Eressos Connected
is actually a Twitter group for neighborhood in Skala Eressos, a beachside town about isle of
Lesbos
, Greece. The city is actually breathtakingly gorgeous: conventional tavernas and pubs range the seafront, crystals of sunlight glow over the liquid as people consume fresh fish and toast another cloudless day in utopia. Additionally, it is a
lesbian utopia


; queer women are everywhere and there’s a (record-breaking) three lesbian taverns on primary strip.

local lesbians, Greek households, and hippies live amicably alongside each other, all acknowledging that the is among the only spots on earth in which lesbians can visit experience strong, true, long-lasting neighborhood. All factions use the Facebook group for basic island business: determining scruffy canines, leasing homes, inviting visitors to beach volleyball tournaments, or natural lesbian wedding events.

A month or more before, your website had a swell of task as individuals smelt something burning, “can there be a fire?” they penned. “we smell it,” they observed — “powerful smoking odor.” The next day, development trickled in, striking headlines across European countries, and very quickly truly the only posts on Eressos Connected involved the huge fire in Moria, Greece’s largest refugee camp, an hour or so . 5 far from our very own little lesbian haven.

The camp, made to keep 3,000 folks, is home — in the majority of temporary, unsanitary, and annoying sense of your message — to 13,000 people: destitute men and women, refugees, asylum hunters, and migrants fleeing war, poverty, or oppressive leaderships. They anticipate indefinite times, looking to have their programs awarded so they are able permeate the highly militarized and increasingly impervious fortress around European countries.

Refugees don’t want to maintain Lesbos. Residents think incapacitated of the increase men and women right here. Tourism (the island’s major profits) has been stunted of the unfolding situation, while Covid provides almost brought it to a standstill. Islanders believe betrayed of the Greek federal government; government entities seems betrayed by other countries in europe. The situation is actually difficult and burgeoning, the circulation of men and women from the global Southern toward worldwide North is only within the infancy.

The Fire

Attempting to detect reality from fiction on Eressos associated (as with all huge social media party) is actually tricky. Intuitions, facts, and half-truths merge collectively, sparking passionate spiels, hot keyboard discussions, hugging, weeping, and raging emojis. Nobody’s positive just who started it as well as how the
flame started.
Many think it absolutely was intentionally ready — by asylum seekers maybe, tired of located in purgatory, enraged because of the camp’s previous isolation purchases (after 35 Moria residents tested positive for Covid). Some say it was set by right-wingers, law enforcement, the residents. We could possibly can’t say for sure definitely. The flame undoubtedly caused considerable harm. Some zones endured, other people are ash and dirt. Photos of burnt asylum programs tend to be particularly haunting — the prospect of getting to start yet again.

Greek authorities have actually constructed a factor across the camp to avoid folks from discovering protection in neighborhood communities. You will find refugees demonstrating with regards to their independence, the abolition of Moria. Locals on the remaining and correct are demanding the exact same thing. Army helicopters is heard overhead. You’ll find reports of police tossing tear-gas and photos of refugees pouring coca-cola to their using up sight. Lesbos is during a situation of disaster. Tonight, many people tend to be asleep on roadsides and petrol stations. Several mountain ranges away, in Skala Eressos, the lesbians have Flamingo Beach pub.

The Sinking Titanic

The lesbian neighborhood in Skala Eressos is actually international and intergenerational: 70 year olds from Paris, 40 year olds from Cape community, 20 12 months olds from Athens. You’ll find females of varied political persuasions and economic situations: social workers and general public money solicitors, cleansers and musicians and artists, fitness instructors from swanky fitness centers in Berlin, ascetic-wandering yogis from Goa. All are dependent on this place. Skala is during the blood; this is the nearest thing to property many folks have.

Less pubs tend to be available this year, so there tend to be fewer ladies than typical. Each of us took a danger coming here, and sitting in Flamingo tonight, it feels like it is paid off. The club pulses as Diana Ross stations from the speakers and other people drink daiquiris, flirt, chat, and dancing in their seats — attaining personal highs they’d created down this current year. Most women take a 10-day holiday. They want to consume octopus, play volleyball, journey paddleboards, pursue enjoyment and happiness, and give a wide berth to whatever might destroy this sacred-seeming travel.

There are others here tonight exactly who look drawn and drained, like they will have invested non-stop squinting at their particular phones in the last of summer’s sun, reading and seeing the refugee crisis unfold


a couple of hundred kilometers out


. They truly are troubled of the distance, of the the same surface in the news as well as around all of them. They seriously feel the dichotomies of


the sea as life giving on their behalf, life taking for other people; the hills as places to walk, or locations to cover up from Greek police; the sunlight they tan in, alike sunlight that pounds on the tarmac of petrol programs. These ladies are sat in Flamingo, anesthetizing by themselves with ouzo, viewing their unique community, wondering exactly why no body more generally seems to care.

Discover undoubtedly various attitudes towards refugee situation on this area — within really club. You will find those focused on the neighborhood economy, about Greece’s financial problems, and concerning the depths of their own purse. You will find females right here who tirelessly volunteer with refugee, teaching English or violin or standard refugee liberties. You’ll find women who used to provide time, electricity, and methods but feel disillusioned today, just like their initiatives performed absolutely nothing to remedy the problem. There’s condescension from individuals who’ve thrown from inside the towel, which knocks the wind out-of those people that’re prepared and raring to do whatever can to ease the suffering of men and women in immediate demand.

As a community, we appear to be paralyzed by divergence in opinion and enormity in the situation. We don’t know what to accomplish, whom to trust, have no idea the best place to send all of our money. Do not have real skills to aid and support. We realize that giving emergency aid, asleep handbags, and sanitizer is a thing, however a solution anyway.

Though it might be challenging recharge anybody during that club with not nurturing, there was a noteworthy silence, heightened — t


their season, more than ever — by a need to perhaps not destroy anybody else’s vacation.


The silence actually leaves us all going out in this beach bar, the moonlight dancing in the h2o, filled with the eerie sensation that we’re toasting the night as the Titanic basins.

The Lesbian Response

Whenever the party at Flamingo began to feel a little too disconnected from fact, something remarkable occurred. The DJ faded out of a Stevie Wonder track and passed a microphone to some body when you look at the audience. “Hello Flamingo,” she mentioned, before namelessly bringing in herself as an associate of a nearby queer womxn’s collective, Ohana. They truly are a group of 10 who happen to live on an item of land a kilometer from beach.

“This afternoon, our very own collective got together and chatted,” she stated. “We chatted and chatted and decided there is an elephant when you look at the area in Skala Eressos. We are all alert to the unfolding refugee crisis with this area, its for the back or even the front of all your brains. However, do not seem to be carrying out everything about any of it. At best conversational or keyboard activists, we offset the guilt with a like or a mention before getting back into our very own ouzos, daiquiris, and lesbian relationship.”

“these things are fantastic, fantastic; we are a marginalized society in a patriarchal world, our company is permitted to discover pleasure and pleasure and that belong,” she persisted. “But we should do that consciously. We might end up being house, but many people about this very rock are far-removed from any semblance of house.”

“therefore tonight,” she stated, “we’re going to begin fundraising. We have now linked with a local NGO called
Pikpa Lesvos Solidarity.


They’ve been doing this area for eight decades, mainly with prone populations (and generally women and kids). With the cash raised tonight, two people in our group will look for the needs — think hand sanitizer, powdered whole milk, undies, h2o — fill a Jeep, and decrease all of them off at corporation’s HQ tomorrow mid-day.”

Due to the fact message drew to a close, she asked individuals allow the price of a shot or a beverage — anything they may be able. Applause broke down, and a profound feeling of relief surged through audience. An improvised donation’s bucket went around, swiftly answering with 20s, 20s, 20s, 50s, singles. After a swift half-an-hour whip, €620 spilled from container. Community activation plainly is not difficult. The lesbians right here simply needed a place to pour their particular methods, a path in order to make positive social modification.

Since the last number of paths played at Flamingo, the performers punctuated a lot of tiers associated with air, in addition to Ohana user took to the level to thank everyone abundantly. She was truly gob-smacked because of the overflowing container. “Thank you so much, thank you, efcharisto,” she mentioned. “We were expecting 100 euro, maybe two, but this is certainly amazing!”

She paused for a while before she said, “we’re the lesbians of the area of Lesvos; this is exactly surely our very own duty too.” It feels as though lesbians all around the world can stand-in solidarity because of the lesbians regarding the area of Lesbos. This ongoing humanitarian situation is all in our obligation.

To contribute to Pikpa drop by


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



Stay tuned in to get more updates on circumstance in Lesbos.