Making friends in a foreign country

Ayoub received the watch on his wrist as a gift from his Afghan friends in Leiden before travelling to Iran to see his family again for the first time since he fled. In Afghan culture, it is customary to give a fancy gift to someone who is about to make an important journey. “Indeed, I try to never forget my own culture. Naturally, I spend a lot of time with my girlfriend, Renée, but I also meet with my Afghan friends once a week, to stay in touch with my own culture.” He got to know all of those friends here in Leiden, in the refugee centre behind the Central Station, where he has lived the longest.

In this refugee centre, an old office building, he slept in what looked like a coffee room. He made great efforts to make his abode as cosy as possible: he folded the metal blinds into drapes, and he placed a huge luxurious chair which he had found on the street in his room . While he sat on his little stretcher, the other people in the building were welcome to visit him and sit in the big chair to drink tea and make conversation. In this way Ayoub met a lot of people, among whom other Afghans who had fled and with whom he became good friends. But it was certainly not always fun and games. Aside from running water, there was not much else: some improvised showers and a microwave meal six times a week. Cooking was not possible and there was hardly any cleaning done. A lot of people there were worse off than Ayoub and the friends he made. “But I never say it was a bad life. We were young, we had a group of friends and we pushed through.”

But although his friends created a good base for him to build his own life, living here was still a struggle. “I still found Afghanistan better than the Netherlands: it is a different culture, I couldn’t speak the language, and after a year I still wanted to go back.” Nonetheless, he always continued to meet with this group of friends, and they have proven to be very dear to Ayoub. Since his trip to Iran to see his family again, Ayoub wears the watch that he received from these friends.