Belgrade

I went to Belgrade after hearing so many great things from my Bosnian coworkers, and ended up staying there for a bit, expecting to go back into the Schengen zone as soon as my visa reset. I got a message on Workaway.com from the volunteer coordinator (Luca <3) at an organization called Collective Aid (https://www.collectiveaidngo.org/), who could see I was in Serbia and wanted to know if I was able to help in their WASH Center. I had plans to go to Albania for the month of August to volunteer in a hostel (where I am now), so I agreed to volunteer with Collective Aid for the month of July!

At first I was really nervous and wary. I’ve learned a lot about “volunteer tourism” and was worried I would accidentally create more harm due to my ignorance about the refugee crisis in Europe, as well as my time limitations. However, I was assured by the organization’s policies and resources, which are comprehensive and intentional. I also reasoned that there is perhaps less room for error at a WASH Center as opposed to at a school or orphanage or something like that.

I lived in a shared house with the other volunteers in Železnik, a suburb of Belgrade. I worked 5 days a week, either from 9-6 or 10-3 depending on my role that day. I slept with the window and “blinds” (which was actually a fuzzy grey blanket pinned over the window) open, and woke up each morning to the smell of fresh dew and at least a couple new mosquito bites.

I would stick my head outside the window and usually find Shorba, the resident dog, curled up on the armchair behind the house.

Shorba would trot alongside us as we walked to the nearby bus stop.

He would wait outside the bakery for me—definitely because he wanted a bite of whatever I was getting, but I would optimistically pretend it was due to his fierce loyalty and love for me. When we would hop on the bus, Shorba presumably would meander home and “guard” the house (a self-assigned duty) until we came home.

We would take the 511 bus to the city center, walk through two parks where many of the beneficiaries were staying, up the hill and to the right.

The WASH Center is next to an abandoned storefront with a terrifying roasted-animals sign.

The four roles I rotated between are shift leader, laundry, outreach and floater. As a shift leader, your main role is to delegate shower appointments and communicate with the volunteer on showers about when there’s room upstairs for someone new. While on laundry, you enter each person’s items into a Google form (i.e. “white t-shirt, black and red design, Nike XL”), monitor the washers and dryers (the floater also helped a lot with this), and sort clothes into labeled bags. Usually we would do about 80 showers and 30 loads of laundry per day.

As an outreach person, you go to the nearby shops to buy random things like new shower heads/shower shoes/labeling tape/shampoo, as well as to the marketplace to buy fruit. We always kept a bowl of stone fruit out for beneficiaries to snack on. Sometimes a person on the move would tell us that they had not eaten for 3 days or had not showered in 2 months. In those moments, I would feel discouraged by the relatively small impact we are able to make towards solving large problems. I would also feel grateful that they were able to make it to our center and take what must feel like the best shower of their lives.

The vast majority of people on the move who were using the WASH Center are from Afghanistan, although some are also from Pakistan, Morocco, Turkey, Iran, Syria, and more. Most beneficiaries spoke Pashto, many spoke Farsi/Dari, and some spoke Arabic, Turkish, or Kurdish. One beneficiary generously taught me some relevant Pashto phrases. I loved how many people on the move were so proud of their culture and language, and excited to tell me about it.

I am still figuring out how to talk about my experience volunteering at the WASH in the best, most respectful, least self-centered way. I learned so much, but it feels icky to talk about how significantly the experience transformed my perspective, because I don’t want to give the impression that vulnerable people have involuntarily been agents of change in my life and personal growth journey.

However, the truth is, although I did not do it for this reason, it really did change my life and widen my perspective of the world in such a massive way that I am continuing to process more and more each day. Now that I have seen the extreme effects of this unjust world in such an intimate way, I feel like there is nothing else I could possibly be sustainably content doing other than humanitarian work. Not because laundry and showers drastically changes or saves people’s lives, but because when they are getting arrested by immigration control, I can be just the tiniest bit comforted by knowing that at least their clothes are clean.

My initial plan was to sort of just keep my head down and merely be another set of hands to do what needs to be done. During the onboarding process, I learned that beneficiaries can not only get reliant on getting certain physical needs met—such as clean clothes and washed hair—but also emotional needs, and when volunteers leave it can be distressing. Therefore, I initially tried to be as professional and straightforward as possible when interacting with beneficiaries. As I got more comfortable in the WASH and was able to observe the more experienced volunteers around me, I settled into a better balance between professionalism and humanness. Still, this note left by a sweet older Serbian man who came into the WASH after I left asking for “the girl from California with the short black hair” makes my heart feel like it’s on fire :’) (thanks Daan for passing along the message!).

The whole situation is extremely disturbing and unfair. It is so icky that we get to go on lunch breaks and they consume a single nectarine as if it’s the only thing they have eaten in days, which it very well might be. It is so incomprehensibly fucked up that we ended up in the same city because the place they happened to be born into is unable to sustain life, and I got a $20,000 grant to travel.

I used to feel that it is easier to ignore these injustices when you keep a distance from them, which is true, however I don’t think guilt is a very useful emotion. Rather than being so guilty about our privileges that we maintain distance from situations that make us uncomfortable, we should utilize our privileges to help even the playing field, even just a little. This is obviously not anywhere near a new idea, but this is the first time I feel somewhat confident in my understanding of what it can look like to do this. It is not that I shouldn’t have consistent access to fresh and healthy food, it is that everyone should. Instead of feeling guilty for having access to more than enough food (or clothes, or money, etc.), I am trying to focus on the fact that everybody needs and deserves food, and then considering what can I reasonably do to help others meet this basic need. For instance, me not eating just because others can’t and I feel guilty doesn’t help anybody else eat, and I can only help others if I am well-nourished. If I am nourished, then I can not only help others access food, but I have the energy to help them get other needs met, such as clean clothes and clean skin.

Before this, I had always thought that I am simply too sensitive to do humanitarian work. I was pleasantly surprised by the even temper and emotional stability I was able to maintain (PMS EXCLUDED!) despite the violence I witnessed. The other volunteers and I would often wonder about what the best balance is between empathy and professional distance. I don’t want to become numb to the injustice around me, but at the same time, I need to keep some emotional distance so I’m able to sustainably work in this area.

Volunteering rather than doing paid work has been really special and has altered my perspective on work in general. Since I obviously was not getting paid to work at the WASH Center, I experienced “wanting to go to work” in a way I never have before. I was not going to work because I said I would, or because I was getting paid for it, or because I thought it would be fun. I was going to work, because how could I not? I am constantly reminded by something Hannah Trumbull, the program director and tiny house village project coordinator for Youth Spirit Artworks (at the time), said when I interviewed her in 2019.  She said: “To be a young person in this city where there’s this glaring problem, it feels like that’s what you have to work on,” she said. As soon as I became aware of how many people living in or moving through Belgrade lack access to showers and laundry services, and as soon as Luca connected me to an opportunity to help people meet these basic hygiene needs, I felt like I couldn’t do anything but this. Each morning—admittedly after a cup of coffee—I would feel energized by this instinctual desire to contribute to the project and an inclination like, “I need to do this.” Throughout the day, I would continue becoming more and more energized by the people around me, and the immediate, direct, observable and positive effects of the work we were doing.

I also am honored to have been able to help with grant writing for Collective Aid! I applied to one smaller grant, did research for a few other grants, and began assembling an application for a larger grant. Receiving grants is very fulfilling, but writing grants while physically working at the WASH made me understand how much more fulfilling and meaningful it feels to regularly interact with the people you are raising money for.

Life in Železnik

Publin

After work, we would often go to Publin, a cozy bar down the street. They have a really good red beer that I would always get. It was really fun being regulars at a place, the bartenders always knew what we each wanted to order and would give us lots of free stuff.

Belgrade as a Tourist