Workshop 1: That Which is Most Treacherous

    Our first heat protection workshop took place on a toasty Wednesday morning, the last day of July. We were to conduct our workshop directly at at refugee shelter in Aubing, a suburb about an hour from the city center. As I walked with my program colleagues Eva and Akari (and Akari’s brother who was kind enough to help us out) towards to shelter, all of us dividing up a veritable hoard of project materials, it occurred to me just how relevant our research was. The cardigan I had dawned in the morning was long forgotten, stuffed into the bottom of my backpack. It was only late morning, and everything was already sweat, sweat, and more sweat. I thought, Is Munich always like this in the summer? What happened to the infamous German winters that supposedly strike fear into the hearts of all its unfortunate inhabitants (as narrated by every Spanish person I have encountered here)? It was almost unimaginable now.

    Our workshop was scheduled to take place right after a German lesson, a strategic time for trying to retain as many participants as possible. As it turned out, we needn’t have worried about a lack of engagement. Walking in, the room was abuzz with energy: women chatting, children running about. A young mother in the corner held her quiet infant in her lap, greeting us with curious glances and a warm smile. We were truly very lucky. With this sort of open and talkative group, I would soon learn, a good workshop runs itself. Despite initial technical difficulties (in other words, the projector completely failing to work) and the fact that the participants spoke no English (and we spoke only English), everything went better than I could have imagined.

    I should preface this recount by saying: the translators were a lifesaver. In fact, I cannot imagine how we would have conducted the workshop without them. Only a week earlier, we had learned that not only did the refugees we would be working with know very little German, but they understood no English at all. For a science communication lab, this was a rather large problem. We proceeded to scramble for the next six days, contacting anyone and everyone who might be able to provide Turkish-English translation. I must have reached out to more than a dozen sources without luck. It wasn’t until the night before the workshop, when we had pretty much resigned ourselves to simply conducting it without translators, when a last minute friend of friend from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) confirmed that she was available to volunteer for the role. She even wanted to bring a friend who was also willing to help. Serra, the university student from TUM, and Beliz, her friend visiting from Turkey, were incredible. Open, engaging, and dedicating one of their last days in Munich before vacation to the workshop, they were able to effectively communicate our slideshow, presented in English, to the participants, in Turkish. I cannot stress enough their centrality in the success of Workshop 1.

    Moreover, I could not have anticipated the participants’ interest and willingness to engage. They were attentive, honest, and quick to laugh. When Sarah Pritchard, an international school teacher who volunteers at the lab, introduced electrolyte packets and showed participants how to use them, one woman asked to see the electrolyte mix box and eagerly took pictures. Then, she passed it around the room for others to see. Later, I asked participants for heat protection strategies that people in Turkey used and was met with knowing smiles and authentic replies:

    “Air conditioning!” They all agreed this was the biggest factor, followed by shifting outdoor work times to avoid the hottest part of day and dressing for the heat.

    Towards the end of the workshop, we asked participants what Munich could do to better incorporate heat protection measures into the shelter.

    “We want to know that this is not just talk,” one man commented. “We want to know that things will actually be done.”

    A wave of seriousness seemed to sweep across the room. I wondered if these people had been promised improvements before, only to wait and wait in crippling anticipation. What to respond to a remark like that? It was already so full of expectation, but we could not guarantee any improvements actually take place. We ended up shared what we could, that our findings would be drafted in a report that would be shared with the city council and refugee shelters. It seemed to electrify the room.

    I had been at MSCL for four, going on five weeks at that point, but it was only then that I grasped the implications of our project and research: its ability to inspire hope, as perilous as it is exciting. That is when things got very real for me.

    It is one thing to go into a shelter, give a presentation, ask a few questions, and leave. It is another thing entirely to live in those conditions, hot, cramped, sharing a dorm-room sized space with three other people, without access to a private bathroom or kitchen, without reliable income, without understanding the language, and trying to raise kids at the same time. For me, it was a glass box I got to peer into, a summer movie sandwiched between weekend travels, afternoons in the park, and karaoke night. For them, it was a lived reality—the air breathed, the putrid smell of urine carrying across an entire top floor hallway, onions and potatoes stored in a trash can by the bed. Day in, day out. Every added inconvenience piling. My research was centered on these people, but my life intersected with their’s only so briefly.

    After the workshop, the participants asked to show us their rooms. We walked through both floors of the shelter, touring six or seven different accommodations. In some, the beds were made and the shelves were tidy, trying very hard manipulate what could be controlled into a semblance of home and comfort. Others seemed to have given up entirely, with dirty dishes and leftover food piled on tables, toys strewn about the floor. Everywhere we went, children would emerge and regard us with huge eyes and toothy smiles. One mother asked us about the school system here, and how she could enroll her six year old son. He was of legal school ago now, but the first grade class wouldn’t take him because he hadn’t completed kindergarten. One girl in particular tagged along the entire way and in the end demanded to show us her new bike, then demanded that we each take it for a ride. It was a blue, secondhand, without working brakes, and way too big for her; she rode it better than any of us did.

    Ultimately, I felt and still feel wholly unqualified to have stood there, handing out advice and creating expectations for change. Every single participant in that room wanted and deserved better, more protected accommodations, among a litany of other needs. But people dedicate their entire lives to this sort of thing, and my stay in Munich is already almost over. I cannot guarantee anything outside our final report. I did not even speak their language.

    But I would be lying if I said that the hope Workshop 1 inspired in our participants didn’t also seep treacherously into me. This act of communication helped me realize the extent to which our project might reach people and the possibility for change that it might foster. Not only are participants now more equipped to tolerate Munich heatwaves, but we were exposed first hand to the structural challenges they face in terms of health in the heat (and health writ large).

    My mother always tells me to focus on the factors I can control, because worrying about everything else is useless, stressful, and oftentimes entangles you uncomfortably in the business of others, who may not be so happy to find you as a squatter in their space. I am not always good at this; my control freak tendencies like certainty too much. I would monopolize the entire supply chain if I could, under the false and presumptuous assumption that I can do it all, and better even.

    But now, I find myself coming back to this piece of advice. The question of heat protection for refugees is such a big issue, and one which overlaps with countless other problem areas and trigger points for the municipality. Understanding where my contribution fits into the big picture, as an informant for both refugees and municipal forces alike, gives me solace and hope. I can only control what is in front of me—the effective carrying out of workshops and our final stage of communication, the report. This itself is inherently important; any chance of sustainable improvement is reason enough to aim for the highest quality workshop possible and to ensure we express our findings as accurately, honestly, and compassionately as possible.

    I will always be open to new ways of being more involved. My nose will always twitch at the invitation to stick it in more business. But in the meantime, the most I can do is complete what I have already signed up for in the best possible manner, and hope that a communication gap somewhere is filled by it. This hope is all I need to keep going.