Eressos Connected
is actually a fb party the community in Skala Eressos, a beachside town about isle of
Lesbos
, Greece. The town is breathtakingly stunning: conventional tavernas and bars range the seafront, crystals of sunlight glow over the h2o as folks take in new fish and toast another cloudless time in haven. It is also a
lesbian utopia


; queer women can be everywhere and there’s a (record-breaking) three lesbian bars on primary remove.

Natives, lesbians, Greek people, and hippies stay amicably alongside each other, all acknowledging this is one of the only spots in the world in which lesbians can visit enjoy deep, genuine, durable society. All factions use the fb team for basic area company: distinguishing scruffy canines, leasing houses, appealing individuals beach volleyball tournaments, or natural lesbian wedding receptions.

Fourteen days before, the website had a swell of activity as individuals smelt anything using up, “Is there a fire?” they had written. “we smell it,” they noticed — “powerful smoke odor.” The following day, news trickled in, hitting headlines across European countries, and soon really the only posts on Eressos Connected stressed the huge flame in Moria, Greece’s largest refugee camp, an hour or so and a half away from our very own small lesbian destination.

The camp, built to hold 3,000 people, is actually home — for the the majority of short-term, unsanitary, and annoying sense of the phrase — to 13,000 men and women: destitute people, refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants fleeing combat, impoverishment, or oppressive leaderships. They watch for indefinite periods, hoping to have their particular applications issued to allow them to permeate the highly militarized and progressively resistant fortress around European countries.

Refugees do not want to maintain Lesbos. Natives feel incapacitated of the increase men and women right here. Tourism (the island’s main revenue) was stunted from the unfolding crisis, while Covid provides practically produced it to a standstill. Islanders feel betrayed by Greek federal government; government entities feels betrayed by different countries in europe. The specific situation is complex and strong, the flow of men and women from the international South toward worldwide North is just within the infancy.

The Flame

Attempting to discern fact from fiction on Eressos Connected (as with all large social media marketing group) is complicated. Intuitions, truths, and half-truths blend together, triggering enthusiastic spiels, hot keyboard arguments, hugging, weeping, and raging emojis. Nobody’s positive which began it and just how the
flame began.
Many believe it had been deliberately ready — by asylum candidates perhaps, tired of located in purgatory, enraged of the camp’s current separation orders (after 35 Moria residents tested positive for Covid). Some state it had been set by right-wingers, law enforcement, the natives. We might can’t say for sure definitely. The fire undoubtedly caused significant damage. Some areas lasted, other people tend to be ash and dirt. Photos of burnt asylum programs tend to be especially haunting — the prospect of getting to begin yet again.

Greek authorities have actually constructed a parameter round the camp to avoid folks from discovering refuge in regional communities. You will find refugees demonstrating due to their liberty, when it comes down to abolition of Moria. Locals regarding remaining and right are demanding the same. Army helicopters could be heard overhead. There are reports of authorities tossing tear-gas and photographs of refugees flowing coca-cola on their burning up eyes. Lesbos is actually a situation of crisis. Tonight, lots of people tend to be asleep on roadsides and petrol programs. Several hill ranges out, in Skala Eressos, the lesbians come into Flamingo Beach Bar.

The Sinking Titanic

The lesbian community in Skala Eressos is intercontinental and intergenerational: 70 season olds from Paris, 40 12 months olds from Cape community, 20 season olds from Athens. Discover ladies of varied governmental persuasions and financial situations: social workers and community money solicitors, cleansers and musicians and artists, fitness trainers from swanky health clubs in Berlin, ascetic-wandering yogis from Goa. All are hooked on this one. Skala is during all of our bloodstream; simple fact is that closest thing to a house a lot of us have actually.

Fewer pubs are available this year, there are a lot less ladies than normal. All of us got a risk popping in, and resting in Flamingo this evening, it feels as though it really is paid back. The club pulses as Diana Ross pumps from the speakers and folks drink daiquiris, flirt, chat, and dance within seats — attaining personal highs they’d authored down this year. The majority of women take a 10-day getaway. They want to eat octopus, play volleyball, ride paddleboards, chase delight and pleasure, and avoid something that might ruin this sacred-seeming excursion.

There may be others here this evening exactly who look drawn and exhausted, like they have invested all round the day squinting at their particular mobile phones within the last few associated with summer’s sun, checking out and watching the refugee situation unfold


a hundred or so kilometers out


. They are troubled from the proximity, because of the identical landscapes in the news and all around them. They deeply have the dichotomies of


the ocean as life-giving on their behalf, life using for others; the hills as places to walk, or places to full cover up from the Greek authorities; the sun they tan in, similar sunlight that pounds on the tarmac of gasoline stations. These women are seated in Flamingo, anesthetizing by themselves with ouzo, watching their particular community, questioning the reason why no-one more generally seems to care.

You can find definitely various attitudes on the refugee situation on this subject island — in this extremely club. You’ll find those focused on the neighborhood economic climate, about Greece’s financial troubles, and towards depths of one’s own purse. You will find females here exactly who tirelessly volunteer with refugee, teaching English or violin or standard refugee legal rights. You’ll find women that regularly give time, energy, and resources but feel disillusioned now, like their attempts did nothing to remedy the problem. There is condescension from those people that’ve thrown from inside the soft towel, which knocks the wind away from people who’re ready and raring accomplish whatever they can to alleviate the suffering of individuals in immediate require.

As a residential district, we seem to be paralyzed by divergence in view and enormity of the circumstance. We don’t know very well what doing, exactly who to believe, don’t know the best places to deliver all of our cash. Do not have real abilities to help and support. We realize that offering disaster aid, asleep bags, and sanitizer is something, not a remedy at all.

Although it would-be difficult to charge any individual as of this club with maybe not caring, there’s a noteworthy silence, increased — t


their 12 months, inside your — by a desire to maybe not destroy anybody else’s vacation.


The silence simply leaves us all going out contained in this beach club, the moonlight dancing in the liquid, filled up with the eerie feeling that individuals’re toasting the evening while the Titanic basins.

The Lesbian Response

If the celebration at Flamingo began to feel a touch too disconnected from real life, something great occurred. The DJ faded away of a Stevie question track and passed a microphone to some body inside audience. “Hello Flamingo,” she mentioned, before namelessly exposing herself as a member of an area queer womxn’s collective, Ohana. They have been several 10 who live on a piece of area a kilometer from the beach.

“today, our very own group got together and spoke,” she said. “We talked and spoke and made the decision there’s an elephant into the area in Skala Eressos. We all have been aware of the unfolding refugee crisis on this area, it really is inside the back or even the front side of most of your heads. However, we don’t be seemingly performing any such thing regarding it. At the best conversational or keyboard activists, we offset the guilt with a like or a mention before getting back again to all of our ouzos, daiquiris, and lesbian romance.”

“every one of these everything is great, excellent; the audience is a marginalized society in a patriarchal world, the audience is allowed to discover joy and pleasure and belonging,” she carried on. “But we must repeat this knowingly. We may be home, but many people on this really stone are far removed from any semblance of home.”

“Thus this evening,” she stated, “we’re going to begin fundraising. We have now linked with a nearby NGO called
Pikpa Lesvos Solidarity.


They have been concentrating on this island for eight decades, largely with vulnerable communities (and mainly ladies and kids). Together with the cash elevated tonight, two people in all of our group will shop for the necessities — think hand sanitizer, powdered dairy, undies, drinking water — fill a Jeep, and decrease them down on organization’s HQ the next day afternoon.”

While the speech drew to an in depth, she questioned men and women to provide the price of an attempt or a beverage — any such thing they may be able. Applause smashed out, and a profound feeling of reduction surged through the audience. An improvised donation’s container went around, swiftly completing with 20s, 20s, 20s, 50s, singles. After a swift half-an-hour whip, €620 spilled through the container. Community activation plainly isn’t really difficult. The lesbians right here just required a spot to pour their resources, a path which will make good social change.

While the last couple of tracks played at Flamingo, the stars punctuated many sections with the sky, plus the Ohana user took to the stage saying thanks to everybody else amply. She ended up being truly gob-smacked of the overflowing bucket. “many thanks, many thanks, efcharisto,” she said. “We were expecting 100 euro, perhaps two, but this will be amazing!”

She paused for a moment before she stated, “Our company is the lesbians of island of Lesvos; this might be undoubtedly the obligation as well.” It feels as though lesbians all around the world can stand in solidarity aided by the lesbians about island of Lesbos. This ongoing humanitarian crisis is all in our responsibility.

To contribute to Pikpa check out


https://www.lesvossolidarity.org/en/support-us.



Stay tuned to get more changes about situation in Lesbos.