Frustration

 As I write this, I should be at 33,000 feet over west Texas, returning home after three satisfying weeks volunteering for Mennonite Disaster Service.  Instead, I am already back home in Richmond, where I have been since Monday night.  I have started writing this post almost every day since my return, but keep finding it hard to write without exploding in a torrent of anger.  

I am angry because of the circumstances that caused my early return.  MDS was forced to downsize their project in Paradise due to the COVID situation.  For at least the rest of September they are not allowing any more weekly volunteers to join the leadership team already in place, of which I was a part.  


Article from Anabaptist World


MDS does not like to have volunteers working construction in a place that has no medical resources available in case of emergencies. And the Butte County area has been especially hard-hit with COVID hospitalizations.  Two weeks ago we were notified that the closest hospital was out of ICU beds, forcing the issue.  Once the crew had shrunk to just seven, I made the choice to return a week early since they only would need one cook, the one already scheduled to stay until the end of September.  I had thought of joining the construction crew, but the stage they were at on the houses involved a lot of heavy lifting, and my back was already borderline, which is why I chose to be a cook in the first place.


My anger was exacerbated by the cavalier attitudes displayed by those who deny the seriousness of COVID even as the death toll rises inexorably toward one million in the US.  Many remained totally unmasked in the airports, and others knew that if they just held a drink in their hands, they were “drinking”, and didn’t need to mask up. 

This guy had been asked on three separate occasions by airport employees to mask up.  each time, he did, and then pulled his mask down when they went away.
I am sure there were COVID-positive people on the flights as well, based on the amount of pneumonia-like coughing I could hear all around me.  


Some of my anger is quite selfish (about why my planned experience is incomplete), but a lot of it is on behalf of the people that were our reason for being in Paradise in the first place.  There are at least four houses that MDS was trying to at least get dried-in before the winter rains set in.  Due to the project hiatus, it is quite likely that those families will be without permanent housing for months longer.  The recent rise in COVID cases is so preventable by vaccinations and masking, yet is taking place anyway.  


I am not sure what to do with my anger, since those it is directed against  will not have their minds changed by my words.  

Comments

  1. JudySeptember 19, 2021 at 3:09 PM

    I am very sorry that all this discourtesy towards others can have such a wide reaching web of people who suffer.

    ReplyDelete

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