Mycenaean Gold

I hadn’t planned to write another post so soon, but it turns out that I am in Athens, just a stone’s
throw, literally a three-minute walk, from the Greek National Museum of Archeology. This museum just happens, strangely enough, to contain what must be the best and biggest collection of Greek antiquities in the world.

So, since I’m not working at the Orange House until 10pm today, I strolled over to the impressive building that is the museum this morning, paid my five Euro entrance fee, walked into the first gallery and was totally blown away. Captivated, I think, would be the best description.
 
Beautifully displayed and amazingly well lit, the treasures of the Mycenaean civilization, dating back three or four thousand years, fill many display cases. When I say well lit, I mean they’ve made it possible for visitors to take photos, even with the humble iPhone, without reflection, and the glass of the cases is so clean and clear I frequently bumped my nose against it as I moved in to get a closer look at decorated vases, carved signet rings or anthropomorphic figurines (of course the bumping could have had something to do with my eyesight).

I walked around open mouthed: the death mask that Heinrich Schliemann declared to be the face of Agamemnon was here! In a further gallery a young boy galloped on a huge horse, cast in bronze more than 2,000 years ago and rescued from the sea to thrill awestruck twenty-first century visitors.

The place is stunning!

 

Here’s a brief gallery:

 

 

 

 

 

Gold funeral mask, from the royal shaft graves at Mycenae, about 1500 BCE

(Not really Agamemnon, too old)

 



 

        Gold body wrap for a dead infant, also from the royal shaft graves at Mycenae, about 1500 BCE

 



Oh, yes, all the descriptions are in English as well as Greek! What a gift!

This sword, buried with its owner, was deliberately bent so that the sword, too, would be “dead”.

 

 

There’s a whole lot more, of course from many periods, not just Mycenaean. My visit to the museum reminded me of the many happy hours I’d spent in the Welsh National Museum (Amgueddfa Genedlaethol Cymru - just to show I remember the Welsh!) as a child. I learned a lot there, just wandering unchecked from exhibit to exhibit.  It was good to see several groups of well-behaved Greek school children viewing their national treasures in their museum  today.  I wonder if they’ll be moved to come back alone in later life and gawp at the treasures as I did today.

 

 

 

     

 

 

So, Julia, what exactly are you doing in Athens?

So far - and this is day seven - I’ve worked six shifts at the Orange House and had one day off when I visited the island of Aegina.

This is me at the Temple of Aphaea on the island of Aegina.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Orange House is a small residential shelter and community center for refugees. Twenty people live here, all women and children under 18. They’re from Syria, Afghanistan, Cameroon and Sierra Leone. They live on the upper two floors of the house and come down into the community center area for language classes, to go in and out and, in the case of the children, to play and hang out with volunteers. The children are not at present enrolled in Greek schools: that’s being worked on.

 

Volunteer Mohammed opening the door.

 Many other people come in and out all day, so volunteers are ever alert for the doorbell – or people banging on the door if the bell isn’t working – because we need to keep an eye on who’s coming in. Two volunteers are scheduled 10 am to 4pm and two are scheduled 4pm to 10pm, but there are often others present too, sometimes for particular reasons and sometimes for no reason. There’s an overnight shift, too, very quiet, 10pm to 2am, which I haven’t done yet.

 

 Every day is different: people arrive in waves, especially just before classes: I open the door to beautifully serious teenage Syrian girls carrying their German notebooks; to elderly gentlemen coming for English conversation; to shy young men hoping someone will be present who understands their language, to families with babies and young children, and to various representatives of different organizations working with Zaatar, the organization that runs the Orange House. We’re meant to inquire politely of visitors what their business is but sometimes it’s a guessing game, especially when you’re new and can’t tell a refugee from a volunteer from a teacher! After all, it’s not emblazoned on their foreheads! And the situation is complicated because there are several volunteers who are refugees themselves.

 

 

Me with team from another organization: Goodwill Caravan.
They arrived like Santa Claus at 9pm with sacks
full of fresh fruit and vegetables.
They were mostly British.

The door is kept locked; people entering are monitored; I will not tell you the address of the Orange House, nor of the volunteer apartment where I’m staying, nor will I post any identifiable photographs of refugees. Why? Because there are people in Athens, as there are everywhere, who dislike and even target refugees and those who work with them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But, then, there are also plenty of people who accept and help. Athens is full of refugees, but I’m sure we were still noticeable as we walked through the streets to the Acropolis Museum today. We’d been offered free tickets, so a motley bunch of volunteers and refugees took a half-hour walk to the magnificent modern building that houses thousands of items from the Acropolis and offers a spectacular view of Athens.

 

 

Our group of 16 ranged in age from Sahar who is eight, to me, the oldest. It included people from Syria, Afghanistan; Guinea, Mauritania, Spain, Germany, New Zealand and USA/UK (that’s me). We had a blast! Everyone seemed to enjoy it, and there was a lot of laughter. Knowing that these are people who’ve suffered dislocation and trauma made their enjoyment poignant to me.

 

Chess at the Orange House

Over the past 20+ years, I’ve experienced several different nodes on the refugee continuum: I’ve been part of an aid delivery team to refugee camps in Croatia in 1995 and ’96;  I’ve worked with refugees settled in Vermont; last summer I volunteered  at the extraordinary Jungle camp in Calais where thousands of migrants and refugees gathered with the express purpose of stowing away on lorries to England, and now at the Orange House I’m seeing the day-to-day life of people stuck in the limbo that is Greece, a country where refugees are marooned,  hoping and planning their next step, waiting patiently or impatiently for documents, passports, papers and visas, suffering rejection or rejoicing in acceptance of asylum applications.

 

So what am I doing here? Spending hours deeply focused on conversations with English learners; playing card games, doing puzzles or cutting and pasting paper and card creations with the children; trying to take the youngsters out to the park as often as possible; welcoming visitors and directing them to classes; just trying to communicate, to help people relax.

 

 Saturday evening I’m scheduled to lead a Circle Dance. I have no idea how many people will turn up, or how it will be received, but I’m preparing what I hope will be an appropriate program and I’ll trust the outcome to luck and good will. There seems to be quite a lot of that about.

 

Some photos of the Orange House follow:




Kitchen



Patio

Big Room decorated for Valentine's Day

Bathroom

Classroom

Library corner of Big Room



Other end of Big Room, with volunteer.



 

An Avian Omen

I had thought that my next post would be from Greece, but something happened just before I left that I want to share with you.

I was rather anxious about the whole adventure, uncertain of where I was headed, so on the day I was due to leave I took a little time to walk in my sister’s garden – I was staying at her home in England – to calm my mind and to ask the Universe to help me approach the coming challenge with grace. Spring flowers were just beginning to bloom in the garden: snowdrops, a few early crocuses and even a violet or two. I wandered around, and came near the fence along the side of the garden. It’s a six-foot high palisade fence with overlapping vertical wooden slats.

As I approached, a blackbird fluttered against the fence. I thought it was just taking flight and I wondered if it was nest-building in the garden. Now the blackbird, you may know, is the prime songster in English gardens at this time of year, and it’s a handsome bird: a little larger than an American robin, entirely jet black with a vivid yellow beak and a yellow ring around each eye. Blackbirds are a delight for the ears and the eyes!

Here's a photograph I took of a blackbird
at the Findhorn Foundation in Scotland in 2013

But this one didn’t take off; it just flapped against the fence and as I approached I saw that it had managed to trap one of it legs between two of the slats. It was firmly stuck, and panicking. I approached and reached out to help it. The first thing it did was to peck me with that magnificent yellow beak, just once, and it didn’t do any harm. I clasped the bird gently, holding both wings in to the body. It shrieked, then grew calm. It must have taken me about a minute, cradling the little feathered body, to push and pull the slats of the fence far enough apart to release the foot. The instant its foot came free, it took off, escaping my grasp and disappearing into the nearest hedge. I found it greatly satisfying to see it fly free.

I have rarely, if ever, in my life had the privilege of really helping a wild bird, so I couldn’t help feeling that this was a sign from the Universe, a good omen to overlight my Greek adventure.