A Glimpse into the Soul of the Refugee Crisis

I find different things fascinating when I travel. I really can’t stand sight-seeing. I don’t understand it. I don’t enjoy partying, or crazy cliff jumping adrenaline rush experiences. I’ve found it hard to understand what it is I like to do. People ask me, the ones I meet on buses or at hostels, they ask me whether I like to see culture, or do crazy things, museums, or whatever. I guess there’s like a list of tourist activities that people partake in. So I’ve had a hard time finding my niche because I think all those things are boring. I like to sit and play my guitar. I like to try and blend in and be a part of the scene. I love train stations, watching the people coming and going. I love going. I love leaving places behind. And I like arriving. But I don’t really enjoy being anywhere.

I don’t really like the train rides either. They’re uncomfortable, and I’m always thinking about the ride ending, and the oncoming need of navigating a new city. It’s so much easier to sit in the train car and watch the world pass by from the window.

I arrived at the Munich train station at 9pm, little early for a 4am train to Paris. Outside, the rain drops billowed from the sky propelled by gusts of wind. I sought respite where trains thunder. In the far corner of the waiting room I set up shop with my backpack and guitar, laying my sleeping pad out to try and rest. I was in the middle of battling a terrible cold. Not to mention I spent the day walking around playing chess with homeless people. I beat one guy that reminded me of Jack Sparrow. He was drunk, and after I beat him he said, “That’s why I love chess… even when you lose…you win!”

I found sleep quickly in the waiting room. I was one of only three occupants, so it was quiet.

I woke up to the hum of strange voices. I scanned the room. At first I felt deceived by an ongoing dream. I rubbed my eyes. Hundreds of people were around me, stuffed inside the waiting room. I thought I’d fallen asleep in the Munich train station. I scanned the room, the people weren’t German. Arabic was flying between dark unkempt faces. Sleeping children piled on top of each other. Grownups were slumped on the floor in corners, or tossing and turning in rigid plastic chairs. Packs of young men huddled together, staring blankly at white walls, whispering brief words amidst long periods of silence. If energy had a color, that room would be dark purple: wounded, tired, and aching. Before me was an extended family grown weary. Another night in front of the television. Just another barbecue at uncle Steve’s house.

There were husbands and wives. There were old women, and old men. I dared to look into their eyes and was surprised to see people alive just like me. The lights weren’t out, but they were worn down, like headlights that have carved down dark country roads endless night after night. Most people didn’t look my way. Those that did held no hostility, just people looking at other people. One young man, roughly my peer, approached me, and took a seat three feet from my knee.

He looked at me curiously, “Where you from?” he asked.

“United States.” His eyes grew wide. And he laughed. “USA! You so lucky.”

His eyes moved to my guitar, “You play us a song?”

“Ah, man, I’m not so good.”

Again he laughed. I don’t know if he understood what I said. I think he was laughing at me for being afraid.

“Is that whiskey?” he pointed at my water bottle as he stood up and walked away.

The German officers showed up a little while later to check for tickets. Ninety-five percent of the people were kicked out. That left about ten of us sitting confused, awkwardly gazing at the space between us. Ten minutes after the officers departed, the first people returned. Slowly the room filled again to its maximum capacity. Some of the old faces returned, along with new ones. All night this cycle repeated itself; the officers coming every two hours to check for tickets, forcing those without to leave the only heated room in the train station.

Sleep escaped me most of the night. I hadn’t realized when I’d arrived earlier, but I’d chosen the wall in the corner next to one of only two power outlets. It was the hot spot, like the bar at a night club, everyone waiting in line to recharge. A man, who evidently had a ticket, for I never saw him ousted from the waiting room when the German’s came, sat in the seat next to the outlet all night. He never once closed his eyes. We will call him the Outlet Tender; he had a converter that turned the one-plug outlet into four-plugs. Through this was developed a word of mouth system for everyone getting a chance to charge their mobile device. Once a customer was hooked into the wall, he was in for as long as he wanted. There was no written system for exchange. No maximum time limit.

Getting on the outlet was a negotiating challenge. A cellphone flashed 10% battery, so the owner walked up to the Outlet Tender. He listened to the case, then delegated his decision to the three wise men, a group of old men sitting to his righthand side. They kept track of the order and made decisions as to the validity of the plea. If the case was valid but not pressing, they might redirect the plaintiff to someone else down the way. If completely invalid, they’d dismiss the plaintiff by laughing and looking away. Sometimes arguments ensued, but it never lasted long. Life just keeps moving.

I couldn’t understand what they were saying, so I’m not sure why some were accommodated while others weren’t. For example, there was a stocky bull-looking young man who showed up in the room, approached the Outlet Tender, who sent him to the three wise men on the wall. The three wise men called on a guy further down the way, who nodded his head, and vuala, the young bull was charging his phone at someone else’s expense.

There was this hilarious dude who came strutting in like a peacock in his tattered pin stripe business suit that fit him like it’d formed to his body. He was gregarious, approaching the Outlet Tender like a lawyer might approach the bench. His hands moved when he spoke as if he were conducting a symphony, provoking tears of laughter from the three wise men. But he would not be denied. He haggled and haggled like no one had before, until finally, out of amusement, the three wise men agreed to reserve him a twenty minute time slot for his device, in thirty-five minutes. The man looked at his watch, looked back at the three wise men, looked at his watch, nodded his head and walked away. Proud of himself, he continued prancing around the waiting room, looking at his watch every thirty seconds. After five minutes he checked back with the three wise men to make sure that his watch and their’s were on pace. Everyone smiled at the man. Even though he looked like he’d been born in the clothes he was wearing, he radiated with youth and energy. I think Germany was his final destination; he had that air about him like he’d just arrived.

Nonetheless, when the officers arrived, he was forced to leave the room like everyone else. They asked him for his ticket, they asked the young bull for his ticket, and both were banished from the waiting room. It was just me, the Outlet Tender, a couple women, a couple children and the empty space between us.

My train was scheduled to depart Munich for Paris at 4:00am. At 3:30am I strapped my back pack on, slung my guitar case across my shoulder and made leave of the waiting room. I stepped out into the blistering cold night onto the second story platform. While the train station is covered by a roof, it’s open-air except for that one small waiting room, so there was no shelter from the blistering cold wind. I was somewhat surprised to see bodies in bags huddled tightly together all around my feet. It’s too fucking cold to be sleeping outside, I thought. I walked a little further down towards the stairs. I chanced to glance through a glass door, down a hallway that ran away from the tracks where I was going to catch my train. Hundreds upon hundreds of people were lying on top of each other. The bodies stretched as far back as I could see, eventually vanishing into the darkness. I looked down the stairs to the platforms where the trains arrived and departed. German guards patrolled, marching back and forth keeping the grounds clear.

I stepped through into the glass room to a sea of colorful sleeping bags with heads poking out. They looked up at me where I stood. In the distance, two young children sitting huddled together amidst the sea of thousands, gazed out at me from souls that seemed too numb; too aware that I was just another person that would come in life and would go in life. An awareness of the world that I at twenty-five didn’t understand.

I froze amidst the sea of bodies. I thought about Paris, how lucky I was to be going to Paris. The mecca for art, the center of Europe, where there were going to be other aspiring artists, musicians, people like me. I thought that was where I’d find the world of my dreams. I’d meet people, they’d have me perform in coffee houses, then maybe on stage. I spun a slow circle in the Munich train station, looking out at all my brothers and sisters that weren’t allowed to go to Paris. All my brothers and sisters that weren’t wanted anywhere. My backpack slowly dropped to the ground. I fell atop it. I set my guitar case in front of me and unzipped. The two children that had eyed me from a distance were suddenly before me. I tested the tune string by string, adjusted the G, adjusted the A. I looked up at the young girl and she was smiling. I started to play for her. I will play for her as long as I’ve got light in my life.