Today was all about sorting clothes and finding all the usual inappropriate gear that refufees are very unlikely to wear like white high heel all boots!

I mean really? High heel boots?! Or a single shoe without its matching buddy to make a pair? Jeans with grubby stains and suspicious smell? No thank you.

Unfortunately the warehouse gets overrun with unsorted donations and instead of taking away entire van’s full of unsuitable donations they dump them / fly tip them behind the warehouse. Unfortunately they get picked through, dogs then live in it and produce more filth and rats too. Bleugh. It took three people about 8 hours to sort through the rubbish to rescue anything we could (which was very little) or bag up and bin bags and bags of clothes that reeked of urine having been left in a disused and disgusting bathroom.

Among them were some gloriously NOT useful shoes and only a single of the pair!

Tired out and fed up of negligence we went home to rally another day.

Day four was the finish up of cleaning up and binning the refuse behind the warehouse. Once that was done a change of scene was needed and we headed to the BP garage close to Idomeni camp that also has lots of refugees there.

You can see Trace here with the kids playing and putting little heart stickers on their faces. They soak up all attention like sponges and want more.

Always seeking out a kind smile, a hand to hold onto and grab crayons from. Pencils, colouring pens and crayons are like gold to the kiddies .. to the other volunteers who want to do this, try your best to find a quiet and closed space to do this in as it can quickly and easily turn into a riot if you are not prepared.

After drawing faces on balloons and drawing, making tunnels with tarps and giving out dozens upon dozen .. upon dozen’s of little stickers on faces. It was time to call it a day, tired, grubby and wanting a bath.