insight
Volunteer Life
Greece, the land of paradoxes
by Roberto Gentile
“It was saturday, the 5th of february. Three in the afternoon of a normal day. I had the idea to take a coffee, so I got dressed, took the house’s keys and went to the first coffee bar I met on my way. I looked for a free seat and sat down. A waiter came towards me: “Can I check your vaccination?”, he asked. “Yes, of course,’’ I replied. He checked. Then said: “This certificate is invalid. You cannot stay”. Here starts my journey. The main character of this story is Diogo Vi- “You cannot stay.” The waiter said. larinho, 25 years old, graphic designer from “But I had my vaccine in July”, I went. Portugal. He has been volunteering at Balkan Hotspot since October 2021. “Yes, and now it’s expired. You cannot stay.” This story will see him involved in a series of Despite his rudeness, I kept calm and told him:
challenges just to get a simple thing: the AMKA “NO WAY!!! IMPOSSIBLE!!! I had my vaccine 8 NUMBER. No worries, I will explain everything months ago!” to you. And here I found out the problem: in Greece the Let’s go back to the story. Here’s again Diogo vaccination certificate is valid for 7 months. telling us his drama: In my country and in almost every country in Europe, it is valid for 9 months. The immediate consequence of this discovery was the awareness of having lost part of my freedom. I felt a lot of fear of missing out: imagine seeing people going out, planning trips or even smaller things like a simple movie at the cinema: you are there, listening to them, but you cannot go with them. And this is really frustrating.
And it wasn’t completely my fault, because I Diogo Vilarinho
© Balkan Hotspot
was vaccinated, and in my country, Portugal,
09
