I'm a simple emigrant and I love helping people

Not long ago I tried to help those who were affected by the floods in Germany. It all started when one of the Russian-speaking chats got a message: those who wanted to go and clear debris could write to the organizer. I wrote, they told me to come on Saturday at eight in the morning to Wiesbaden (about an hour’s drive), so that from there we would head together to the collection point (another ~170 km). There were shuttles organized for volunteers, since back then it was still too dangerous to drive through the flooded areas in your own cars. For the first time in a long while I woke up on my day off at six in the morning, got ready, an hour by train; in Wiesbaden a volunteer with a car met me, we picked up two more along the way. And that’s it. As I later understood, all of this was planned to find one car in which the very organizer could reach the site and make a news segment, and I happened to end up with them. Well, okay, here we go. The forecast predicted rain, but when I asked the day before whether the trip would take place, they said yes. During the trip, after about twenty minutes, the driver decided to call the shuttle coordinator on site to find out if there were changes due to the downpour, etc. And with a casual remark, the coordinator said that it’s unclear what will happen with the weather, so the group of people already there (at eight in the morning) had left there, and they weren’t planning to take anyone else. It was a fiasco. We stopped near the nearest fields; the choice was small: go for a walk or go home. We decided to walk across the field together, and then head back. On the way we came across a plum alley and picked a few ripe plums. But even that couldn’t brighten my disappointment. A couple of days later I read on Facebook that some districts had become popular among volunteers, and there was no work left there, and those arriving were simply invited to eat together, because food was also handed out free in the city center. And some of the less popular places never got their help. Now everything is more or less back to normal, recovery plans are in place, budgets have been counted. The volunteer shuttles are still operating, but the help is more directed toward restoring houses. I wanted to go a couple more times, but drivers always bailed at the last moment, so I decided it wasn’t meant to be. It’s good that you can always help the foundations financially. #curiosities