El Drama Humano

I remember sitting at my Ecuadorian mother's table, possibly one of my favorite places in the world, telling her about the stress of my job as a case manager earlier this year. It was late February, and I was visiting the host family that I had lived with while studying abroad in Ecuador my junior year of college. I was thrilled to see Diva, my host mother, four years after I had first come into her home. I have many memories of learning Spanish at her table, spending hours philosophizing about life, well, mostly listening to her philosophize. Diva Flor is a woman full of insights and anecdotes, a mix of mystical free-thinker and traditional Latina mother, well-spoken and honest and bold. I remember trying to explain that the stress of my job was mostly not due to my clients, who I thoroughly enjoyed, but rather due to the way the Intellectual DisAbilities system was set up in Pennsylvania: utterly archaic and deluged by pointless paperwork. She reminded me that my field of choice, social work, is and always would prove to be stressful due to el drama humano que sigue y sigue. The heart of social work involves encountering "unceasing human drama." The same problems we face today are the ones of yesterday and the problems that humanity will face thousands of years from now.

I am reminded of this simple truth, human drama, as I think about some of the crises that have unfolded in this house of 40-50 people, all attempting to coexist under the same roof. Last night was a landmark night as the ambulance came to our house twice and our director, who is currently recovering from knee surgery, was driven to our home at 11:00 PM to intervene in escalating drama between two of the families. One of my favorite families in our house right now is a family of seven. Due to issues of security and confidentiality, I cannot write as much I would like to about their story, but the gist is that they came to the US fleeing for their lives which were under serious threat.

I have come to completely adore this family. Despite the trauma of having their lives upended, they have settled into the fabric of our home, bringing so much good will and warmth and decency to this place. They are famously good cooks and have made themselves available to complete more than their fair share of household chores. To me, they represent a close-knit family unit in a home where so many families have been torn apart by violence or abuse. There are few fathers in this household of single women with multiple kids, and the fathers that we do have here not always shown themselves to be shining stars of virtue (last week's drama, for example, involved suspected cheating as one of my married guests was supposedly seen kissing another woman, and mother of three, on the roof). As I have met each week with the parents of this family, I have wanted to make sure that they feel safe and comfortable in the house. I have wanted so badly for them to feel some sense of stability here despite the uncertainties about what lies ahead. Unfortunately, in the last few weeks, things have begun slowly unraveling. The mother has shared that she feels that she cannot handle being here anymore, that despite not having any money saved, she wants to move out. She's bearing the emotional burden of the trauma that was having their lives threatened, of leaving behind her home and family and personal space and possessions.

"Todos aqui traemos una perdida," another guest once told me. All of us here are bearing the burden of great loss. On top of the trauma that each guest has personally experienced is the challenge of living in a home with many other traumatized people. The other family involved in last night's incidents were "Gustavo," "Marta," and their teenaged daughter, "Flor." Gustavo is a stereotypical Mexican macho man, a good-natured but almost entirely clueless cowboy. Marta is charming and motherly but also deeply manipulative, prone to both hysteria and hypochondria. Their poor daughter Flor is an adorable adolescent who should not be held responsible for her parents' dysfunction but is shaped by it nonetheless. They were also targets of arbitrary violence in Mexico.

These two families collided over issues that perhaps in less extreme circumstances would not have been so problematic. Marta thought that that other mother had been gossiping about her in the guest kitchen, calling her "la llorona," a ghost-woman from Mexican mythology that cries inconsolably. In fact, the mother and several other guests had simply been discussing the legend of la llorona, not describing anyone in the house by that name. Then Marta, perhaps in a vengeful move or perhaps because she actually believed it to be true, began to spread a rumor that the other mother's daughter had lice. This led to nasty notes being passed back and forth between the daughters, and it all came to a terrible head when everyone came down to the volunteers' office last night, scarcely able to talk because they were so upset. The ambulance was called when one of the children had a panic attack, followed by her brother who panicked simply from seeing his sister in that state. About an hour later Marta fainted. It was a mess. I embraced and consoled whoever I could, whispering that it was okay, that I had lived through panic attacks before and for as scary as they are, they do not kill you. Many hours and tears and raw emotions later, everyone went to bed. It was heartbreaking to see the children under such distress and then the parents under distress to see their children needlessly suffering, lying on the ground in the parking lot, breathing into oxygen masks. I have come to believe, from personal experience, that we are more susceptible to panic when we are in a heightened state of exhaustion. Fleeing violence, coming to a new country, and living as an undocumented person in a homeless shelter will exhaust you alright. The house coordinator mentioned to me that she has called 911 in this house more times than she can count. This year has been an incredible lesson in understanding the body's reaction to stress as well as coming to understand that there are so few things in life over which we have control. El drama humano sigue y sigue.