It was a weekend from hell, in some respects. It was the first weekend in the new family
shelter and it was very trying to say the least. The social workers here on the weekend all
need a new vocation, as they are absolutely useless, but are very good at
giving orders! All the women here are
fragile in one way or another; One is
pregnant with her ninth child, (can you imagine?! NINE!!) some are on the run from someone who has tried
to kill them…like me, some fresh out of the hospital….one little girl, age of
only 18, was here as her boyfriend beat the hell out of her, and the foetus
died from it. They did not discover
until a month later that the baby was dead!
It is a wonder that she is still alive; and this poor girl went back to
the man, the father, that killed her child, and respectively nearly killed
her! All here are victims of abuse…hence
fragile.
It was like a tea party for the staff all weekend. They locked themselves in the office, talking
and gossiping. Obviously the residents
here were fodder for conversation, but every request was met as a major inconvenience
(Hence the comment that they need to seek out a new vocation). The staff here on the weekdays are
marvellous, making time for the residents, and reasonably stressed, but who
isn’t. Thirteen families are here, and
all of them have their own individual needs…and of course, we all need them met
‘right now’. Poor girls! But they do their best, and the lady that is
the director of the children’s program is a gem. They could not replace her if they
tried! Personally, I think that she
should be canonized as a saint!! Planted
at the kitchen table for their garden party, they used all of the tomatoes and
cucumbers to make their own salad (these vegetables were to be used for the
“house salad” for the residents, and served us lettuce. Lunch here at the house is to be served at
noon…it was 1:00pm before they decided to feed the 20 odd children that were
here, crying as they were hungry. It was
terrible.
There is a list for kitchen duty, and every day you are
designated to help clean after said meal.
No one showed up to help. I ended
up doing clean up 7 times over two days with 2 other ladies…the lady with the 9
kids no one holds responsible…I think that all the women here would rather do
the work, and let her contend with her brood.
And even though it was only the 3 of us doing the work of the whole
house, when we sat to watch TV, we were ordered back into the kitchen to do it
again, all though we had been doing it all day!! And then she was upset, when we finally said
no. I did at least…I am pretty sure that
slavery was abolished. Even though I am
here at the mercy of the government, for which I am very grateful, there have
to be limits…I had reached mine at the time.
The shelter’s glass is all bulletproof, and they have garage
door covers that are lowered at night to protect the residents…as I have a
professional assassin after me, this is a very important feature to my mental
peace. At night we are all locked in
like the ‘Tower Crown Jewels’, and this makes us happy…me at least. BUT these particular nights I was less than
happy. The social worker lowered the
doors, but did not put them down all of the way, and did not even lock
them! I was disconcerted to say the
least, so I went over to said social worker to show her the way that they
needed to be lowered. She was very
resentful and condescending of my efforts, and after a small disagreement
conceded to do it my way. I mentioned to
her that none of the other windows around the house, (with the exception of the
shutters that they did not raise all weekend that made the house resemble a
prison!!) were not locked, but to no avail.
She did nothing about it; So much for the concerns of the residents!
Call me paranoid! I
know that my attacker is in jail, but since my rack and pinion steering bolts
were deliberately loosened by some unknown assailant, I am now rightfully
afraid. (I have yet to blog about that
situation with the steering!) Because
these damn doors were not locked properly, I did not sleep for 2 days, on top
of the fact that my personal demons rear their ugly head every night between
2-6am. On Saturday night, I found myself
crawling the hallways, looking for someone to talk to. At this time of night, one obviously cannot
be that choosy, and found one of the social workers in the main office. Yes, it ended up being one of those rare occasions
that I actually wanted to talk, and the stupid woman was sending and responding
to text messages the whole time I am pouring out my heart to her. Obviously she was unworthy, but still! I am pretty sure that she receives a
paycheque to listen to people, and hear stories that she could not give a damn about. The least that she can do is not text, and
PRETEND that she is interested!! The
final insult was that she decided to send me to bed. Well, geez, if I could sleep do you really
think that I would be sitting here talking to you! Wow!
Needless to say, I went back upstairs, and proceeded with the attack of
the personal demons; At least the demons are always interested.
Well, welcome to my weekend…How was yours?
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