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A day in Belgium

I had Tamar on the line in a funny situation. Skype is still in beta, and I could hear her, but she couldn't hear me...-
Anyhow, she told me that this blog became very 'professional'.
I guess it is true. There is less time to be personal.

But today is another day.

I was wandering in Ghent, going to the administration department of the city to ask for a new driving licence, passport, identity card -all stolen...-, and around me, I almost didn't see any locals.
I saw Hindi, Georgian, Russian, Turkish, African people and then some locals.
And while I was watching them, I heard them talking: all of them knew how to explain themselves in Dutch.

I like this internationality. Don't know why.

Later, I was sitting in the park, and a guy asked very polite and in English if he could sit next to me.
Memories of the beach in Israel popped up in my head. Off course he wanted to talk to me, and I kindly refused. But he insisted, and we started a talk, which I don't regret.
Where he came from 'Iraq'
Well we had something to talk about...
We talked for an hour, and in the middle of the conversation suddenly it popped in my head 'This could be a terrorist' Atleast that is what they tell in the news, what they try us to believe.
And I looked at him in different eyes. He wasn't, he was a boy of twenty-something that ended alone in Belgium, that doesn't know anybody. He reminded me of me, landing in Tel Aviv, all alone, and the scary feeling that it gives. But also the strength to go and talk to strangers, to make contact. Because you have to.
He told me he was kurdish. And how the Americans promised them, if they would cooperate, would get into the government.
They aren't as they were promised.
If the question is 'why' people turn their back to America, I guess they should look for the answer there.
We talked about the differences in culture, joked, smiled.
We talked about Tikrit, Basra and Bagdad, and I think he was quite surprised somebody knows something more than notion of a war.
He said he had nothing to do, and was bored, that he informed on having Dutch classes but that they only start in september, on how to access the library.
Imagine arriving here, as a refugee, and first having to get through all the paperwork, afterwards not being allowed to work.
He told me he would have loads of free time after his papers were done.

I guess it is true: there are a lot of 'foreigners' in our little country. But it is also a fact that many of them do try to integrate, try to get to know the language.
It is not longer good enough to be able to have 2 hands to work.
The first question they are asked when coming into an 'interim office' is their knowledge of the language.
(When I was working for Randstad Interim, from all our companies we were dealing for, only one accepted people that didn't know Dutch. Because of security reasons. A good enough reason I would say)

So why in Flanders 1 in 4 is voting on right winged parties?
How many protest votes are within those 1 in 4?
To me it is very scary.

Suddenly it was 4 o'clock and I had to go.
'If we could see eachother again to talk.'
He wrote down his number. Was so polite not to ask mine.
Said pleasantly good-bye. Reminded me of Iraqi politeness (which I am sure many women will fall for)

The reason why I will call him, is because he didn't ask my number.
And because he truly seemed alone in a city full of people.

Posted on July 28, 2004
in Living in Belgium

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