The Volunteer House
The dramas, and the people I came to love while volunteering at a hostel abroad.
I’m awoken in the middle of the night to Elias sleep talking. Why is he speaking in English? He says he only sleep talks in German. He says “hey,” and why is L responding with a “Hey what’s up man?”
When I ask them about their late night conversation, neither of them have any recollection. They were having a literal conversation in their sleep.
We’ve all become a bit too close for comfort.
But, that’s what happens when you share a tiny room, a tiny house with five people. We all sleep on twin beds, each tucked in its own corner of the room– with the expectation of the bunk that L and Kaya share. A tight space filled with 20-somethings that have no idea what they are doing with their lives so they moved to an island to do unpaid work at a hostel for a month.
Elias’ in the first bed when you walk in. His feet are always poking out of the covers.
When I initiate a prank war between all us volunteers, a guest comes up with the idea of painting his toenails in his sleep. “Well, it would be easy considering how he sleeps,” I say, “but I think he would actually like it.”
Elias is full of life, possibly the most optimistic person I have ever met. He’s a sweet German man obsessed with finding the love of his life on his travels (don’t get me started on his astrocartology) and making everyone as joyful as him.
We spend many afternoons at the hostel painting (because it’s a hostel event and we are forced to be there, but we do actually love it). One afternoon, Elias paints what looks like blobs and squiggly lines. We’ve been going through a phase of asking ChatGPT to psychoanalyze our paintings and us, but today, I just ask Elias to explain his. He says that it’s a picture of the hostel common area and proceeds to give a spot on analysis of what kind of person and group sits in each area. The new people trying to make friends here, the established groups there, the people that think they are better than everyone over on the couch. I am amazed by his brain.
One day, Elias confides in me that he has found himself in a bit of drama. I giggle with glee and scoot closer to him, “tell me everything,” I say with glittering eyes. He’s looking for advice, I’m looking for drama. He’s been sleeping with a guest who has confessed she really likes him.
“I just don’t like her like that,” he says, “it’s just sex,” which feels like a shock to hear from this man. He is so sweet and such a romantic, I can’t imagine him just sleeping with someone to sleep with them, but I guess men are men. He worries about leading her on. “Well she’s leaving soon anyways so just ride it out till then,” I say. Travel fling breakups are easy like that.
“That’s the issue. She’s staying for another week,” he says, my eyes widen. “And this girl I made out with on the other island is coming here in a few days and wants to see me.”
“Well, Elias, I can’t help you there.”
Unfortunately, this won’t be the last love triangle among us.
Ben used to sleep in the bed Elias now has. I only overlapped with Ben for a few days, but it was a very interesting few days. This man wouldn’t reveal his age to us and could have easily been any age between 25 to 40. He was an enigma to us.
