![]() ![]() The smugglers sold them life jackets but they were homemade, sometimes packed with newspaper instead of anything buoyant and invariably made from black material to stop them from being visible at night. The Greek coastguards were rescuing people as soon as they entered Greek waters in the small dinghies they had been packed into, so full there was standing room only. Many arrived on Chios, where I was sent, as well as Lesbos Samos and Kos. Some had sold all their possessions and given their life savings to smugglers to get them from Turkey to the nearest point in Europe. In the majority of cases, they had paid a small fortune. Large numbers of Syrian and Afghan refugees had left their war-torn countries and got as far as Turkey. ![]() This crisis was brought to the world’s attention when the dead body of the three-year-old Syrian Kurdish boy Aylan Kurdi was splashed across the front pages of national and international newspapers, highlighting the cost of this humanitarian crisis, almost on our doorstep. I had jumped at the chance to use my Farsi language skills on a humanitarian mission during the refugee crisis of 2015/2016. Larissa, the fire services were called to tackle the burning tents.We were there to attend to the aches and pains of the hundreds of refugees housed in these tents just outside the city of Larissa, approximately 350 kilometres north of Athens. The black smouldering mess was all that remained of half a dozen or so tents that were burning wildly when we arrived at the camp for our afternoon shift. ![]() My mother tongue is English I speak Farsi fluently, French at intermediate level and I am learning Spanish at the moment.” A Farsi interpreter in Larissa, Greece I interpret and have worked in the refugee camps in Greece as well as for local authority clients. I also teach EFL to adults and children in schools. I am self-employed and tutor English language and literature to school children up to GCSE level. “I am a qualified interpreter and English tutor/teacher. ![]()
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