July 29, 2016

Are We There Yet?

A bunch of us from our show went to refugee camps all over Greece. We found people falling in love, kids mad at their parents for dragging them to Europe, women doing their laundry in a baseball stadium locker room, and hundreds of people living at a gas station—sitting next to the pumps, smoking. Also: wild pigs. 57,000 refugees are stuck in Greece, making homes in some surprising locations. We hear what that’s really like. (Part Two)

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Transcript

Interactive Tour

Boar Traps, Beaches, and a Baseball Stadium

A team from This American Life visited five refugee camps in Greece, and sent a group of architects and engineers to capture each camp.

Prologue

We were interested in how the Greek government was dealing with the refugees, but we also wanted to know what it was like for all these people who thought they were heading elsewhere in Europe who are now stuck in these camps, where they’re just waiting for some country to let them in and restart their lives. Ira goes on a quick tour of camps around Greece. (6 1/2 minutes)  

By

Ira Glass

Act One

Field of Interrupted Dreams

One good place to see how this ad hoc response is working is at an abandoned baseball stadium in Athens. About a thousand Afghans are now living here. (11 1/2 minutes)

By

Miki Meek

Act Two

The Parents, Trapped

Kids are everywhere in the camps, they’re a third of the refugees. You see them around, improvising stuff to play with. Ira talks to a woman named Aziza Bashar about what it’s like to be a parent in a camp. She has six children, the oldest 18, the youngest five. (16 minutes)