Eressos Connected
is actually a Twitter party when it comes down to neighborhood in Skala Eressos, a beachside city from the Island of
Lesbos
, Greece. The city is actually breathtakingly gorgeous: conventional tavernas and bars range the seafront, deposits of sunlight glow across the drinking water as men and women consume new fish and toast another cloudless day in utopia. It’s also a
lesbian utopia


; queer ladies are every-where there’s a (record-breaking) three lesbian taverns throughout the primary remove.

Residents, lesbians, Greek families, and hippies live amicably alongside each other, all acknowledging that this is one of the sole spots in the arena where lesbians can go to enjoy strong, genuine, long-lasting society. All groups utilize the Twitter class for common area company: identifying scruffy puppies, leasing houses, appealing individuals beach volleyball competitions, or natural lesbian weddings.

A month or more before, the website had a swell of task as folks smelt one thing using up, “can there be a flame?” they composed. “we smell it,” they noticed — “powerful smoke smell.” 24 hours later, development trickled in, striking statements across European countries, and very quickly the only real posts on Eressos Connected stressed the massive fire in Moria, Greece’s largest refugee camp, one hour and a half from the little lesbian sanctuary.

The camp, designed to keep 3,000 men and women, is actually house — during the most temporary, unsanitary, and annoying sense of the phrase — to 13,000 individuals: destitute individuals, refugees, asylum candidates, and migrants fleeing battle, poverty, or oppressive leaderships. They anticipate indefinite durations, hoping to have their unique applications given so they can penetrate the extremely militarized and more and more resistant fortress around Europe.

Refugees do not want to maintain Lesbos. Natives believe incapacitated of the increase men and women here. Tourism (the island’s main income) is stunted by unfolding crisis, while Covid has actually almost produced it to a standstill. Islanders think betrayed of the Greek government; government entities feels betrayed by different European countries. The specific situation is complicated and burgeoning, the flow of individuals from the global South to your international North is just within the infancy.

The Flame

Wanting to discern fact from fiction on Eressos Connected (as with all huge social networking class) is challenging. Intuitions, facts, and half-truths blend with each other, sparking passionate spiels, hot keyboard debates, hugging, weeping, and raging emojis. Nobody’s sure just who started it and how the
fire started.
Many believe it was intentionally set — by asylum candidates probably, fed up with living in purgatory, enraged of the camp’s recent separation orders (after 35 Moria residents tested positive for Covid). Some say it had been set by right-wingers, the authorities, the locals. We may can’t say for sure for sure. The fire definitely caused considerable harm. Some areas lasted, other individuals are ash and dirt. Photos of burnt asylum applications tend to be particularly haunting — the outlook of getting to begin yet again.

Greek police have created a parameter across camp avoiding folks from locating housing in local towns. You can find refugees demonstrating with regards to their independence, your abolition of Moria. Locals on remaining and right tend to be calling for the exact same thing. Army helicopters is heard overhead. Discover reports of police organizing tear gas and pictures of refugees flowing coca-cola on their burning sight. Lesbos is actually a state of disaster. Tonight, many people tend to be resting on roadsides and gas programs. A few mountain ranges out, in Skala Eressos, the lesbians have been in Flamingo Beach pub.

The Sinking Titanic

The lesbian neighborhood in Skala Eressos is worldwide and intergenerational: 70 12 months olds from Paris, 40 12 months olds from Cape community, 20 12 months olds from Athens. You will find females of various political persuasions and economic scenarios: personal employees and community money lawyers, products and artisans, fitness instructors from swanky fitness centers in Berlin, ascetic-wandering yogis from Goa. Each one is hooked on this one. Skala is actually the blood; it’s the nearest thing to a property many have actually.

Fewer pubs tend to be open this year, and there are a lot less females than typical. Most of us took a risk coming here, and seated in Flamingo this evening, it is like it really is paid. The club pulses as Diana Ross stations from speakers and other people drink daiquiris, flirt, talk, and dancing inside their chairs — attaining social peaks they’d authored down this season. Nearly all women take a 10-day getaway. They want to consume octopus, play volleyball, ride paddleboards, chase enjoyment and delight, and steer clear of whatever might destroy this sacred-seeming excursion.

There are others right here this evening whom look pulled and cleared, like they will have invested from day to night squinting at their particular mobile phones within the last few in the summer’s sunshine, reading and seeing the refugee crisis unfold


just a few hundred kilometers out


. They may be troubled because of the proximity, by the similar landscapes in news reports and all around them. They significantly have the dichotomies of


the sea as life-giving for them, existence getting for other individuals; the mountains as locations to hike, or spots to full cover up from the Greek police; the sunlight they brown in, the exact same sunshine that pounds onto the tarmac of petrol programs. These ladies are seated in Flamingo, anesthetizing themselves with ouzo, enjoying their own area, wanting to know precisely why not one person more seems to care and attention.

You can find definitely various perceptions to your refugee situation about island — inside extremely club. Discover those focused on your local economic climate, about Greece’s economic issues, and regarding depths of their own purse. You can find women right here which tirelessly volunteer with refugee, teaching English or violin or basic refugee rights. You can find ladies who always provide time, fuel, and sources but feel disillusioned today, like their efforts performed absolutely nothing to remedy the specific situation. There is condescension from those people that’ve thrown within the soft towel, which knocks the wind off individuals who’re ready and raring doing what they can to alleviate the suffering men and women in immediate demand.

As a residential district, we seem to be paralyzed by divergence in viewpoint and enormity from the circumstance. Do not understand what doing, who to trust, do not know where you should send the cash. We don’t have physical abilities to help and support. We all know that offering crisis aid, sleeping handbags, and sanitizer is something, however a remedy at all.

Though it would be challenging charge any person at this club with perhaps not nurturing, there is a noteworthy silence, increased — t


their year, more and more — by a want to not destroy others’s getaway.


The silence renders people chilling out inside coastline club, the moonlight dance about drinking water, filled up with the eerie experience we’re toasting the evening given that Titanic basins.

The Lesbian Response

When the celebration at Flamingo started initially to feel a tad too disconnected from reality, something great occurred. The DJ died out of a Stevie question track and passed a microphone to somebody in audience. “Hello Flamingo,” she said, before namelessly introducing herself as an associate of an area queer womxn’s collective, Ohana. These are generally a team of 10 who happen to live on a piece of area a kilometer from the coastline.

“today, our very own collective met up and spoke,” she mentioned. “We talked and chatted and made the decision absolutely an elephant into the space in Skala Eressos. We are all aware of the unfolding refugee situation about this area, truly within the back or perhaps the front of all of the of your thoughts. Yet, we don’t be seemingly carrying out anything about it. At best conversational or keyboard activists, we offset all of our guilt with a like or a mention before getting returning to our ouzos, daiquiris, and lesbian romance.”

“All those things are fantastic, really great; we are a marginalized neighborhood in a patriarchal world, we are permitted to experience delight and enjoyment and belonging,” she persisted. “But we should try this knowingly. We would be home, but lots of people on this subject really stone tend to be far removed from any semblance of residence.”

“So tonight,” she said, “we will start fundraising. We have now connected with a regional NGO called
Pikpa Lesvos Solidarity.


They are taking care of this island for eight many years, mostly with susceptible populations (and mainly women and kids). Using the money lifted this evening, two members of the group will look for the needs — think hand sanitizer, powdered dairy, undies, water — fill a Jeep, and drop all of them off in the organization’s HQ the next day mid-day.”

As the address drew to a close, she requested individuals give the price of a go or a beverage — any such thing they can. Applause out of cash away, and a profound sense of reduction surged through the group. An improvised donation’s bucket moved around, swiftly filling up with 20s, 20s, 20s, 50s, singles. After a swift half-an-hour whip, €620 spilled from bucket. Community activation plainly actually hard. The lesbians right here only necessary a spot to pour their own sources, a path to help make positive personal modification.

Given that final few songs played at Flamingo, the movie stars punctuated lots of sections of air, while the Ohana user took to the level saying thanks to everyone else abundantly. She was actually truly gob-smacked from the overflowing container. “Thanks a lot, thank you, efcharisto,” she mentioned. “we had been anticipating 100 euro, perhaps two, but this can be amazing!”

She paused for a while before she stated, “We are the lesbians of the island of Lesvos; this is certainly undoubtedly our very own duty too.” It feels like lesbians worldwide can substitute solidarity using the lesbians regarding island of Lesbos. This ongoing humanitarian situation is of our own responsibility.

To subscribe to Pikpa head to


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



Stay tuned in to get more updates regarding scenario in Lesbos.