When Winter Comes

I spent a cold couple of weeks in Toronto, hearing news about how cold it was in other parts of the country and around the world. The famous frozen bubble experiment was conducted in the prairie province I grew up in - Saskatchewan. I was once accustomed to bracing prairie winters, but the mildness of the Colorado winter has eroded my ability to face those once-familiar temperatures without complaint. I swallow my complaints as I think about winter coming to the refugee camps I wrote about in  A Dangerous Crossing: Souda, Moria, Kara Tepe.  The UNHCR stretched to the limit as it attempts to winterize tents and inadequate shelters, tents catching fire from camp stoves used for heat.  And families waiting in the cold for a future that promises only uncertainty and greater suffering. And as Esa and Rachel discover on the Greek islands, the welcome that waits for refugees around the world is as cold and brutal as the winter.  That's the story I tell in A Dangerous Crossing.

Image is of Petra camp at the foot of Mt. Olympus, taken by Paul Carr in 2016.

UNHCR efforts in Greece