Subject Name

Running Water

Photographer

Elizabeth Thayer

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Contributing Organization

TSOS

Location

Greece

Photo Date

2016

Description

Their whole lives were destroyed: comfortable homes, communities, families, studies, steady jobs, and hopes for the future. They fled, carrying little but the hope of a safer future with them. Now they wait, paused for who knows how long in tents on the site of an abandoned factory in Greece. Comparatively speaking, it is not the worst place to wait. This camp has the luxuries of a small school room, a medical unit, an electric strip for charging phones, two rows of port-a-potties and a shower unit...and running water from a. hose for drinking and for washing. For most, running water used to be a common convenience that was taken for granted. Now, like the hope that keeps them going day in and day out, it is a precious, sustaining necessity. Barbara Kingsolver wrote, "The very least you can do in your life is figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof." And that is what these refugees do. They cling hope in an ocean of uncertainty. In the words of Rahim, "other than hope, we don't have anything else. Every day the refugees keep praying and nobody hears their voice except God. They are still waiting...But still, we have hope"

Keywords

Children, Afghanistan, Refugee, Camp, Greece, School, Education, Painting, Art

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