Gadgetory

so we're at an unofficial refugee camp under an overpass in athens in Athens in the port so there's like tourists come through right back over there it's like obvious juxtaposition of like an operational port and like an unofficial refugee camp the bulk of the people were now had moved from the island of lesbos to Athens and so the camps that we saw they're much more urban many more people you know in many different locations throughout the city I would say almost everybody if not everybody that wasn't a child had a smartphone usually when they arrived in Greece they will get local SIM cards my phones to buying chargers most of the time it wasn't an official like charging station it was just kind of here's an outlet and the refugees have hooked up you know five power strips to it we're in a cab today it's Friday we're on our way to Lenny phone which is the old International Airport this shutdown that's now turned into we understand an official unofficial site for Refugees this one is controlled by the Greek government but it was very strange very surreal there's you know arrival and departure signs and there's you know baggage claim their day-to-day life I mean as far as the technology and the way they they kind of they do a lot of what everybody what we do what everyone around the world does is kind of you know the women when you're bored you sit around and your ear on your phone they're on Facebook they're they're exchanging information via Facebook and whatsapp and kind of keeping in touch with with other people's other friends movements which sometimes can happen very quickly is that like Facebook page to check where is it online like how would you how would you know the word love i hope i have a big one of the various amendment news it's just these refugees knew that if they broke it would be very difficult to replace them and they were such an important element in their lives to make sure that they had some sort of connection to other people and you know the world around them there are a lot of people in the official camps but there's also a lot of people who are just kind of squatting at different places in the city we found networks of squats all over Athens there were more than a dozen different squats that were basically unused and abandoned buildings that had been taken over by different groups that then were able to house refugees and a lot of them actually had facebook groups or Twitter handles partly because those squats are illegal and so they needed to use those different types of social media networks to get out the message we went to this hotel for for Refugees it's an abandoned hotel called City Plaza they cook everything they they have you know clean sheets in their rooms and they they're in hotel rooms that look similar to this one I think this the most striking thing was that these people were probably the nicest people that I've met ever we did end up being able to talk a lot to the actual refugees who were all extremely kind and friendly and open and willing to talk to us they were just kind of left in limbo living in tents with minimal resources and no way to kind of change their own situation so we came to Greece to report on technology and its role in all of this but after this trip it's clear to me that tech is really only a means to an end but really it's it's all about people you