by Thaddeus Flint
Three days before Christmas, Cari Naftali of New Lebanon was updating her blog from Skala Sikaminias, a tiny fishing town on the island of Lesbos, Greece.
“Every day here I cry. Usually about the children and the babies,” she wrote. ”Today it was also a grandmother who sat silently alone, the pain of lifetimes in her eyes.”
[private]
While much of the world watched and gave their opinions on the refugee crisis unfolding last Fall, Naftali decided that she couldn’t just stand by while so many suffered.
“After months of reading daily stories of the horrifying plight of refugees,” said Naftali, “I felt compelled to go to Greece.”
She contacted Lighthouse Relief, a Swedish organization running a reception camp outside the village of Skala Sikaminias, and they invited her to come. The more hands the better. But Naftali is more than just another helping hand. As a trained Craniosacral Therapist—she works out of the Abode in New Lebanon, and at a Lenox location– Naftali is constantly working to relieve stress and pain, of which there would be no end on Lesbos.
By November 2015, Lesbos, which itself has a population of only 86,000, had seen over half a million refugees land on its shores. Syrians, Iraqis, Iranians, and Afghanis–sometimes over two thousand a day–were making the treacherous trip on rafts across the Aegean. While the crossing from Turkey to Lesbos and the European Union is only five miles, the rafts are often crowded to twice their capacity with refugees who frequently can’t swim. To make matters worse, the life vests ( for those who could afford them) were usually poorly made. Naftali says that nearly all the ones she saw were fake. Some were filled with sponge-like materials that absorbed water, dragging the wearers to the bottom of the sea. Hundreds have drowned. The cemeteries on the island have run out of room.
Naftali was in Lesbos by middle of December. “There seemed to never be enough hands to help all of the freezing, wet traumatized people arriving,” she said. “On average when I was there, the island of Lesbos was receiving 1000–some days up to 2000–refugees per day. Before winter set in, the numbers were much higher.”
For three and half weeks Naftali and other volunteers met refugees coming in near Skala Sikaminias, getting them to medical care and a place to rest before their voyage further north into the EU.
“I can’t describe what it felt like to not be able to work fast enough–there just were not enough of us–and so many cold wet people, hearing the babies crying and feeling their freezing little hands and feet knowing that many had to wait in their wet clothes while we raced to attend to everyone,” Naftali wrote on her blog December 20th.
Now back in New Lebanon, Naftali is planning on returning to Lesbos in the Spring.
“We cannot stand by idly,” she said.
Already she has given presentations on her experiences in Greece at the Abode, and the Quaker Intentional Village in Canaan. This Saturday she will be the Sadhana Center for Yoga and Meditation in Hudson, and more will follow.
“My heart has been forever altered,” says Naftali. “This is a tragedy that has been going on for years with no end in sight.” [/private]