Saturday, September 10, 2005

You Don't Want To Work At The Red Cross
We have our own New Orleans refugee, here. Lydia's friend, Suzanna, has been with us since Saturday last week. She literally lost every single possession except for the clothes on her back and what she could carry in a small purse. At first she just needed to sleep and rest. In the last few days, though, she's begun to think about relocating here. Lydia has been driving her around to look at apartments. Yesterday she had an appointment to talk with a counsellor at the Red Cross about getting a debit card and some other benefits to tide her over until she finds work. Lydia was going to wait for her and was sitting outside in the van. After a while, Suzanna came out and told Lydia to go on home. She said that in the waiting area, there were more than 100 people crammed in. All the counsellors were running late and she expected to have to wait several hours. She said that the waiting room was kind of a disaster area of its own. A number of children were crying and screaming. Two kids threw up. Several adults were screaming and hysterical. One woman fainted. One person went into 'stress shock', whatever that is. One person was throwing herself around so wildly that she had to be restrained. Clearly, these people had no more resources of personal dignity. They'd been pushed too far and could no longer handle their emotions. Along with losing their earthly goods, they lost their pride. Horrible thing to see. These were not people talking to a counsellor, they were just sitting on the floor waiting to see counsellors and telling each other their awful stories. I must say that it would be tough to work at the Red Cross right now. A lot of New Orleans refugees have come here to Norfolk, staying with friends or family. I'm sure it's that way everywhere as needy people spread out around the country to places where someone might give them a bit of help. According to this morning's paper, the Houston Astrodome is nearly empty of refugees. They've been so quickly dispersed around the USA to homes willing to take them in. Suzanna would be more than welcome to stay with either me or Lydia for as long as she liked, but she wants to start geting herself together, which is understandable. The effort, however, requires that she use these helping agencies like Red Cross and FEMA. That first appointment sure was an ugly experience.

Posted by doubledog at 3:53 PM | Post Comment | View Comments (1) | Permalink

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