My name is Marco, I am 39 years old, and I am an ASCS volunteer. I come from Lugano, Switzerland, and by training I am a philosopher and by profession, a high school teacher. My first approach to the world of volunteering (though not with ASCS) was 3 years ago: it was 2021, and like probably many people in that year, I began to feel the weight of the pandemic. After a year of restrictions, of hopes that the situation would quickly change and we could all go back to the life we had before, I decided it was time to have an experience elsewhere where I could confront different realities and where I could put to use the teaching skills I had developed over a decade-long career. I therefore chose to go to Mexico for five months and work with street children and adolescents. The destination was a town nestled on the far southern border of Mexico, very close to the border with Guatemala. I can say that that enriching experience was the first step in later involving myself in the volunteer field…. Two years after that experience, viz. in 2023, I learned through my sister-in-law about the possibility of volunteering in Guatemala, as her parish, in Switzerland, is led by the Scalabrinian Fathers who were supporting, precisely, a project in Central America. Evidently, as is often the case in this area, one cannot improvise, so I learned that I would have to attend three weekends of training in Turin, along with other participants and then take part in one of the many forms of volunteering that ASCS supports in many areas of the world. As always, beginnings are never easy. In front of something new there is always a little fear. I remember leaving for Piedmont on a Friday evening one day in November, so that I could quietly prepare for the first day of training that would take place the following day. That Friday night I was to be the guest of two female volunteers who lived in Chieri. I admit that it was not obvious to get there in the darkness of a November evening. But it was those three weekends in Turin that then allowed me to metaphorically have adequate equipment for the mission I carried out at the Casa del Migrante in Ciudad de Guatemala, where I stayed from July to August 2024. In fact, among the most important elements that I was to put “in the field” during my service was a principle that I learned precisely in Turin and which can be concentrated in this small, simple but fundamental phrase: “focus on being rather than doing.” Why was this phrase learned at a trade show in Turin then important directly in the field? Because when one is in another reality of the world, the perception of time is not the same as here in the West. We live with the myth of doing and progress. We move at an extraordinarily rapid speed on the slippery line of time. Well, in the mission, things are not exactly like that. And that is what I have observed precisely at the Migrant House where up to about 140 people who are passing through on their way to the United States are housed daily for one night. In the month that I have been serving at the House, I have come to understand that time feels differently: throughout the day, there are moments when everything suddenly accelerates and others when it vortically slows down. And one rarely knows when this change of pace occurs. So now it is worth going into more detail about my experience. I first recall with pleasure being welcomed into the facility by Paolo – a volunteer with whom I had been training in Turin – and his girlfriend Elisabetta. It was the early afternoon of July 8. When you arrive in a new place and meet a familiar face, well, you just have to say, that feeling of relief embraces you and holds you very tight. After meeting the two of them, I was able to meet Father Francisco, who runs the home and all the professionals within the facility. The tasks that would await me in the following weeks in contact with those seeking a better future by migrating were basically three: giving support to the kitchen professionals in preparing and distributing meals (breakfast and dinner), distributing some clothing to those who needed it (we received daily donations of clothes that we put in a small room called “Bodega”), and providing room cleaning in the second part of the morning. I cannot say that there was anything I preferred over anything else in the shifts. In fact, all these tasks allowed me to learn something.

In fact, the distribution of meals allowed me to see with my own eyes, what it means to “be hungry.” I know it sounds almost trite to say, but very rarely in my life have I encountered people who were hungry, who had not eaten for days. And at the same time to be able to read on their faces the satisfaction of finally finding a hot meal with which to regain strength. I remember that in some cases, in the tone of voice, the human beings I worked with manifested all the pleasure and enjoyment of being able to put something in their mouth to feed themselves. The distribution of clothing, on the other hand, allowed me to see how much something we simply call an “accessory” such as a T-shirt or a pair of socks can really be essential in facing such an arduous journey. I remember the reactions of some people waving as if it were a trophy, a pair of pants or a T-shirt. Or even a little boy or girl whose eyes would sparkle upon receiving a T-shirt on which was printed the main character of their favorite cartoon, for example, “Frozen” or “Cars” or the more dated “The Little Mermaid.” Sometimes, then, along that hallway of the house where we were distributing the “ropa” (precisely the clothing items), maybe someone would find the strength and the desire to tell something about their journey, like a father of a family who told us what it was like to go through a forest, to take courage to make their family members brave. And in such a circumstance, I felt privileged to have been able to listen to that treasure that are the most intimate emotions of a human being, that treasure that in our affluent West we tend to keep double-locked because sharing how we feel often turns out to be, according to our society’s values, a weakness. But even the shift of cleaning the rooms in the morning was not something that may seem as obvious as it seems. As I fucked and scrubbed the floors of the facility, I thought about all those people who even at our place clean offices, bathrooms, hallways, and how nice it is to be able to arrive at a place that is clean and how much effort, often unnoticeable there is behind the smell of a facility that was cleaned a few hours earlier. More generally, working at the Migrant House has allowed me to remind myself that the fortunes that happen to us in our own realities are the exception compared to what happens in the world. At the same time, I was able to reinforce an idea that has been running through my mind for a long time now: that behind the cold numbers that we often hear in a news report or in a spectacular image that we see on social networks, there are stories of people, people who have feelings, they have fears, they have hopes, they have desires. And this we must never forget because what people are going through right now in the world, in most cases, is rarely the result of choice, but of necessity.

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