps in
Macedonia are technically not actual refugee camps but merely transit-centers,
so the people are not even supposed to stay there for longer periods of time,
but to be moved to other countries, like Serbia or be deported back to Greece.
A lot of people just try to cross the Serbian border with their smugglers, time
and time again. People arrive to the camp one day and the next morning they
might be gone. Some people of course stay a bit longer, even some months, but
still this somewhat explains the high rotation of people in the camp.
The daily life and routines
”You don’t want to stay there for
too long, believe me”, I was laconically told by my coordinator while waiting
for the taxi to take me and the other EVS volunteers to the camp on my first
day there. This made me angry since the camp was the reason I was in Macedonia
in the first place. But it is true it could be very boring in the camp if you
took it that way, you could be as useless as you wanted to. Only a few refugees
approached us by their own terms and we couldn’t really go searching for them
from their small containers where they sleeped and lived. We were also feeling
unsure if they even wanted to talk with us, although it was clear that there
wasn’t much else to do and that probably they’d be happy to break the routines
of doing nothing – since there was pretty much nothing to do – and communicate
with us.
The communication wasn’t necessarily
that easy either. We didn’t know which ones of them spoke English – and we didn’t
speak any Arabic and there was no interpret either – and their culture was
different, so you didn’t really know what was the best way to act; most of the refugees
in Tabanovce were young men, and most of the volunteers were young women, which
made it somewhat hard and ackward to approach them. It would have been a lot
easier to approach children or women, but even if there were some women
sometimes, they didn’t really leave the containers.
As the time passed, we, however,
got some more experience and courage, and when the ice was broken for the first
time it all got that much smoother and more comfortable – people would start
approaching us, greeting us, telling us about their lives and joining us for a
game of cards, or, later when it wasn’t that hot anymore, volleyball or football
(yes, even I joined sometimes, although I sucked). At some point we had a lot
of Algerians at the camp and I got to practice my forgotten French skills with
them and even translate some conversations with them and other volunteers. It
was empowering for me. All these casual conversations about Erdogan, the
terrorist attack in Finland last summer, youtube videos from someone’s home town.
Little by little we spent less and less time in our containers and more time
together.
Cultural days
Our routines
started changing when another organization working at the camp wanted to
cooperate with the EVS volunteers; as they put it, they had money but not
really a target group, since it was an organization for children but there
weren’t a lot of children in the camp. They wanted to do something for the people
who were at the camp, which was really nice. So we had a meeting where we decided
to start organizing cultural nights, with ”therapeutic cooking” in the
spotlight. This meant that the volunteers would take turns in organizing a day
of activities about our own countries, share some music and videos, and the
main event would be cooking something from our own countries, involving
refugees in the cooking and later sharing the meal together. So this
organization would provide the materials and we would provide the volunteers.
The event
turned out to be more or less of a success. During the first cultural night, a
French one, we were really lucky to have there an Afghan family with two
teenagers and two smaller children. They were really interested in talking with
us (even the 6-year-old spoke very good English!), playing and cooking and I’m
sure we all had such a fun day, even if all the French cakes didn’t succeed
that well. Later there was also a Polish night (turned into an Algerian one), a
Turkish night, a Slovakian night and, of course, a Finnish night, where I got
to make apple pies and salmon breads with some helpful hands, and we watched
videos of Lapland and weird Finnish sports on youtube. During some days it felt
like the whole camp was, if not directly involved, at least trying to be where
the cooking happened; sometimes we only had a couple of people cooking, but
nevertheless, it always felt like it was a nice activity for those involved. I
wish they will continue doing something similar at the camp even now when our
project’s ended and there are no more EVS volunteers.
French cakes in the making!
Dealing with the authorities
Tabanovce of course didin’t come
without bureaucracy or authorities. You can’t just enter the camp (well sometimes
you could, but in theory that’s not how it works), but you need propusnitsa, a permission to enter. This
is why I was only able to enter to Tabanovce camp and not Vinojug, for example.
There were polices by the camp entrance checking everyone coming and going.
In Macedonia the refugees can’t
usually leave the camp either; once you enter, you stay until you’re told
otherwise (or until you decide to take off without a permission). This is why we
couldn’t plan any activities outside the camp, even though they undoubtedly
would’ve done great things for everyone’s spirits and mental health.
There were other restictions as
well, and you can’t always tell why. For example, the organizations couldn’t
teach English at the camp – at least not officially – just because the police said
so. No one knows why. And yes, apparently you do need a permission even for
these kinds of activities.
Once there was a bigger incident
as well, when the police arrived to the camp in the early hours of a Sunday
morning, when everyone was sleeping and there were less eyes to witness what
happened; they arrested around 20 people accused of drug use and some were
deported back to Greece, some were beaten. Just like that.
Refugees or migrants?
True, I’m calling everyone ”refugees”
in this text, but I assume a lot of readers will go and think: are they really
refugees or are they migrants? I’m happy it’s not a decision I need to be
making. I don’t know the backgrounds of all the people at the camp, and as a
volunteer, it wasn’t my duty either. I do know some fragments of their stories,
though. I do know how some of them had traveled through Macedonia hiding dangerously
underneath a moving train. I do know that the Afghan children were caught by
the Serbian police and handcuffed. I saw how afraid they became when, even from
the other side of the fence, they could see a police officer searching the stopped,
empty-looking trains. I do know that many of the young men I met had previously
been detained by the Greek police and held in a prison for several months. I do
know that many of them were traveling alone, like a smiling 17-year-old
Pakistani boy, who had left his home and his family to get to Germany, and who
had already five or six times tried to cross the Serbian border, always getting
caught. And again he was waiting for his smuggler. I do know that a lot of these
people had nice, comfortable lives before, like one older, educated man, a teacher,
who tried to use his time at the camp well by teaching Arabic and painting for
his own enjoyment. And I remember the tired sadness in the eyes of a 14 and
16-year-old brother and sister, who knew they would not be going back home
anytime soon, and not knowing where they would end up and where would their
futures start.
So are these people refugees or
migrants? This experience has made me realize better than ever how superficial
all these kinds of labels are. We try to make sense of people’s origins and
situations by choosing one or another word that should determine if they are
entitled to stay, or if everything they went through was for nothing.
But it’s not like they left their
homes and loved ones for fun.
To conclude
During my time in Macedonia I
felt like I learned so much new, even if nothing was what I expected it to be.
The evolution we went through at the camp was huge, at least for me, and the
acquaintances I made taught me a lot. And even though I wasn’t at the camp more
than twice a week I could use that experience in my other activities at CID;
organizing different refugee-related events and workshops and collecting books
for the camp, for example.
A workshop on refugees for the local youth.
Workshop going on and a poster on Syria in the making!
People at the workshop are concentrating in watching a video on the refugee situation.
I made a poster for the event where we collected books for Tabanovce camp.
Three months was a short time,
and the time just flew away. By the end of my volunteering at the camp I felt
like I had established some good and trusting relations both with the refugees
and the workers at the camp, so it was sad to leave. In the end I did get so
much from the experience and from the people I met.