I’m finally here. I’m on the road!
I guess it requires a little backing up to how I got here and what the hell I’m doing. So first things first, hey. If you’re reading this, thank you!! I don’t know if anyone will, and I don’t know the first thing about starting a blog, but when you decide to travel for an indeterminate amount of time it seems like the right thing to do – you blog about it. Right?
This trip has been a pipe dream for years that slowly became a reality over the last four months. After working as a nurse for four years and a primary care nurse practitioner for one, I wanted to leave my 8-4:30 job and explore more, see more, do more. My loose aim in booking this was to mix travel and volunteer nursing work for as long as my budget will allow. It’s been scary as hell to change gears and approach life in this way – I’ve always been one to plan years out into the future, and now I may not even plan where I’ll spend my next night. But at the same time…aren’t those things that scare us the very things that help us grow?
My first stop has been Greece to work with (what I thought was) the Syrian refugee crisis from now until August 10th. I spent my few days in Greece in Athens and a surrounding beach town, Nafplio, and then headed to Lesvos to start work last Friday. I thought naively at the time, hey – I’ll do a mix of vacationing and volunteering, get to see Greece, help some people, cool. However, my eyes have quickly been forced open to acknowledge that the refugee crisis is unbelievably underreported in mainstream media, and those affected are FAR from limited to Syrians fleeing persecution from ISIS. Our world is dealing with a humanitarian refugee crisis that is beyond what I ever imagined. Millions here in the EU fleeing from not only Syria but from the Congo, Afghanistan, Iraq, Mali, and Cameroon, among others. I’ve been here six days and it feels like it’s been six months…the hell that these people have been forced into while seeking safe harbor is something that would give the soundest sleeper nightmares.
I’ll post later today or tomorrow with more on my first week in Lesvos, but just wanted to say – I’m here, and the things that are happening here give me renewed determination to keep this blog up, not only as a way to document my travels but as a conduit to provide information about what’s happening on the ground here in Lesvos.
More soon.
Xo,
Charlotte
Char from Afar 