The Nest

The shelter is in that part of town where a lot of prostitutes hang out.
When you open the door to the shelter you walk right into the living room with two sofas and a couple of armchairs and a flat screen which almost always is on. A couple of girls are lying or sitting on the sofa and in the armchairs watching the telly or chatting together and trying to relax. The voluntary staff are difficult to pick out as they seem to blend very well together with the other women. There are only women at the shelter as men are denied access- not even a delivery man was allowed to set foot in the shelter- all negociating took place outside on the steps when it was a male.
In continuation of the living room was the dining area consisting of a long wooden table and several chairs. You could be approximately 15 seated at the table. It was here all meals where partaken. Several women sat at the table drinking tea and eating toast which you could take on the sideboard by the wall. In a little niche there was a toilet with strict instructions to wash hands before leaving and a bin for syringes for the drug addicts. In the office nearby you could get fresh syringes. I don’t think that the addicts took fixes on the premises but at least they could clean up and get new tools. Outside the toilet there was a mirror where girls often stood and put on their make-up.
The girls (women) were a motley crew. Some came from other countries; Africans, Romanians. Some were more dressed up than others ;the rasta fari barettes, the chic jeans and hair dos, the make-up and shiny boots. They converse in their own language and it is pretty impossible to understand . You can sometimes tell by their body language what they are trying to express. They are more than often prostitutes. A few who live on the streets come there as well and some who seem to be lonely and in need of company; then there are a couple of originals and a mentally ill who seemed to have fallen through the authorities treatment system. There are drug addicts mainly addicted prostitutes. There are also a couple of sunshine stories represented by women who have kicked the habit and left prostitution but the overall atmosphere is a bit dismal and harsh. Not many smiles at all. A rough language and way of communicating. You never experienced the girls arguing or being unfriendly, the most they could do was to ignore you completely. But there was an incessant chattering and there was a constant flow of women coming and leaving the place.
When the prostitutes had had a trick they often came back to the shelter to get a cup of hot tea and tidy themselves up and meet up with their friends before going out again for another job. You had the impression that the foreign girls had great disputes with their pimps and that they seemed to be under a great deal of pressure. Often they are illegally in the country. The Danish girls were pretty rowdy and spoke in a harsh language, often about violence and being cheated by one or the other. But generally most of them seemed to understand and accept each other and there were no hostilities and a feeling of solidarity would be exagerating but it wasn't far from.