Four girls and a baby on the street
An encounter by the grocery store
I roll up to Lidl on my bike for a speedy grocery run before the shop closes at 10pm. As I approach the rack to lock my bike, a young girl in an oversized long vest approaches me and asks me if I speak English.
I’m immediately skeptical - this usually only ends up in them asking for money, through convoluted means.
The girl pulls out a slip of paper. On it is roughly written:
I am from Ukraine, I moved to Berlin 1 month ago. I have a baby, and I need milk and pampers.
The girl looks at me - she cannot be more than 14 - and says “I don’t need money, I need food. And I’m pregnant.”
She flinches when she says this, and looks away when I look her in the eye. I’m not sure how much to believe her, but I tell her that I can manage some groceries for her. She follows me into the shop, and circles around until she has an armload of vegetables, chicken, and flour.
She leaves the shop ahead of me, and by the time I come out, I see four girls, one of them cradling a tiny baby. A few of them smile and thank me, calling me sister.
An older one with the baby asks if I can buy her milk and pampers. I take a long look at all of them, and tell them that I cannot buy more than I have already.
The mother of the baby is 18 years old, and the baby is 2 months old. He is swaddled in cloths, and cries a little. She rocks him, and then puts him back in the pram. She tells me that she cannot go to women’s centers because she has no papers.
I offer to call around to find some options for her, and she agrees. Her friends sit around her, on the ledge of the sidewalk, with vinyl bags of collected groceries and supplies. The bottom compartment of the pram is filled with crushed cans and bottles. The girls wear long dresses, and all look to be in their teens.
I am on the phone for ages, being passed from one center to another, collecting a long list of phone numbers and potential resources. While I am on the line, one of the girls spins the front wheel of my bike, making the dynamo lights flash. Another one offers me a wedge of an orange she has just peeled. They all laugh when the wind blows my skirt up as I’m on the phone.
I’m trying to keep a prickly exterior to have some boundaries with them, and to reflect the seriousness of their situation, but I cannot help but smile. They are so young. It’s hard to imagine how the girl and the baby will fare on the street.
“Sister,” the older one says. “We are leaving. It’s ok.”
I get one of them who has her own phone to take a picture of all the numbers and addresses I’ve collected for them. It seems they want to move on, and are fine to sleep in the park tonight. I tell the older one that she needs to find a way to get a roof over her head, and to be warm and dry with her baby. She nods, but I don’t know how much she has taken it to heart.
There’s nothing more I can do for them with the resources I have. I wish them good luck in finding their ways, and bike away.
And now I am back on my track, and they continue along theirs. They are headed to the underground now, and will probably ride black to their sleeping place in the park. Who knows what will become of them, and how their lives will take shape? Will the phone numbers and resources I collected for them be of any use?
Over the 20 minutes I spent on the phone, scratching the surface of crisis centers and hotlines, I discovered a few things:
There are people helping behind the scenes who are happy to provide resources and point you in the right direction, but you need to speak English or German, and you need to be able to write, have a phone, and plan your next move
Living on the street is not considered a crisis, and centers dedicated for crisis will not accept people who are not in an urgent situation
Women’s centers dedicated to sheltering victims of domestic abuse will not accept women who have not been abused
In the end, I do wonder if these girls were actually better off sticking together, sleeping in the park, than if one of them separated from the group and went to a shelter on her own.
*
This encounter on the street, with so many young girls, is a new one for me, and in this neighborhood. I expect I will never see them again, and that they will be swallowed by the vastness of the city. But what does it do to me, to be with the recognition of this?
A growing part of me tells me that this situation will only become more frequent as conditions of the world become more dire. How will all of us find our way to deal with situations like this, when we least expect it?
