By Ann Chen, Third-Year, University of Virginia

The first time I walked into the Charlottesville Animal Shelter, my knees trembled so badly I nearly dropped the bag of donated towels. Back in Shanghai, I’d volunteered at an cat café – the kind where you sip lattes while well-groomed Persians ignore you. This was different. The air smelled of disinfectant and hope, a golden retriever’s wet nose prodded my hand, and a woman in a “Rescue Mom” hoodie barked instructions in rapid Southern English I could barely parse.

“Y’all international kids,” said Martha, the 65-year-old volunteer coordinator, sizing up my “Please Be Patient, I’m ESL” pin. “Last week we had a Saudi prince’s daughter who tried to adopt a three-legged possum. You here to take our depressed bulldog to yoga class too?”

I almost fled. Until I noticed the Korean grad student silently scrubbing kennels, the Peruvian postdoc inventing a Spanish version of “Who’s a good boy?”, and the local mechanic teaching a Syrian refugee how to decipher veterinary forms through carburetor metaphors.

Our breakthrough came during the Great Kitten Census Fiasco. When twenty foster kittens arrived simultaneously, Martha threw me a clipboard: “Chen! You’re on data duty with tech-boy here.”

“Tech-boy” was Rajiv from Mumbai, a Computer Science PhD who spoke exclusively in Python jokes. As we logged flea treatments, he muttered, “This is like debugging legacy code – except the variables pee on you.”

By hour three, covered in kitten formula and mutual desperation, our small talk died. Then he asked something no classmate ever had: “Why animals? In India, I organized stray feedings until my caste made headlines. Here… it’s simpler.”

The truth tumbled out – how I’d nursed a dying street cat during Shanghai’s lockdown, how its quiet companionship anchored me through visa rejections. Rajiv nodded. “We’re all running from something. These creatures… they’re our silent co-conspirators.”

When local volunteer Missy overheard, she didn’t offer platitudes. The coal miner’s daughter just showed us Appalachian survival hacks – using dental floss as emergency suture thread, turning rotisserie chicken containers into recovery collars. “Y’ain’t gotta explain trauma to someone who’s held life in their hands,” she said, demonstrating on a one-eared tabby.

Now, our “data team” has expanded. Thursday nights find us in the shelter’s break room – Syrian pastries meets Tennessee moonshine brownies – swapping stories that would shock our professors. The Bulgarian literature major reveals how walking anxious dogs helps her own PTSD. The football player admits volunteering keeps him sober.

Last week, as we celebrated Mr. Whiskers’ adoption (the three-legged possum went to a biology professor), Martha eyed our culturally chaotic potluck. “Y’all realize this ain’t normal friend-making, right?”

Rajiv grinned, feeding a treat to our unofficial mascot – a Chihuahua named Taco who humps everyone’s ankles. “Normal friends don’t know how to remove raccoon ticks or your existential dread, Marth. We’re trauma-bonded.”

They call it community service. We call it building a sanctuary – for the animals, and for the parts of ourselves that don’t fit dorm posters or LinkedIn profiles. Turns out, you don’t need perfect English to understand a whimper of pain or a purr of gratitude. The real language of belonging is written in paw prints and shared silences, in the courage to care for broken creatures when you feel just as fractured.

And when finals week hits? Let the frat boys have their parties. Our tribe will be in Kennel 12, eating kimchi tacos and reminding Mr. Whiskers that yes, we too feel like biting the world sometimes – but there’s always someone willing to stitch you back together.