Day 25: Hope

It would be easy for the average person visiting Casa del Refugiado to focus on the hard things—the unimaginable hardships most guests have been through, the metal cots, the lines of porta-potties, the half-broken showers. 

The Red Cross meals that are served here consist of crushed red meat, canned beans, bread, and occasionally a piece of fruit or a donut from the shop down the road. 

It usually smells a bit like human waste. Because of the high volume of new arrivals we get every day, the floors are never clean. The trashcans always seem to be overflowing. 

This week, we've been dealing with a heat advisory of over 105-degree temperatures every day, and all of our swamp coolers handily broke four days ago. They have not been fully repaired. 

If I was visiting CDR for the first time, it would be impossible not to focus on the stench, the food, the heat, and the desperation. 

But what would be lacking in an off-hand assessment like that is the perspective and the humanity. 

One of my favorite things to do here is to close the dorm at night. I like walking through the lines of cots, listening to parents whisper to each other or comfort their crying babies. I've never been in a dorm setting with so many people from so many parts of the world. It's comforting for me to know that volunteers and guests are all sleeping under the same roof. 

At the end of every ten-hour shift, I'm reminded not of the over-flowing trashcans or the lack of vegetables, but instead of the kindness and gratitude that every single guest shows as they wait in line to receive help. 

Most nights, I think about how a place that may seem inhospitable or dirty to some, is really a blessing to our guests. What CDR offers is worlds away from what they've all lived through in the past months and years. 

There's an underlying sense of hope. Families congratulate each other when they file out to get on a shuttle bus to the airport. Kids run around in packs screaming and laughing. Everyone is going on to a hopefully brighter and better life than what they're coming (and in many cases running) from. 

It's easy to get bogged down in the tragedy, trauma, and imperfect living conditions. It's easy to lose sight of that hope. 

I think learning to shift your perspective is one of the most important things you can do here.

(The Cathedral of Our Lady of Guadalupe in the heart of Ciudad Juárez.)