Dating : What does Holland mean to me

The purpose of this post is to highlight the experience just after arriving at Addis Ababa from Amsterdam. The remaining paragraphs will be expanded in later posts.

My Mom

If there is pure bliss, unadulterated joy, the feeling of real happiness almost constantly through out the day, every day, then I have been lucky enough to experience it as a child. That love and carefree happiness was only possible because of the unending, most pure of pure love my mother gave me everyday. One that does not understand what enough means when it comes to giving to her son. Her heart is the most bright thing I have ever seen, and I know there is nothing that will ever be as vivid. Words actually do not do any justice, feels like I am lessening her grace in fact to try to capture her love with them. But on the other hand they mean a great deal, and the obligation bestowed upon me to honor that love compels me to proceed with all means available to me. More on this on another post.

In Holland

We were two, we were full, although that was not right, but… , we were. We were loved and welcomed in the arms of people who are teachers of hospitality, who are heroes of kindness. The chance to be normal, the glimpse of hope in all its glory from the people and land that let us in, to be one of the lucky ones, that took us in as though we were their “lost child”, respect and care are not the right words to depict their character. It’s actually love. Love was given to us from the dutch people. What generosity, what benevolence, what decency we were thought. Altruism in its purest.

The significance of this environment for a child’s development can not be overstated. All my memories, all my being, all that comes off as the better side of me is bound to the beauty of this slice of time. It saves me from my pessimism, my gloom, the dark days. One glance of my pictures of that time, and am adjusted, repaired again after a tough day. All my tension goes away. My breathing becomes normal, I become again.

Falling

The weeks before we left for Ethiopia were unclear as to how to interpret what was going on, “is this a vacation? are we really coming back? Doesn’t look like it, but we must be coming back, this is our home…, we must! What will happen when we are there?” My mom in her attempt to explain, to conceal really, the evil to come, tried to contrive a story made up of beautiful mountains, of nature and of being among animals, a life in that foul location, in that mistake of time called Ethiopia. There were books depicting beautiful idealized pictures where people live in harmony with wild life, given to us by Jehovah’s witness evangelists. Perhaps I was accessing memory from those pictures to come up with a child’s projection to fit this false expectation, this lie she was inevitably drawing. I knew not what to expect. The downfall from normal that was to come.

Upon arrival, I remember feeling extremely empty. There was actually not much reason to feel this way, we just landed and went to the hotel, not much to witness, to be confronted with, not yet. However, the general depression that is already there among the living of that poison made it clear what perdition they are actually desperately but unavailingly fighting to ignore, clinging with all they have, for dear hope that was never ever there, torn apart by the explicity of their camus-dian absurdity, barren, nothing to mask that reality, curious with gazes that can break steal over anything that is seemingly from out side the perimeters of their prison. They dare call it a country, not because it is; there is simply no other name, not for a land that large. Visibly envious, slightly amused and mainly confused as to why we are inside their prison, why willingly. I can read their faces, “why would any one come here, to damnation, even if it were for a day, even if it were for a minute”, my gut spoke to me, I knew there is nothing about their pain that would resemble any of the things I was led to imagine twenty four hours ago; I knew we were in a dangerous place. If we stay here any longer, they will “eat us alive”. My immediate response was to seek calm. I told my self: “oh well, we will go back to safety soon”, this and the series of posts that follow explore how wrong I was to think that way. This is my story.

Coming back to point though, just to be sure, I asked my mom for the first time, a few hours after we arrived, slightly anxious, mainly concerned, “when will we go back?”. She uttered something. I remember, thinking it must have been a joke, but I do not remember my mom making jokes. Perhaps I might have not understood her, perhaps I miss heard her, or was not paying attention well enough to decode the sound she was making. Perhaps it was hard to hear. At least that is what I wanted to believe. A day passed till I asked again, fearful of hearing it, braced my self with dread. I must have miss heard her again, “can you please repeat that mama?”, I felt cold, butterflies in my stomach, my legs were slightly shaking, the sky looked impossibly black, however, my mind finally confirmed that I was indeed hearing her right, I was hearing her absolutely clearly, her words were unmistakable, “we are not going back”.

Memories and cries

The rain, the ice, the ponds, the ducks, the swans, the trees, the smell of the water, the pervasive presence of algae and greenery on the bricks and cobblestones, the trains, the language, the food, the hygiene, the people cycling while socked in rain, the freedom to be, kept stuck eternally afterwords in my memory. My Holland is always that childhood. It is real, it is honest. It is sanctuary.