I’m at home sick today.
It’s not that I really feel all that bad. I have a cough, a stuffy nose, and fatigue. In other words, it’s probably just your run of the mill cold. Doing the work that we do here, we probably get sick a bit more often than people who work in other jobs, except maybe teachers. We’re around adults and children all day, so when someone gets a bug, it quickly spreads through the house. That’s just how it is, especially when there are children.
Sitting at home has me reflecting a bit. It’s got me questioning. Why do I get to have a nice, warm home and a comfortable bed to sleep in, when so many people are out on the streets? What have I done to deserve this? Quite simply put, I haven’t really done anything. I’ve never had to.
Yesterday I was talking about it with Rachel. If I were one of the women in the house, I remarked to her, I wouldn’t have a choice but to go cross the sea when the time came. To them, being sick or injured doesn’t make a difference. They go when they receive that fateful opportunity, sunshine or rain, cold or hot, sick or healthy.
And that’s not even mentioning the people in the camps around Calais. They sleep in tents no matter how they’re feeling what the weather is like. I’ve had many women over the last few days tell me about sleeping in tents in the cold the past nights. There’s really no way to effectively warm up besides sitting by a fire.
Some of the people living in the camps are children. One mother explained to me how she couldn’t get any sleep out in the cold because she had to stay awake rocking her baby all night, because he was crying with cold.
These stark differences help me to better understand the amount of privilege that I have. Again, I know that privilege is a buzz word, a loaded word in today’s society. But I can’t really think of a better way to describe it. Because of the color of my skin and the country where I was born, I get to have a warm house to live in and stay in when I’m sick. For the people we serve who were born with different skin colours in different countries, that just isn’t true.
It almost makes me feel guilty sometimes, but I then realise that guilt doesn’t change anything. I don’t need to feel guilty about the basic things that I have. However, realising the stark differences between my reality and the realities of the people I serve should instead drive me to fight for a society in which everyone has access to humanity’s basic needs, such as a warm place to sleep.
That’s it. It’s just a simple reflection today while I’m not feeling well. It’s nothing I haven’t said before and nothing I won’t say a thousand more times until things change.
I just ask that you consider what I’ve said here. What do you take for granted that other people don’t have because of their circumstances? How can you help to do something to see that everyone has access to the fulfilment of their basic needs?