Found Poetry from the Refugee Crisis in Greece

A.E. Stallings surveys the Guide to Volunteering in Athens

APPENDIX A: USEFUL PHRASES IN ARABIC, FARSI/DARI AND GREEK
(found poem, from the Guide to Volunteering in Athens, as updated for March 17, 2016)

Welcome to Greece!

Thank God for your safe arrival (greeting after trip)

Hello

Good morning

Good evening

Good night

Thank you

You’re welcome

Please

I don’t understand

I don’t speak Arabic / Farsi

Slowly

Come here

You’re safe

Are you wet / cold?

Yes / No

My name is ...

What is your name?

He / She / It is

We / They are

God is with the patient (will make people laugh)

Give yourself a break (comforting words)

free (no charge)

refugee

volunteer

foreigner

friend

I am hungry

thirsty

food

water

Does it hurt?

sick

pregnant

mother / father

brother / sister

child

family

What country is your family from?

pharmacy

medicine

hospital

doctor

tent

sorry, it has run out

we do not have it now

new shoes only if yours are broken

wait here, please

I will return soon

follow me / come with me

Come back in...

5 / 15 / 45 minutes

one hour

quarter / half hour / half day

today / tomorrow / yesterday

How many people?

Sorry

Stay calm

One line, please

Next person

A.E. STALLINGS, contributing editor, is an American poet, critic, and translator based in Athens, Greece. Her verse translation of Lucretius, The Nature of Things (2007), has recently been reissued in hardback by Penguin Classics. Her most recent collection is Olives (2012), and her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Parnassus, The New Criterion, and other magazines. In 2011, she became a MacArthur Fellow.