Hospitality

I'm sitting at home behind my laptop at the kitchen table. I run my hands over the wooden tabletop that my husband repainted in one of the lokdowns. Eight persons, once consciously purchased to receive many guests. This table has many faces, was there when we made memories and exchanged stories. 

Forty kilometers away, at the UAF in Utrecht, the desks are unmanned. The office is deserted, the soul has left the building. The work continues, but contact and connection are lost. New contacts are rarely made, existing ones are maintained with great difficulty. Every day I marvel at the emptiness. It didn't get used, luckily not. How does it exist?

I survived an extreme situation. My time in prison is like a horror movie where I played the lead role and my comrades played the supporting roles. Less violent, but similar emotions come to mind when I think back to our weeks in the asylum seekers' center in Blitterswijck. The Roekenbosch was a place full of uncertainties. Fortunately, extreme fear, humiliation and torture did not occur, but existence was just as slow as your life was put on hold. 

But I adapted. We could laugh every now and then, joke and share joys and sorrows with each other. Comparison is dangerous, but crazy as it may sound, in prison and in the azc I was sometimes more cheerful than in recent times. Maybe it's because time has filed down the sharp edges of my memories. That could be, that's plausible. But that's not all.

What happened to me or to humanity? 

From the start of the corona crisis, the lack of contact has been difficult for me. We celebrated my husband's XNUMXth birthday in a small group, on the same day that Job and I presented our book via a Zoom meeting. The UAF Awards were presented via a video connection, I have now digitally waved goodbye to countless colleagues and congratulated loved ones with joyful news via the same, now cursed, screen. 

Hospitality is one of my most precious cultural heritages. Iran is hospitality. Hospitality fills your soul, enriches your circle of knowledge and broadens your horizons and world. By getting to know new people and sharing stories, you build a warm nest around you. It's inspiration! People reveal themselves to meet each other, tell stories and drag each other into a world, a new world. People you care about, you can count on. People who can come to your aid if you have to endure a loss or want to share a joy. But true hospitality is temporarily locked away in my treasure chest. 

I can't wait to release her. When the time comes I will polish it up so that it can shine again and give shine and warmth to life. Until then we can receive four – recovery: two – people a day. And so I invited Eline, who went on maternity leave, to my house. A number of other colleagues reported on the screen. We ate together, laughed and reminisced. At least it's something.