Pups of Ukraine

These Ukrainian dogs (and cats!) kept their owners company in a refugee registration line that seemed to stretch forever late last week in the Brussels Expo Center. Jenn and I spent Thursday and Friday there with a bunch of other friends, organizing donations, handing out water and food to people in line, driving to the warehouse of donations to pickup toiletries and bananas when stock was low, breaking down boxes for recycling, and accidentally annoying another aid organization. Oops.

When no one seemed to need food or beverages for a moment, Jenn and I divvied up pet food she brought into smaller bags and went back to pups we’d seen in line. We offered people as many bags as they wanted to carry, and if they seemed relaxed and open to it, I asked if I could take photos of their dogs. I’ve never had a dog, but this was a really fun way to interact with people. Most dog parents immediately started trying to get their furbabies to pose and look at the camera. There was a lot of smiling, especially considering the overall situation doesn’t warrant a lot of smiling. We also saw three cats and got to pet one of them.

The Expo at Heyzel, near the Atomium, is a lot more organized than the last place by Porte de Halle. The registration capacity here is up to 2,500 people daily. Wednesday, they were able to register 2,100 refugees. When they reach a certain number, they stop allowing people to get in line. Thursday, over 600 people were already waiting at 7 a.m. My friend Randi was hosting a family at her home. They spent 30 hours last week waiting to register, leaving the house at 5:30 a.m. and waiting through the night with small children and a pregnant woman!

As of this week, the line has decreased to the point where they were able to cancel most of the volunteer shifts. That doesn’t mean the total wait is short, but the line to get into the restricted access waiting area is shorter than before. Donations have also been streamlined, with an RV taking place of the volunteer tables and the clothing donations moved elsewhere.

Thursday, Jenn and I arrived quite a while before the shift started. We didn’t see anyone in the blue Serve the City vests we were looking for, so we asked the police, who directed us to the Expo entrance. Several security guards and officers in different locations all pointed us to the same place. The security desk asked if we were translators (I wish) or with the Red Cross, and we said no, just here to help Serve the City, and showed our volunteer time slot on the app. The guy gave us staff badges and pointed inside. We wandered around inside for awhile and determined this was probably not where we were supposed to be, so we walked all the way back to where we started an hour previously and finally found the correct team of volunteers.

“How did you get those badges?” we were immediately asked. “They wouldn’t give them to us! That might be useful!”

A few minutes later, I was very surprised to see someone who also looked very surprised to see me: my friend Masako from French class! Not long after that, Wesley from Bible study showed up! Heysel was the place to be last week, apparently. And there was lots to do. Friday, Masako brought Chieko (also from French class) and her daughter. Julee, Joanne, Jessica, Tara, Amanda, Jenn and I made up the American Team (dubbed by the organizer). Amanda and I drove the organizer over to the warehouse to pick up stuff (“You have a big American car? You can help me!”). Volunteers were organizing myriad donations into tidy rows and boxes small enough to move easily. The immensity of people’s generous and immediate response to welcome Ukrainians fleeing their country nearly moved me to tears.

And it made me wonder how other refugees feel; do they feel slighted? Maybe they didn’t feel welcomed, and now feel doubly unwelcome when they see how warmly Ukrainians are welcomed? The guy in charge spoke to this. He had to flee Syria after attending a political rally in 2011, after which the police started watching him. When he left, he said an Italian family helped him so much, it made him want to welcome others. That’s why he was there, day after day.

Friday afternoon, the official waiting area stretched around the Expo building for hours, sheltered from the elements at least, but with nowhere to sit. The line to get into the official waiting area is where we were passing out food and drinks; it was pretty saturated. Someone told us that with the Expo badge, we could get into the official waiting area and see if people over there needed anything. We took some trays of squeezy fruit pouches, juice, water, baby wipes, pens and pencils, flashed the staff badge, and were waved right in.

We chatted with a Red Cross team there—gave them some water, they directed us toward a family in need of baby wipes for their son. I’m not sure how long people here had been waiting, but they were much more eager for something to eat. We were cleaned out quickly and lost no time going back for more, collecting people’s trash on our way out. Reloaded with bananas, juice boxes and fresh sandwiches someone had just dropped off, we dove back in.

“Juice? Banana? Sandwich?” we made our way up the line.

“Banana? Sandwi—“

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?!” a very stern lady yelled at me in French. “HOW DID YOU GET IN HERE?”

I balanced my bananas and juice on one hand so I could show her my badge. “Who are you with? How did you get that?! Do you understand French?!”

“A little,” I said in French. She yelled at me in French. I answered in English that security gave me the badge when I told them I was a volunteer.

“Vous ne pouvez pas venir ici!” You cannot come in here! She said again and again.

I put my hand over my heart. “Desolee,” I said, switching to English and looking her right in the eyes. “I’m so sorry for any trouble.”

She stopped yelling and told me we had to leave. A couple ladies had already fled. Jessica and I started to slowly walk out, handing out the rest of our bananas and sandwiches. If we can’t come back, we better make it count! The angry lady literally pushed us along toward the door. We didn’t speed up until we passed out everything we had.

“That badge is not authentic!” she said to the police as we unceremoniously were pushed out.

I hate feeling like a bad little kid. This was not one of those times for me. Amanda said, “I’m such a rule follower! As soon as she yelled at me I ran! Then I looked over and Jessica and Mari were giving no shits about the lady pushing them out!”

“Yeah, I didn’t love that she was actually pushing me out—get your hands off me!” laughed Jessica.

“I mean, it’s not like she has some moral imperative to stop us from passing out sandwiches!” I said.

We wondered why we weren’t allowed to pass out food to people who obviously looked very happy to receive some. I hope there’s a good reason. If I were an aid organization trying to manage chaos alongside government bureaucracy, and free-range foreign volunteers kept mucking up the process, demanding to know the rules and sucking up my time and brain space, that would really annoy me. But equally plausible: she could have just been going all “C’EST INTERDIT.” (C’est interdit, or “it’s forbidden,” is an annoying, no-explanation conversation killer when something that is always possible is suddenly, inexplicably not possible, full stop). We’ll never know. But being the bad volunteers was kind of funny.

The Serve the City organizer waved it off. “They don’t like us because we are out here getting a lot of attention in the press and we get a lot of donations. They have a lot of money, so if they want biscuits they have to have a meeting to approve biscuits, then they have to find the lowest price, then they have to order them, and five days later, they will have biscuits. If we need biscuits, I can make a call and someone will deliver biscuits in five minutes.” Biscuits are thin cookies, like you get any time you order a coffee or tea in Belgium (Europe?).

I think both types of organizations are needed in order to minimize people falling through the cracks, or kids going hungry for biscuits. Nobody wants that.

Anyway, I know a bunch of people were able to go back over the weekend, and more people are taking Ukrainian families into their homes, although there’s difficulty depending on our visa status as foreigners sometimes. I like hearing about what other people are doing—it’s encouraging and helpful to see how to jump in when you want to help but don’t know how!