Day 2 Chios
15.12.2017 - 15.12.2017
59 °F
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Greece trip, 2018
on baixing's travel map.
[map=1152110 lat= lon= zoom=]Day 2: I woke up at 5:30 a.m. and just decided to stay up. I needed to do laundry already after spending two days in four airports and two hotels.
They have an interesting system in the kitchen. We all contribute 15 euros every Sunday and then we can eat anything we want in the kitchen. If someone buys something for the kitchen, they just take money out of the jar and then leave it in the kitchen to share with everyone. That's pretty ingenious.
So anyway, I made a nice turkey and cheese sandwich for breakfast and did some laundry. The laundry took two hours to do because I had no idea about how to operate it. I learned that the dial should point at 7 not 1 because 7 is the fastest and 1 is the slowest. OK fine.
Another new teacher, who is from London, but originally Singaporean, Bee, came with me to meet Martha, the big head boss, so she could explain her system to us. However, she wasn't going to be there until 11 a.m., not 9 a.m., like she told us yesterday. I excused myself, so that I could buy a SIM card for the phone I borrowed from Nick, another one of my roommates. I told him I would leave if I had to buy a smart phone. He gave me his old one.
The problem was I couldn't get WhatsApp on my iPod. It was so far the only chat program I couldn't get on there. I'm sure WhatsApp needs me to have a phone number for some nefarious data mining operation. Anyway, Nick said that it would be a "safety hazard" if I didn't have WhatsApp. I was skeptical again. But Nick solved the problem for a bit. I went to Vodafone and got the cheapest SIM card. So then I had a number and I could use WhatsApp, to make Nick and whoever else happy. I turned off all the sounds and promptly ignored all the constant chatter on the two groups for information on the school's happenings. Ben noticed me doing this and lambasted me again, accusing me of "not wanting to help" in the case that someone sent a message out in whatever crisis they might've been in at that second. I didn't reply, just turned on my heel and walked into my room. "Honestly Louise!" I heard him exclaim. He is dead to me.
The school system made a little more sense and after the meeting with Martha I went home for lunch, where I was locked out of the apartment for about 15 minutes because no one was inside. I didn't have a key and guessed I wouldn't get one until someone moved out. A bunch of people would leave soon, I hoped to get a bottom bunk and a key.
This afternoon's classes went fine. The four students were Afghani girls and Syrian boys. They got along fine and they followed the lesson well, they laughed and were genuinely curious normal kids. There were no words to describe how relieved I felt. I expected at least one of my three groups of students to be enjoyable.
I was on bus duty, so I put on the bright yellow "Be aware and share" vest and took the kids back to the refugee camp, where they live. It was about a 20 minute drive, or a brisk 1.5 hour walk. Two children puked along the way. We had to leave all of them at the gate, because we're not allowed to go inside. Their parents didn't even come to meet them. They had to make their way through the crowd of shady looking desperate adult men to their caravan or tent homes in the camp.
This night there is a group of at least 100 people (mostly men) gathered with all their belongings outside of the gate. It's a little intimidating. They are being shipped to the Greek mainland, having passed the interview with Greek immigration agents. They will be permanent residents and work towards achieving Greek citizenship in the future.
On the other side however, there were 100 more people who had just arrived in the camp this morning, leading to another fire and more drama. I'm sure it was a horrible day in the camp. None of which rubbed off on my students, but I heard people were freaking out at the high school.
I walked quickly in the cool night air back to the apartment, where Ben let me in. "Welcome to my lair," he said. "Yeah, fine, great," I answered. It wasn't long before he was singing in his stupid douchey voice with the beautiful voices of a few women playing folk songs on their guitar. I didn't fall asleep for a while because of my white hot hatred of that guy.
