Day 51: If You Could Describe the Shelter in a Sentence...

Today during shift, I asked all of the volunteers to describe Casa del Refugiado in a sentence. This is what they came up with: 

"Nothing here works. Only the people work."
- Sarah (Indiana) 

"It doesn't check any boxes for me—no windows, no heating, no air, no oven, no real beds for guests—and yet it's the most welcoming building I've ever been in."
- Bella (Georgia) 

"Donde no hay amor, pon amor, y sacarás amor." 
"Where there is no love, give love, and you will find love." 
- Abi (Kentucky) 

"When you work here, it feels like you're simultaneously building an airplane and flying it." 
- Grace (New York)

"It's where we welcome the stranger." 
- Matt (Vermont)

"It feels like both a starting point and an ending point." 
-David (New York) 

"Restoración de la dignidad para todos, incluyendo nosotros." 
"Restoration of dignity for everyone, including ourselves."
- Regina (California) 

Work here can be tedious and there are days when it feels demoralizing to spend hours inside a semi-broken warehouse. 

From this list of thoughts, I've been thinking about Regina's reflection on dignity the most. When I ask guests about their time in Juarez, they almost always have horror stories of the shelters they've been housed, full of pests and trash and junk. 

It's the tasks that prevent these types of conditions—laundry, trash dumping, mopping, scrubbing, and moving cots—that sometimes feel the most disconnected from guests. But it's these tasks that almost do the most to restore a sense of human dignity, to ourselves and to others. Sure, the warehouse provides modest services, but it's well-taken-care-of and clean. It's painstakingly organized and painted with bright colors. 

When the roof leaks, the shower heads break, or the swamp coolers stop, we try our best to maintain a level of human dignity in the ways we can. We provide big meals, mop the floors, play Spanish music in the cafeteria, and put away clutter. 

With the mass levels of people we receive daily and the variety of crises that we are expected to respond to, it's easy to feel chaotic and stretched. 

It's important in these moments to not dwell on what is lacking in the services we can provide, but to remember the simple dignity-restoring things that we do on a daily basis. 

(One simple dignity-restoring task, for example, is scrubbing shoes so everyone can have a clean pair to wear in the shower.)