How do you picture a refugee camp?

Diary of Francesca – 1

How do you picture a refugee camp?
Can you imagine it?
This was what I kept asking myself before leaving, and my head could not produce any concrete image.
I can’t do it even now, standing in front of it The barbed wire
The tall walls Why though?
“Theoretically” it’s not a prison
Practically it is 

A few times a week, we go in front of the different camps placed around Athens
We set down a crooked table and a blanket wherever we find space
We bring tea, coffee, biscuits, tons of sugar, some toys and we listen a lot 

Today Raleem, a Kurdish child who beat me at Connect 4, gifted me a drawing: she drew my portrait, and at the centre of my chest, she put a heart
Her father instead gifted me his grievances He vomited out rivers of words and frustration
He spoke fast and loudly, he spoke in Arabic, I didn’t understand everything, I understood only what they translated to me
But exasperation doesn’t require a translation
It landed on top of me, heavy and powerful in its entirety
It was in his tone, in his eyes, in his hands that moved fast to show us videos of the camp:
Cockroaches and bugs, as big as a thumb
Mold and decay
Two, I repeat, TWO working washing machines in a camp hosting nearly 400 people Cardboard instead of windows
Kilometric lines to get expired food Few resources, only uncertainty
A lot of questions Actually, only one: why?

Francesca