the last couple of weeks we were able to organize beach days for more than 20 families of a housing project for refugees in Sindos.
Word about our trips quickly spread throughout the house and people were really eager to come to the beach with us. It is our goal to take as many families as possible during the time we are here, so we try to fill the van to the last seat everyday. Our van (which we named „the cloud“) hasn't let us down yet although sometimes it needs an expert push from the front to start.
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The families always come well prepared with delicious picnics and camping cookers to brew fresh coffee and heat the coal for their waterpipes. A very popular snack they bring to the beach is flat bread with olive oil and zatar (a middle eastern spice mix). That's one of the reasons we never leave the beach hungry.
We also took our little English students on a field trip to the beach as one of them celebrated his birthday. They were very happy about the collective birthday present we got for them ; a huge ice cream cone.
Every trip is different. Sometimes the whole family enjoys to swim in the sea, other times we take care of the kids in the water while the parents get to enjoy some rare moments to themselves. The summer feeling is completed at the end of the day when we take a group of exhausted kids and smiling parents home.
As not all the families we contacted were interested in going to the sea, we also offer to take them to beautiful Platanakia Park in the hills of Thessaloniki. This week we took the first three families to the piney forest of the nature park.
We are happy to have been able to do these trips for two entire housing projects in Sindos and that we have another three weeks to bring sunny days to even more families.
Love from Thessaloniki,
Debora & Meret