Athens

The joy about the release from our friend Isaac from Nigeria out of prison is short-lived. His release was partly due to our help. Without lawyer they should have deported him straight without seeing back his lovely wife and son…

Still I see him arriving into camp Moria. He was a real optimist. Unbeatable…

We kept in touch by whatsapp. Regularly we visited our family in Athens. They got a hotel room in City Plaza, run by a German Ngo. We helped Isaac *Onyekachi in my book ‘One Love – One Tribe’, with his first job on an island. After that he always found something to support his family.

They did not have a residence permit yet. But the police never asked for papers.

Outlaw

This changed last summer, when the most inhumane legislation ever entered into force, drafted by the conservative Greek government as a reaction to the EU policy. Camps on the islands will become closed detention centers. Procedures gets accelerated. People are being deported on masse to unsafe situations. They don’t get lawyers. Appeal is no longer possible…

Clearing

We were in Athens when all squats and hotels got cleared. People were raided during the night and put on the street without possessions. Or brought to camps in the middle of nowhere on the mainland.

A small Ngo took care of a number of families. Shortly after this Isaac was arrested by the police on the way home from his job and, like many others, thrown into prison…

The lawyer needed €600 to set him free. Again Isaac could apply for asylum. Immediatly they told him to leave Greece within 14 days. Charity and his son have no papers. He has no money for the trip. He does not know where to go and has no African passport. So he will be thrown into prison on arrival until this problem is settled…

According to the EU, Africans are mostly economical refugees. In fact, we only have Syrians and Eritreans on our list and currently people from Jemen and Gaza. The others can be safely send back…

The new arrivals receive an accelerated procedure. After being rejected immediately they go to prison. They get deported without being allowed to say goodbye to friends and family.

Rebellion

Similarly it happened to a friend of our Ugandan Ssentamu. Like Sentamu he had to run from  his country two years ago because he rebelled against the government.

He was leading a peaceful life and worked hard to meet his own needs. He got picked from the street after working hours. The lawyer puts the money, collected by his friends, in his pocket and could not do anything. After months of stress the guy gets deported. At the airport in Uganda he got arrested and disappeared into prison on charges of being a state enemy…

Blood money

And we European Community wash our hands in innocence. Turkey, Italy and Greece are burdened with the dirty work. We pay billions of blood money as long our night’s rest is not disturbed.

High time to wake up. No longer we can close our eyes and look away. History repeats itself. It is genocide that takes place on a large scale…

Unwanted

In advance men are already undesirable because in our ignorance we take the ‘truth’ of news and social media for granted without to investigate what really truth is…

Many Africans, also from the so-called ‘safe countries’, can not teturn to their homelands.  People who read my book ‘One Love – One Tribe’ can understand this somehow…

I would never have get so much insight into situations if I hadn’t started listening to people and sharing their stories. Stories that on request have turned into a book. Impressive and touching for people who read it but denied by those who choose to look away and prefer to proclaim the safe opinion of the masses than to investigate ourselves…

Paternity

I meet Eric from Cameroon. If you want to know what’s going on there, read the story of *Ruselle from Cameroon in my book ‘One Love – One Tribe’.

Eric was 28 years when he had to flee. He left his wife and 3 children behind. His son was 2 months. He promised them that they would be safely together within one year. His son is now two…

Eric lives in the jungle in Samos. A place comparing to the notorious Moria camp on Lesvos is paradise. That tall strong guy who, in this cold, is walking on slippers and in shorts, because here, unlike Lesbos, there is hardly any primary help, is crying silent tears.

We are a day out with the four of us. We’re eating lunch. I wrap my arms around him.  What else can I do…

Heartless

Do you have any idea how many of these beautiful guys had to leave their families behind, some already years ago. Not because they are heartless, somebody claimed on my lecture, but simply because they have no choice.

Have you ever thought about how they live every day with this pain knowing by now that they will probably never see their loved ones again…

And do you have any idea how many Erics there are among the refugees…

Criminals

Or do we still prefer to believe that most men are criminals, rapists and terrorists…

It are those guys who risk their lives to free their country from dictatorship. The same species who fight for us in wars and return as wrecks because what they have seen cannot get a place…

The change will start in the upbringing. We all stay up immediately for children.  Believe me, children in camp Moria still play like children. Mud, sand and rubbish is a paradise for kids. Safer and more creative than all computer games and violent mess they see on telivision and smartphone.

Women are still seen as the weak sex who must be protected. But those guys have to do the dirty work for us. We deny their vulnerability. After all, they must be strong and tough…

Brainwashing

So much talent is being lost because we are being flooded by the media with disaster news, which perhaps covers two percent of reality because we do not want to give up our safe harbor and our ideas and continue to cherish ourselves inside our safe ivory tower…

To divert attention, we worry about things like Santa Claus and black Piet, who was originally black. So were we are talking about. We adopt cats from Greece who are still living a real cat life. We do everything as long as we don’t have to worry about people who might bring us into contact with our hidden dark side…

Exemplary

Like here in Samos, where before the arrival of the refugees was no visible form of crime. Well I guarantee you that they still behave in an exemplary way, those refugees. If we lock up Westerners in this way, in notime they will kill each other…

Fiercely

We are back on Samos. Not because we didn’t like Lesbos. On the contrary, it is wonderful on Lesvos. There we could rent a house much cheaper and enjoy ourselves in many ways.

Well we are in Samos where we are supposed to be right now.

Not that we can change much about the situation. The only thing we can do is just to be present.

My posts about the light and dark sight are being red less and less. People find it too confronting…

Survive

Life IS confronting and intense. You can sprinkle all kinds of escapades on it, but that leads to a kind of survival that shows on the outside how good we are doing together while the inside slowly languish away…

Desperation

I meet Atta from Ghana on the street. I am shocked by his desperation. Pull him off the sidewalk. I have to take care of him. Atta is half of a twin. His brother died at birth. He is now twenty. Four years ago his father was murdered in front of his elder brother Solomon. Solomon did not escape damage-free. He is missing three fingertips, his front teeth and has a shattered shoulder. Two years later Mother died of grief. The police locked up the murderer, a brother of their father. They advised the boys to flee. If uncle is released he will not rest until he has killed them…

* Ghana: Top 1 of the safe countries…

Love

We take the boys into the mountains. They feel like an extension of my being. They are our first guests at the table of our new house, receive a shower and a Reiki treatment. Joyful we play games. But above all we support them in their being. We teach them to be proud of their origin, even though Solomon cannot read and write.

And furthermore it is very simple. Love is the medicine on which they grow and thrive…

And I have plenty of that. It always surprises me that I need my ‘own’ space in the Netherlands. In Africa and here this is of no importance…

When I take a picture of Atta I can’t imagine that this is the same guy I met three weeks ago…

Family

We came to Samos in January. I was shocked. Even after all these years and all the places we have already visited. We decided to cancel our flight and rented a house in Pythagorio to accommodate our six-person rainbow family. Muslim,  Christian, Jehova, black and white were living peacefully together. Five of our family members are now on the mainland or have we seen back in Athens. One guy from Togo is still here. All are waiting…

We have been able to give them something that is more important than all money of the world. We love them, unconditional. They feel seen and loved…

Forbidden

And now we have been here again since two months. The first week we were arrested by the police after the camp was on fire, because I was talking with people who lived on the street at that time. That seems to be forbidden…

We lived in Agio Konstatinos for six weeks because we couldn’t rent a house here. We traveled by bus or let our boys come over and took them into the mountains.

Now that it is getting colder we have rent a very expensive house in Vaithy itself. We can cook for people and give them the feeling of warmth. And if the weather permits, we still take them into the mountains.  Unbelievably energetic and healing, also for ourselves…

On the run

Although I write about refugees because I think it touches the core of our humanity, ultimately I write about you and me. We are all on the run. We are all been wrapped in the illusion of social engineering and prosperity, by media and other giants. We confuse prosperity with well-being.

It is up to us whether we want to continue with business as usual as we do. I wonder if we really choose to leave behind to our children a world where we violate human rights and worship money as our new God…

Our world

Our research starts with the question what life on earth really is about. Do we have the guts to think independently and do we dare to investigate whether the world is really as bad as the media is showing us. To be honest I don’t like to believe it…

The world as we experience it is a projection of our thinking.  That which we see and experience is that which we are in our deepest essence.
I approach people the way I want to be treated myself. With confidence and respect. I am seldom or never mistaken. When it happens, it keeps me awake…

Stagnation is deathly. Movement brings renewal and that is real Life. As far as I’m concerned, let them come. We need them. The doctors, the nurses, the dentists, the bus drivers and especially the people with their optimistic and refreshing ideas.

I start to prepare the crib. My hands are empty, my heart is open. I wish you a transforming Christmas…

Om Shanti,
Yasmin