Working at the refugee camp this month could be described as many things, and it entailed doing A LOT of doing different tasks. I haven’t been super clear on what it looks like to be working there this month, so to give you a better idea of what our 8 hour shifts look like here are 15 tasks that you could be sent out to do. Some will require a little more explanation, and others wont need any at all, so bear with me either way!
- Gate guard. There are a total of 6 gates that need to be guarded on the majority of shifts. You could be on the levels with include the single African men and the single Afghani men, or you could in the sections where all the families, unaccompanied minors, and single women live. This consists of looking at the cards of each person, and looking for specific indicators that they live in this section.
- Tent Builder. This one sounds pretty easy but the thing about this is that the tents come in all shapes and sizes, sometimes with poles that don’t match the actual tent. The best is when the tents are brand new and you know that it will work.
- Rub Hall census. The rub halls are just giant tents with little “rooms” throughout the whole thing. The rooms are made up of a bunk bed with blanket walls surrounding it. Families of 2-9 can live in these rub hall rooms. The census is just making sure that people are living in the “room” that they are supposed to.
- Tent census. The UN tents are pretty big, and are usually split up into quarters for each family. The census for this is the same thing as the rub halls, just on a smaller scale.
- New Arrivals. When people arrive to camp, they cant just move into their housing right away. They have to be processed by the UN and the EU and get checked by the doctor before they can leave what we call New Arrivals. They have a Rub Hall in there with hundreds of people crammed in there as well as on the ground outside. Working new arrivals making sure these people get food, a new set of clothes, their simple toiletries, and blankets/sleeping bags.
- Housing. Housing consists of many things, so this may be the longest explanation. The housing process often starts with getting an idea of where a family can move in… Whether that be a larger UN tent, or one of the little tents that are supposed to be for camping for a few days. Once we have a space in mind, we go to the new arrivals rub hall with a nationality and family size in mind. We then tell that family that we are there to take them to their new living space, making sure that they have all the proper paper work in hand. We lug their stuff up the giant hill to give their papers to info to register them and get their food card. We then move them into their new space and often times get asked a hundred questions. Now is when you can head back to info get sent out for another family to house, or another task to do.
- Clean the bathrooms… Not much explanation needed here. I never had to do it, but you can ask Annalea about her experiences with it.
- Clean the tool room. Also not much explanation needed, but I did do this one.
- Be the repair man. Many people come to the info desk with problems with their tents and living quarters, so it often times becomes our job to fix it and help them out in any way that we can.
- Info. This just means just standing at the desk and answering questions that are thrown our way… More often than not the answer is no, and people walk away unhappy, but there isn’t much we can do with our limited resources and hundreds of people that arrive weekly.
- Floater. The floater is a fun position. You get to go around to all the gates and make sure that the gate guards are ok and don’t need anything. You get to experience all the gates but aren’t stuck at one gate specifically.
- Housing Helper. This isn’t the actual name of the task, but I don’t really know what else to call it. This person often spends most of their shift in the New Arrivals rub hall. They tend to know where every family in that building is located, and how many people are in each of those families. They get hundreds of questions thrown their way within an hour, but its their job to make housing easier and faster. This was the position that I spent a lot of time doing.
- Maintenance helper. There is one guy who specifically looks out for the general maintenance of the camp, and he often has a lot on his plate. So, there are times with people get assigned to be his helper. This can include heavy lifting, crawling under tents, and getting splinters in your hands.
- Clothing help. This one was something that my team specifically did. We went off camp to work at a place called Humans for Humanity. This is where families got to come and pick out clothes for winter. It had a thrift shop feel, and we spent hours organizing clothes to make everything in front run as smoothly as possible.
- Relationship building. This one isn’t an actual task, but it is something that just naturally happens. Whether it be with the people that you house, the people that you open a gate for, or the translators that make everything run smoothly, these people know how to love you and love you well.
I’ve never been so consistently exhausted in my life, but I have never felt so full. This place has something special and it is something I will never be able to fully put in to words, so thank you for bearing with me!
In Him,
Caleb Callaway
P.S. I AM $355 AWAY FROM BEING FULLY FUNDED! I am so stinking close but I need your help for the final push! If 20 of my friends donated $17 each I would be at my goal! Please consider helping me get there!!!
