Sportallee

Sportallee

Sportallee? (Sport Avenue?) It sounds like a place where you could take a yoga or karate class, or play basketball with your friends. But no, Sportallee is the name of the asylum center where migrants and refugees register to begin the asylum process.  Often they have just arrived in Germany, or have been living here illegally and have nowhere to stay, so they receive a room in Sportallee, until their asylum application is complete and they can get a room in an Unterkunft. Our heavily pregnant guest from Kenya had registered at Sportallee, and had officially received a place to live there, although she still spent most of her time with us. One day I went with her to check it all out. Sportallee reminded me a little bit of a narrow-halled American high school, with its office at the entrance and its linoleum floors. You get a key to your room, but if you leave the building, you have to give it up at the office to the police that work there, and then pick it up when you return. Your passport is also taken away. You eat your meals in the cafeteria, and if you need to take a bus to an appointment, you need to ask for a bus ticket. Each resident gets forty euro a month spending money. I went with my friend to her room.  It was packed full with four cots, one card table and two wardrobes. Each woman in there was heavily pregnant, and soon enough the population of the room changed from four pregnant women to three pregnant women plus woman and baby. In the room, like in Sportallee itself, air didn’t move, didn’t circulate. It hung hot, heavy and stale in every room and hallway. Even with the window open in the room, the fresh air outside seemed to refuse to come in, as though if it did, its passport would be taken away too. In the immediate area around the building, there is nowhere to sit outside, to go for a walk. I’ve accompanied my friend to appointments within Sportallee.  The people who work there just don’t care. They don’t care to smile and be polite or patient, or slow to anger. They don’t care to be careful what date they stamp onto your bus ticket so you can avoid trouble with bus drivers. In the cramped and airless waiting room, they called out the names of people loudly, and wrongly, as though the effort of putting in effort was too much effort. My friend now has a room in an Unterkunft(lodgings) and is no longer there. But one of her roommates plus baby still is, with no hope in sight of leaving the four person room. Because at Sportallee, they notice who is friendless and who is not.  Who has support on the outside that might get pushy. And here at Brot und Rosen, we got your back.