Refugees of Lesbos

Lesbos is an adorable Greek Island about 7 kilometers off the coast of Turkey.  Everyone drives around on scooters and the main source of income is tourism.  It has also become the main crossing point for Syrian refugees entering the European Union.  

Nobody is entirely sure how many refugees have come through.  Refugees come from the coast of the nearby town Ayvalik, Turkey have always been doing this, usually roughly 100 per year.  However in the past year the numbers have grown and at one point in August the refugees handled over the course of 2015 was above 90,000 safe to say it is now past 100,000.  They all come and go but at one point their were at least 2 refugees for every Lesbos resident.  

It was 2pm at the kebab shop.  The sun was beating down and many refugees were taking shelter, charging cell phones and eating cheap burgers.  The cook was yelling at the refugees because he had given them a number but they couldn't understand the process or what he was saying.  

I heard the local shops were charging refugees double.  This was not true for this burger spot.  It was all cheap all around.  I spoke with the cook.  He told me that half the refugees were here to carry out jihad and said he saw photos of heavy artillery on the covers of their cell phones when he charged them.  He also told me they were out in the street in front of the shop all night fighting each other.

This cook was full of shit.  I was out in the exact same street until 3am watching the street the whole night.  I was trying to avoid a really annoying drunk greek gal that was smothering me in adoration, so I sat outside the bar and watched.  Nobody was fighting.  I can say after several days of walking around the 3 refugee camps on the island that I have never seen anybody fighting, day or night.

I stepped out and interviewed a young Syrian refugee named Omar.  He was telling me about his conspiracy that Assad and Isis are working together.  He said Assad needed a monster bigger then himself to take the spotlight off of him.  He didn’t want to be filmed as he hopes one day to return to Syria.  His boat was leaving for Athens in one hour.

I tried to rent a bike but the fat asshole wouldnt let me without a passport.  He told me the first refugee camp was just 2km, after about an hour hike I realized he misled me by about 3km.  

The camp was a large dirty dirt pile with tents and shrubbery.  Reminded me of an Arizona desert.  Kids playing, kind, hungry faces that were easy to approach although nobody spoke english.  

I met a Norwegian working with an NGO who told me the next refugee camp Moriah was only a 15 minute walk away.  Turns out she misled med by about 4km.  I walked about 45 minutes and then I hitched a ride back to town.

The car that picked me up was two beautiful blond Danish girls with a car packed with about 6 refugees.  Picking up refugees is no small deed as it is illegal to transport refugees on the island.  The girls simply came to help.  They didn’t come through the conduit of any NGO wich they said was a great decision.  They were free to help in any way at any time by any means they see fit at any point.  No rules.  

A few days later I would run into them again and see just how much they were helping.  They were always busy and always making progress.  They found other like-minded random people who wanted to help and they joined up forces and got hundreds of people fed and gave out information in large scale. 

No disrespect to the NGOs, but sometime being part of a bigger organization is freezing.  The large numbers and bureaucracy can take away from the feeling of empowerment and sense of responsibility.  I have seen many NGO people just standing around often not doing much.  I tried to interview some of them and I was told to contact their public relations officer.

So we rode into the town of Mitilini and the Danish girls started blasting Right Said Fred’s “I’m Too Sexy” and singing along and they dropped us all off at the ferry.  One of the refugees in the car was an Iraqui journalist who told me the Taliban threatened to cut him into little pieces so he left.

I walked to the ferry building, which I count as the third refugee camp in town.  It’s not technically supposed to be, but it has more refugees at any time then the other 2 camps.  It was late by this time and it was a dark parking lot filled with tents.  The lucky refugees had tents and the less fortunate (about half) slept on cardboard. 

I was searching for interviews and I was quite uptight at first.  After about 5 minutes though I had acclimated and it felt quite normal.  All the people were desperate and desperation can be dangerous when you are one of the “haves” but all of these people are running away from evil.  They run either because they are afraid of evil or they are afraid of becoming it, so they are good people.

Teens were playing soccer next to overflowing porta-potties.  Younger kids were racing in shopping carts down the hill while others sat in conversation and sang Muslim prayer songs in accapello.  Every 5 minutes a cop would drive through the parking lot way too fast flashing blue lights, otherwise it was peaceful.  Some were washing their clothes in the salty sea and swimming.  

Finding Taraf de Haïdouks

I was a bit weary from the road and losing inspiration spending most of my days hiding from the cruel heat of the summer in a pool of sweat.  I had it in my mind to give up and just head on to Bulgaria.  I met a good friend and she reminded me that nothing good ever came easy and that a good journalist is a fighter.  So, with that reminder I woke up early and headed out into the 98 degree weather determined for the small town of Clejani to ask random people in town if they knew any musicians.  I honestly wasn't looking forward to it.

On the way Clejani the bus picked up a drunk who smelled terrible.  The sun was beating down on every poor soul who couldn't get away and in the bus we all suffered through the musk and still heat together.  I didn't want to be there.  I tried to tell myself that it was a waste of time.  I was shooting in the dark at something that may not be there.  I couldn't tell if I was overly romanticizing the culture, to think I could show up in a town and ask at the local soda pop shop if they knew any gypsy musicians around that I could film. 

I had little note cards that explained my journey in Romanian, but if anyones answer were more complicated then yes or no it would all be lost in the wreck of the tower of Babel.  I would later have a friend translate my note card and realize it said something like, “This is how you make american journalist.  I have music you make for film and I will camp for short time.  Do you help?”

After buying a coke and being rejected twice I ran into George, a wide unshaven silly man who wanted me to buy him beer and cigarettes.  He seemed like he knew something about town and so I followed him into a peasant style shack with about 30 chickens, two ducks, a dog, 3 daughters, one baby boy and a tzigane grandma with a hard look.  My main connection was John and his wife.

The grandma kept telling me to give the baby some money to buy “booboo”.  I tried not to do it but she had a hard look to her and I liked her and believed that whatever booboo was, it was important so I paid up.  The grandma would always be doing things and shrugging her shoulders as if to say, “What else can I do?  Booboo turned out to be candy and balloons.  

John and I had a relaxed coffee talking politics and life in our respective worlds.  He told me to make some babies and get married.  He was just waking up, it must have been about 1p.m.  He had been up until 4a.m. and so had I.  It was not a problem for me to sit around and watch the chickens and babies play. 

We jumped in his car and drove to his cousins house.  His cousin is “Caliu” aka Ghoerghe Anghel, the main disciple of the recently deceased Nicolae Neacșu.  Nicolae Neacșu was the lead lăutari (musician) of Taraf de Haïdouks.  

Caliu is absolutely amazing.  He is actually the reason I set out to Romania to film musicians.  Every great musician I have ever met has a spaz in them as they play.  An uncontrollable twitch as they find their way through the notes.  You can see it in Hendrix as he hits the high notes, the way his bottom lip caves in as if someone had kicked him in the shin.  

Caliu’ spaz seems as if he is serving it to you.  He starts off smiling with eyes that beg the question, “Are you not entertained?”  If his eyes receive the answer he wants his smile get bigger and takes over his face but during the madness of the notes there is a struggle going on in those eyes.  It looks like a dance into madness with quick flashes of sobriety and sadness in between the staccato.  

He has a huge presence and is very kind.  I had given most of my tips to the other players before him so all I had to give him for this performance was a pathetic $2.  He took the money and acted like he was shaving with it, which apparently is what they do.  

I read the biography of my favorite gypsies Django and learned that no matter what success or amount of money, his life didn't change much.  He acted upon his will and never caught the bug that most successful people catch, of wanting more.  The money went about as fast as it came and was treated like the paper it actually is.  

Piatra Craiului Mountains

I got off the bus in Zarnesti and walked into a cafe which turned out to actually just be a bar with a bunch of geriatric Romanians drinking way to early.  I ordered a machine cup of cappuccino for a lei ($0.25) and began walking.  I made my way past town, down a dirt road and up into a trail that went up and up and up some more for about 3 hours into Cabana Curmatura.  

In a average setting if you hike deep into bumfuck and are surrounded by the majestic beauty of nature and there is a man with a cabin with hot food and cold beer somehow in the middle of nowhere with you, the free market suggests that he will charge you a ridiculous amount of cash for anything because he is the only option and he has you by the chode.  

Not so here.  A cabin for the eve was 30 lei (7.50) and a meal was 10 lei (2.50).  The man was quiet but had a genuine smile.  He lived in that cabin all year round.  He was either in tune with nature in a way that I can only hope to achieve one day, or borderline insane preparing to chop everyone up into pieces during the cold cold winter of the southern Carpathian mountains.  

The next day I suffered from a great stomach pain and I was covered in bug bites as I hiked on with a camera, 16oz of water and a snickers bar.  The camera went first as the battery died, the snickers next and finally I was out of water.  This was not before climbing straight up a damn near vertical rough rugged mountain.  

After three hours and a lot of sweat I was up top riding the crest of the Piatru mountains.  The hike was tough and dangerous, but it looked more dangerous then it actually was.  There were long deep drops into rugged sharp limestone 60 -100 feet down on both sides but the grounding was always strong.  The rocks beneath my feet were heavy and not budging and so long as I don’t allow vertigo or the fear of the visible drop all around me effect my concentration then I stay safe.

This was the easy part though.  I had to be in Zarnesti by 8 so I had planned take the crest trail to the blue cross trail to make it back down into town.  I don’t like to re-trace my steps.  After 3 more hours I made it to the blue cross trail and looked down.  

It was tight on both sides with brush and steep.  It was the ass crevice of two mountains coming together and there was tight and steep decline allowing an escape at a very high risk.  I knew the danger rating for this trail was worse then the crest trail but I figured it would still be doable.  

At the start I was apprehensive.   I would have slid deep down into certain slow and painful breaking of bones and possibly life if not for the brush surrounding me on both sides, smacking me in the face as I slid down the muddy decline.  I figured at the start of a trail going down the highest peak in the land I should expect danger and assured myself it would get better.  It got worse though.

My last big hike was through 6 feet of snow off a trail straight up a mountain in the sonora pass at 11,000 feet.  I went numb in both feet and suffered snow blindness and could hardly breath the lack of oxygen at such a high altitude.  Still I felt safer there then this trail.

This trail was loose limestone rock.  Every step was a small avalanche.  It didn’t look as dangerous as the crest trail, it wasn’t as dramatic, but it was much more dangerous.  My sense of danger and death is described best in the book “To a God Unknown” by Steinbeck.  He kills off a main character in that book with one sentence in such a simple dumb way.  Just a tiny mistake on a normal day, nothing dramatic, a bit boring but so real.  

One mistake would mean a bruised ass and possibly bloody head, but a mistake coupled with a coincidence would have been unforgiving and the way the terrain was setup there was land teeming with possibility for all kinds of coincidence.  I took it slow and steady and that worked well but after hours of the same terrain around every steep corner the energy it took to stay focused  suffered a bit.

I made five mistakes during that passage.  Not good numbers for me but still okay.  I was so happy to make it to flat land and eventually back to Brasov for South Indian Curry.  

It was beautiful, if you get the chance go!  Don’t bring a tent, stay in the hut with the nature man and keep your pack light, and avoid the blue cross trail!  Thats my best advice.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piatra_Craiului_Mountains

The Gala

This was the final day, after a hard week fueled with Palinka and music.