Day 5 Service Introduction and Crêpes

Today started out with a community group leader lunch with our awesome program directors Beth Ann and Robbie. I am one of four CGLs: me, Lauren Shields, Loree Ann Thompson, and Dustin Harris. We ate lunch at this great little Greek place in Glyfada. I had an amazing piece of fish with potatoes on the side, some Greek salad, and a Coke! Oddly enough, fish on the menu isn't as common as you would think since Greece is pretty much surrounded by water. Apparently, the fishermen only sell to really fancy restaurants and fish is usually really expensive. But my meal was delicious.

We basically talked about how we as CGLs thought the trip was going so far. BA and RRR gave us a little intro about our panel discussion at the place we would be serving next week. We prepared questions to talk about in our community groups and reviewed some tips on how to lead and facilitate good discussion.

After lunch, everyone got on the bus and we headed to Athens. We learned that we would be working with an independent NGO (non governmental organization) called Praksis. Their mission statement is "aiming at the creation, application, and realization of humanitarian and medical action programs". They provide a variety of services such as medical care, dental, gynecological, psychological and social support, legal help, shelter, job counselling, etc. They help any socially excluded group of people such as Greek poor, homeless or uninsured, street children, asylum seekers, immigrants, single-parent families, financial immigrants, ROMA (gypsies), victims of human trafficking, prison-released, and drug addicts. We have the privilege to work along side the awesome staff and volunteers at Praksis next week for Service Week!

They gave us a short introduction to their organization and we also heard from a woman from the Center for Life, another NGO that Praksis partners with, about HIV/AIDS in Greece. Then we listened as Abdoul, an asylum seeker from Sudan told his story about escaping and finding safety in Greece. It was heartbreaking to hear about his experiences and struggles. He spoke English fairly well and has been learning Greek for the past two years he's been here. I was almost in tears when he talked about leaving his family behind and how hard the process is to get asylum in Greece. He said "what can I do, there is no hope".

After our panel discussion with Praksis, we broke into community groups to discuss the week and what we had just learned. The questions incorporated our current issues in the US such as immigration and language issues. It was interesting to hear what each person in my group had to say to to see the differing and similar opinions. At one point, it got a little heated but I think it was a really good discussion overall.

We also got a quick overview of all the activities we will be doing for Service Week. I can't wait to get to work and do whatever we can to help out this amazing organization. I also can't wait to share it with all of you reading this!

I wish I had taken pictures at Praksis, but hopefully Beth Ann got some good pictures. I don't ever want to forget the smile and the serious, hurting expression on Abdoul's face. His story challenges me to think about the world differently and the work that Praksis is doing to help people like Abdoul encourages me to know that I can make a difference.

After we got back to the hotel from an intense but great day of discussion, a few of us went out to eat. We ate at the cutest little creperie bistro. I've never had crepes in the US so I was excited to try something new! I had a chicken and cheese crepe which was so big I could only eat half of it. The restaurant was decorated with fairy tale details and had images of Disney characters. It was so colorful and interesting. We sat outside under this wooden lattice that had a cool tree growing up over it with the leaves peeking through. There were candles and comfy seating. The inside was so quaint and so creatively decorated. We are planning to go back for dessert crepes one day before we leave Glyfada. Then we got gelato afterwards before heading back to the hotel.

I tried to watch Glee on Hulu and Grey's on ABC.com before bed, but I quickly learned that you can only watch shows online if you are inside the US or its territories. We only have one English channel on our TV here- CNN (London). We have actually enjoyed some of the programs that they have shown such as a special on Macedonia. We saw some information about some of the bad things happening in Athens. We are perfectly safe here and we didn't even realize these things were going on. Being outside of Athens in Glyfada, we are totally removed and out of any harm's way. The media likes to blow things out of proportion and make stuff seem more harmful or dangerous than they really are. We are aware of any demonstrations or strike that happen well ahead of time and are able to avoid those areas easily. On Saturday there are some political speeches happening in Athens that should be mostly peaceful, but we are staying in Glyfada just to be extra careful. Global LEAD's priority is to keep us safe. If you see things on TV that scare you, don't worry and don't believe everything you hear. We are safe and I haven't once felt threatened or in danger.

Thank you for your prayers!

xoxo,

Jenna