A simple sandwich

After Christmas dinner, Ans and her family stayed in touch with their Iranian friends. They visited them often at the emergency shelter on the Wassenaarseweg. This building used to belong to Leiden University. Ans explains that the name plates of the professors were still fixed to the doors, but the offices were now refurbished as bedrooms.

On every floor were two microwaves, where everybody could heat up their block of ice that turned out to be a meal (see Ayoub, step 6). There was no fridge, so during winter everybody would hang a plastic bag with rice, vegetables and milk out their windows.

Breakfast consisted of some boterhammen (bread), with a slice of cheese or ham, or a package of hagelslag (chocolate sprinkles). Many did not eat ham anyways, and the hagelslag raised more questions than it answered. Was this supposed to go on bread?

Whenever Ans and her family visited friends in the shelter, they sent her back home with arms full of hagelslag. And instant coffee, because no one liked that either. Only then did the extent of relief after Ans had asked her friends to cook during Christmas become blatantly clear.

The humor in the heaps of leftover hagelslag can not be overlooked, but it is also a symbol of the shock of coming to another country. To prepare a simple meal from your own culture seems to be impossible without outside help. The idea that everyone should adapt to another culture from the moment they step foot in the country in question, even if this culture is completely unknown to them, is infused in the most trivial matters.

After 6 months the shelter was closed down, to the great shock of the Leiden municipality and the many volunteers that worked there. A feeling of helplessness remained, as “those are our people”. Within two days the building was cleared, but furniture, bikes and other important personal belongings were stored by Leidenaren and brought to their original owners who were relocated to other shelters. Haide en Fardin were brought to Delfzijl, Saeed to Katwijk and later Harderwijk.