Thessaloniki | Story no4Walking together

I am from Afghanistan and came from Idomeni camp to the housing squat of Orfanotrofeio at December 2016, right before the evacuation of the camp. I was lucky that I left before the cop’s buses arrived in Idomeni and I was one of the first residents of Orfanotrofeio. At the beginning it was hard, the building needed a lot of work, but it was much better than living in a tent in Idomeni. In the Orfanotrofeio squat I had my own room and that was important because there were many men and I was the only girl there completely alone and although other women were there they were with their families. The first night I must have slept for 12 hours, I haven’t slept peacefully for more than three months; in reality I was sleepless for many days in the camp. That was the first important element of Orfanotrofeio. Most of the time before I felt psychologically pressured and extremely stressed and in Orfanotrofeio I felt instantly safe and I liked that very much. The most important to me at that time was to feel safe. Although I did not speak English and needed a translator all the time and even despite being alone I instantly felt very safe.

The people in Orfanotrofeio came from many countries, with different languages, different cultures, many were sick and exhausted. It was hard at the beginning and it’s important to stress this, tasks and shifts should be taken in common by different people and should not be based on nationality and language, and that was something that we realised in Orfanotrofeio. In general terms we could say that it was a worthwhile attempt to all live together, and to a certain degree we achieved that. For example I did not feel discriminated or repressed, all of us had our problems but nobody pressured me, nobody held me accountable of why I left my country and I am in Orfanotrofeio. From the moment I was there and obeyed the rules, communal rules that we all set up together, they all trusted me and I trusted them all. I want to stress this point, there was nobody telling you what you had to do, you could do whatever you liked, I felt free, only if somebody did something negative were they hold accountable. Generally the central characteristic of Orfanotrofio was mutual help, without knowing who the other was you were coming closer to them because one helped another, we shared the housing, the food, the clothes, and this brought as closer and we all became friends. Every day somebody had the responsibility to prepare breakfast, lunch and dinner, some people were playing football or basketball, I was taking care of young children while others cared for the cleaning or did English and Greek language lessons. There were a lot of assemblies, too many I would say. This was our daily reality, and it was a lively one, it was not just survival or an ordinary life, it was a lot more interesting and a lot happier than the life of a regular person. Primarily we did not have a boss, we did not have to go to work in the morning and listen to directions from someone superior. Nobody telling us what or not to do, nobody repressed us it was all free and collectively decided. There was no space for leaders, each one of us was developing a conscience on what one should and shouldn’t do.

I think we were having a better time than a normal family that lived in any building next to Orfanotrofeio. Our life was interesting and there was meaning, no boring routine. Before I came to Greece I worked for a year in Dubai, for a year I did not stop working, my life was twelve hours work then sleep and nothing else. In reality I was not living; I did not hear a song for a whole year. So when I came to Orfanotrofeio squat I said that this is the life I want to live, I will never go back again. Today that I speak to you I can tell you that Orfanotrofeio made me human again, gave me energy; I have it deep in my heart.

When we got evacuated I cried a lot and it was the first time I cried in Greece. It’s a matter of feelings; there were so many memories there and when I saw it getting demolished with all the personal items and belongings of its residents in it, I was shocked. It was like they wanted to kill all these memories and the little stories of all the people that passed from the building. Orfanotrofeio was not just a house, it was a lot more. When we say house, we mean a place where a family or somebody alone lives, for me the house is like a little prison, usually there is some sadness. In contrast in Orfanotrofeio there was joy, there were so many activities. So I felt great rage for the cops, why they did that, why did they demolished a building with refugees when they cannot house them? It was an empty building that hosted immigrants, there are so many empty buildings in the city that refugees could stay, and they leave them empty.