The Vienna Hauptbahnhof is becoming quite familiar now as I complete my seventh day in a row as a volunteer there. Today when I arrived, I sensed something different in the feel of the place. I guess that I’ve now spent enough time there so that I have become attuned to the energy and to the subtle changes from day to day.
My initial observation was that beds had been added. Where people used to lay about sleeping on the floor, there were now some new cots. Nowhere near enough to meet the demand – maybe 15% to 20% – so there were still many people lying on the floors but the cots added a little more sense of permanence. There was also a new traffic flow that had been devised to keep those waiting in line for food from blocking the entire hallway. New signs were appearing, along with art work and many hand-drawn flags of Iraq, Syria and Kurdistan. When I went to the registration desk, my information was input into a computer rather than just entered on paper. Little by little, systems are emerging, improvements are being made, a community is coming into being. It is not a typical community as the residents will turn over every few days and a new cohort of people will flow in from Hungary, Croatia or Serbia as these move on to Germany or elsewhere is Northern Europe. I am also noticing more Africans among the residents, primarily from Nigeria from what I hear.
Today I was assigned to the children’s program again; I had worked in this area on Thursday. So my time was largely spent cleaning up messes, providing art supplies, making faces and goofing around to stimulate laughter and occasionally intervening to deal with conflict and particularly the aggressiveness of one especially traumatized and poorly socialized boy. Perhaps he reminds me some of my own younger self in his inability to get along and to share with others. This leads to conflict over the most trivial things and then it escalates into physical violence and out of control behavior. Fortunately, he is still small enough that I can physically restrain him and remove him when he loses control. In the process, I was kicked numerous times and nearly bitten. I feel so ineffectual at those times. I don’t want to further traumatize him but I also do not want to allow him to hurt other kids or to learn that he can get away with his inappropriate behavior. As an out of control kid, I always used to feel bad; I didn’t want to get into trouble but I just didn’t know how to avoid it. I wonder if he feels at all similar. A couple of times I was assisted by some other volunteers who could speak his language and were able to get through to him in ways that I couldn’t. After our battles, I approached him and offered my hand in friendship and late in the day he actually took it and began to engage with me, even offering me some of the chips he was eating. I would like to think that maybe I connected with him in some little way. Yet, I also recognize that he is a very troubled boy and I shudder to think what he may grow into if he does not get a lot of help to heal from whatever he has experienced.
It surprised me to find that I recognized several of the kids from my time on Thursday. I would have thought that they would have moved on toward Germany or other destinations. But I heard (and I cannot verify the accuracy of this; it could be one more rumor) that Germany will not be accepting any more asylum seekers until October 4. This, despite reports of 3,000 to 4,000 more people crossing the border from Hungary tomorrow and into the foreseeable future. What will it mean if they are not able to move on toward Germany? How many more people can this little self-organizing community absorb?
I have been learning so much about the journey that these people have taken in their flight from war. Austria feels to me like a downstream place of relative tranquility. Here the local community is welcoming. There is food and clothing (though not enough shoes) and personal care items and the opportunity for showers. There is not a threat of deportation and arrest. It can be a place of relative rest. Upstream is Hungary where I encountered starving and desperate people anxious to cross the border. The Hungarian government has not been at all welcoming and, while a there is a dedicated group of volunteers, the civil society has not been able to adequately support them.
Further upstream is Croatia and Serbia with undetected land mines and great uncertainty of which borders will be open when. This is also the site of large groups of people forced to sleep outside in bad weather and a very tenuous legal status that holds the threat of turning them back. There are reports of water canons and tear gas and many arrests. Even further upstream is Macedonia with the insecurity of bandits, unreliable and expensive smugglers and brutal mountain weather.
Upstream of Macedonia is Greece which is reached by sea on small, unstable rafts carrying people from Turkey. Before I got involved with the work here, I had assumed that the reports of drowning refugees must have involved those traveling from North Africa across the Mediterranean. This was due to my limited understanding of the geography. In actuality, the dangerous water crossings are typically from Turkey to Greece and this means that it is an established part of almost all of the journeys.
Moving further upstream is Turkey which has accepted a couple million people but will not grant asylum so those in Turkey feel insecure and impermanent and this is part of the impetus for them to move downstream along the routes leading to Northern Europe. But the flow does not begin in Turkey. Many people travel to Turkey from Lebanon or Jordan where there are huge refugee camps, semi-permanent encampments without integration into the larger community or adequate social and economic support (think the refugee camps in Palestine that have been the breeding ground of violence and terror). And, of course, the source of this flow is the war-torn areas of Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. A story that I have heard more than once is of families who began in Palestine and were forced to seek refuge in Syria where they were again uprooted by war and forced to begin this long journey.
One aspect that I had not previously appreciated is that there is a sorting out process that occurs at each step in the flow. Those who make it here to Vienna are the fortunate ones who survived the water crossing (so far 5,000 have drowned this year) and encounters with bandits and unscrupulous smugglers. These are the survivors. But they are also the economically advantaged. The journey is not free or inexpensive. Those that make it to Europe are not the stereotypic poor and uneducated. Those are still stuck in the camps in the Middle East. Those that make it to Europe have had to have money – around $12,000 per person to buy passage on boats and to pay smugglers and to eat and sleep along the way.
So, those arriving in Europe are middle class people who were often professionals in their former life, who owned homes and businesses that they had to sell to raise the necessary funds to travel or they are the fortunate sons for whom the family has sacrificed much of all in order to send them. These new arrivals to Europe are generally educated and have employable skills. Those without such advantages don’t make it this far downstream.
It is often hard for me to remember that I am dealing with someone who has been successful and once lived a comfortable middle class life as I offer them cast off clothes or inform them that there are no more shoes available. How hard and humiliating it must be to be forced to live by charity and the generosity of others when once having been self-sufficient. “And there but by the grace of God, go I.” I often wonder what opportunities there will be fto continue to practice their professions and to contribute their gifts in Europe. Or will they be reduced to driving taxis and selling kebabs?
I also wonder how healthy the abundant generosity is for anyone long-term. I’ve begun to notice that some of the clothes that were so desirable yesterday are now lying discarded in the mud puddles. The children have been provided so many sweets by so many well-meaning people that they leave half-eaten food lying around. I am not happy with the judgmental thoughts that I see arising in me as I look at all of the waste and think that people “should” be more appreciative and take better care of what they have been given. These are my values and they come from a very priviliged background so I intellectually know that they are not reasonable or well-grounded. Yet still they arise in my thinking and I am continually invited into the practice of acceptance and love and compassion for the person that I see in front of me.
When I allow my thinking to drift into questions of sustainability or long-term implications, it feels indulgent and unproductive. The people in need continue to flow constantly through my life and really all I can do is to show each of them all of the love and welcoming that I am capable of and to trust that somehow together we will co-create the future. What an amazing learning opportunity this is.
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