So said one of our team members as he stepped into the van, over bags to get to his seat.  By the door…….the door was open………it still smelled.  Such is the current situation.  As of today we have driven over 1300 miles and still have a day and 1/2 to go.  We basically live in the van and I suspect a Greek cheese pie is wedged under the 2nd row seat…we have been know to stop at bakeries daily in search of cheese and meat pies.

We started the day driving back to the warehouse in Alex to put together more beds and to finish up counting items for inventory.  We met up with a volunteer at the hotel we’d stayed at earlier in the week.  Their team was eating breakfast- the front desk people are not to pleased with me.

Somehow I used the room key to get INTO the room, but lost the key after that.  Upon leaving last week I told them it had to be in the room-seriously how does this happen?

We finished packing up beds and putting everything back in order for the next team- there are going to be some VERY happy babies soon.

Part of our job this trip is to explore newly formed camps- the situation is very fluid here in the North.  One of the camps we heard about earlier in the week had just moved out this afternoon.  We were able to give 2 beds to 2 moms in a camp that will be moving at

the end of the week.

We next headed out to a Yazidi camp that used to be housed on the side of Mount Olympus- i’d visited it during all of my previous trips and knew they had been relocated, just didn’t know where.  One of our team mates works with 2 refugee families in Lincoln, NE and the cousin of one of her families in NE was at a camp in this area.  It ended up being where Petra Camp was relocated!  In a small town, on the side of the lake this camp now has taken over the whole of the town!

Our welcome was not very welcoming by the camp director- we will try and return tomorrow.  But so happy to see these lovely people off the side of the mountain.  The camp is very isolated, but the scenery is beautiful.

Next we went to another camp and it too had moved this week!  We worked our way to a sea side town to spend the night and had a nice dinner at a sea side restaurant.