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Liz Haswell's avatar

Thank you for this post. I couldn’t agree more! I have been volunteering at Blanchet House, a cafe that provides three hot meals a day to anyone. Our guests are shown to a seat, served meals and drinks, and treated like beloved guests. It’s not always calm and the guests are not always respectful, but I think as a volunteer it’s been good to take the posture of a servant instead of a benefactor.

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Elizabeth Jones's avatar

Yes! I work with refugees, and I've noticed this too. Sometimes it's even cultural. For example, a volunteer who collected clothes from her neighbors for an Afghan baby was really disappointed at how the mum put away the bags without even opening them, much less ooh-ing and aw-ing over their contents. But her behavior was respectful for Afghan culture, where it's rude to acknowledge a gift in the giver's presence. There's an excellent book called "The Ungrateful Refugee" that looks at this phenomenon, among other things. (link to post I wrote on it a bit https://open.substack.com/pub/planetnomad5/p/grateful-refugees?r=6ax0c&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web)

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