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 a message popped up in one of the Russian-speaking chats: those who wished to go and clear the debris could write to the organizer. I wrote, they told me to come on Saturday at eight in the morning in Wiesbaden (about an hour’s drive), from there to go together to the meeting point (another ~170 km). Shuttle buses were organized for volunteers, since at that time it was still too dangerous to drive to the flooded areas in one’s own car. For the first time in a long while I woke up on my day off at six, got ready, rode the train for an hour, and 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 so that the organizer could reach the site and shoot a piece for the news, and I ended up with them. Well, let’s go. The forecast predicted rain, but when I asked the day before whether the trip would happen, they said yes. During the trip, after about twenty minutes, the driver decided to call the shuttle coordinator on site to check for changes due to the downpour, etc. And with a slight movement of the coordinator’s mouth, the coordinator says that it’s unclear what the weather would be like, so the eight o’clock group had already 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: 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 grabbed a few ripe plums. But even they couldn’t brighten my disappointment. A couple of days later I read on Facebook that some areas had become popular among volunteers, and there was no work left there, while newcomers were simply invited to eat together, because food was being handed out for free in the city center. And some of the less popular places never got any help. Now things are more or less in order; recovery plans have been made, budgets calculated. The volunteer shuttles are still operating, but the help is more focused on rebuilding homes. I wanted to go a couple more times, but the drivers always bailed at the last moment, so I decided it wasn’t meant to be. It’s good that there are always ways to help the foundations financially. #curiosities