A quick test

It will take just a minute as it actually consists of one question only:

In your opinion, is the universe we live in friendly or hostile?

If by any chance Einstein, who supposedly believed this to be one of the most fundamental questions we can ever ask ourselves, lived today he would have given you the following test key:

If you believe that the universe is a hostile place, you will work hard all your life on building walls around  you in order to protect yourself from it.

On the other hand, if you see the world as basically friendly, you will spend your lifetime on building    bridges around you.

Well, it’s not that hard to guess what would anyone who has been anywhere near the war choose as an option. Does it mean that these people, even if they escape the war and outlive its terror, are in a way crippled for life? Are the tins of canned beef and beans, powdered milk, bags of flour and containers of oil nearly enough to make up for all the damage that has been done? Ok, the patient survived but what about their quality of life afterwards and how long it will last?

I can tell you that the situation is not hopeless. Everything is reversible, even the hostile image of the world. You just have to give it another chance, no matter how hard it might seem. I think that as soon as one shows some determination and willingness to try, an opportunity will show up.

In my case, I think it all began from looking at the world through the eyes of a person who is more confident about the goodness of other people than anyone else I have ever met. This friend of mine loves taking photos, especially of people he, by the way, so easily makes contact with. So I had the privilege to wander around the world seeing it the way he does. This easygoing, unrestrained approach to people seemed to me as amazing as their smiling eyes that would in return shine back from his photos. A little later, when I discovered Couchsurfing, I’ve come to feel some of this shiny warmth even more intensely by meeting people in person. From then on, everything has been a lot easier.

Julian Barnes, one of the best contemporary English writers and a very smart guy by the way, would probably drop in here to say that you have to believe in the world just as you have to believe in love. And even if it lets you down again, which is very likely, if not inevitable, you still must go on believing in it as otherwise the world will come down on you with all its heaviness. Eventually it all comes down to building bridges or walls in life and I’m sure everyone will agree that building bridges is much more fun.  

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Do you need a couch?

I’ve always been somewhat shy. I admit it. As a kid, I would hide behind my Dad’s legs trying to avoid the shower of kisses coming down on me from my over-excited relatives. Having my cheeks all sticky and wet afterwards didn’t help much either. 

I guess seeing people at their worst some ten years later, helped even less. How can you ever again think highly of humans, once you feel the shower of bombs coming down on you on a number of different occasions? Even if this can be ascribed to the advancement  of the latest extermination tools that elegantly reduce direct human contact to seeing people as too many dots on the screen, there still remain so many disturbing examples of people whose hands have been covered in fresh blood from cutting somebody’s throat. For those who escape all these wide ranging forms of the war’s brutality and violence, still comes another unexpected challenge of overcoming the usual rejection and hostility refugees encounter on a daily basis. Well, excuse me but one really has to be either blind or stupid or made of stone not to acknowledge it. 

However, there is a good side to it, as once you start thinking of people as inferior to animals, every little act of kindness comes as a miraculous surprise. Rather than being overlooked, any sign of human goodness is much appreciated and supported, especially if it comes from a complete stranger. 

If I had been writing this a couple of years earlier, I would have probably finished here concluding that overall people are to be approached with utmost precaution as very few of them are actually well-meaning. Yet, recently I’ve come to seriously doubt it. 

Ten years ago I could hardly imagine myself going over to somebody’s place after just a couple of hours of conversation, or inviting them to my place. This was reserved to very good friends and relatives only. However, a few days ago I got stuck at my new friends’ place until past midnight talking, laughing and completely forgetting about whatever reason I’d had for being shy and detached. At the end of the last year’s summer, after a couple of months of hanging out with my new friend who turned out to be such a wonderful person, I returned home with eyes full of tears because she was leaving the country and I had already missed her much. Through her I met some more good hearted people whose invitations to birthday parties to some far off places I would have gladly accepted if only I’d had a little more money for travelling. A year ago, I asked another newly met friend to stay over for the weekend and was rewarded with a great company, a big warm hug and even a bigger smile. On another occasion, some of my new friends invited me to their special French pancake dinner party and taught me how to make them myself. And just a month ago I spent one out of many wonderful afternoons with my great friend and conversation companion Elsa at a local café whose overshadowing ripe grapes gave us a shelter from the hot summer sun. I’ve met her quite recently too. And the list could go on and on. Actually, the list was too long to fit into my previously constructed perception of the world so that eventually the perception had to be modified. 

The question is how can somebody who is a bit shy, untrusting or overly cautious get a chance to meet some new people and even make a number of new friends? 

Well, it all began with a couch. However, not the familiar one that you sit down on at your friends place for an occasional chit-chat, or the one that you find at a therapist’s. I have come to believe that there is no advice, talk or consultation that can change your mind frame as effectively as the first-hand experience you acquire yourself. So the couch that I have in mind is much more powerful. It enables you to meet new people through their kindness and goodness. 

The idea was born when a group of travel loving enthusiasts decided to build an online community of like minded people who wanted to help each other travel more easily. They created a network of people who fill in their internet profiles by giving a brief overview of likes and dislikes, interests and friends and most importantly offer help to travellers that happen to come to their part of the world. It may be just a walk, talk, having a tea or coffee together or even letting somebody sleep at your couch for a couple of days. The idea proved to be revolutionary as it gave a whole new dimension to travelling. Not only did it become more affordable, but at the same time more interesting and rewarding as well. For how can you possibly feel what the new place is like and how it lives and breathes if you don’t get to know its people? And for those who don’t have enough money to travel around the world themselves it is now possible to welcome the world at their own home.

Here is where you can research into it yourself: Couchsurfing

To tell the truth, I was initially very skeptic about it but luckily also curious enough to give it a try. Coffee after coffee, lemonade or tea and I could slowly feel the change coming on. Certainly not all of these new acquaintances were life changing, yet quite a number of them were. What is even more important is that once you let down your guard, other people start approaching you more easily as well, including those outside the couchsurfing community.  

So these days I’m looking forward to having some of my new friends over for dinner, lunch or sleep-over and as soon as having enough money coincides with having enough free time, I’ll fly off to visit some of these great people all around the world.

The closed door

It was an early autumn morning when she headed to join the military convoy. An hour later she was climbing the stairs up to the fourth floor in one of the residential buildings. She finally reached the familiar door panting. It had been months since she last climbed them. Her hand hovered over the doorbell for a couple of long minutes. Was that the sound of footsteps on the other side? And then the sweat, an old traitor, started breaking through. That was it. She gave up and went back down the stairs to the second floor. She stopped before another familiar door and this time it was a little easier to make a buzz. The woman who opened it couldn’t hide the surprise. It was all over her round moon-shaped face. She muttered a few how, when, whats but overall was glad to see her. That was a relief. They sat down together for a brief chat but there was not much time to lose. She kindly asked the woman to phone the fourth floor neighbours to check  if they would mind if she dropped by shortly. That seemed like a better idea to her. Not to catch them by surprise. If they refused, it wouldn’t hurt as much. Anyway, the woman reported that they didn’t mind at all. And up she went again.

Two people let her in - a man and a woman approximately her age. They were both very nice. They invited her to sit down and have another coffee with them. She could hardly swallow but didn’t want to be rude. She sat down stiff on a sofa she had picked herself a few years earlier. She fought hard to win over another living room set her husband liked better. They quarreled a lot about it and drove each other mad, as well as the delivery men who carried first one and then the other heavy bunch of furniture up and down that same staircase. The two of them waged a little war about it and in the end she won. However, that day she didn't feel exactly like a winner should.

She had a quick glance at her watch and again explained that she had only a little time left before going back to the convoy. She asked if she could pick up a few pieces of clothes from her and her children’s wardrobe. The winter was coming. There were also a couple of diplomas, birth certificates and a few childish things her daughter missed very much. The people encouraged her to take whatever she wanted and so she went to the bedrooms to see what would be most necessary to pack. The woman followed her like a shadow. It made her feel wired, a little bit like a thief or a beggar. The familiar wardrobes had some unfamiliar clothes in it and the woman probably wanted to make sure that she didn’t take what was not hers. Everything was in together. What was it that she wanted to take? It was hard to concentrate.

She finished quickly and just before leaving they invited her to have lunch with them. The very thought of it made her stomach  turn. She tried to refuse politely but they insisted. And one by one, the table was covered with familiar pots, plates, knives and forks. No, it wasn’t a twilight zone, yet the objects kept staring back at her. She was kindly told to help herself.  She tried to force a few bites down the throat but they just kept coming back. Even the tranquillizers she drank that morning couldn’t help much in finishing it. She suddenly found it unbearable to stay any minute longer. She thanked them a lot for a nice meal, picked up her plastic bags and headed towards the door. And again it closed behind her. A new name plate was on it.

Crossroads

When I turned 10, a new girl came into my class and soon became one of my best friends. We would walk back home together for a while and then stand for a long time talking at the point where our roads separated. Two years later it looked as if our roads would never cross again as at the outbreak of war we didn’t have time to say goodbye. Her mother was of an undesirable nationality so I knew that they all had to leave. Yet, I had no idea of where they might have finally settled.

One year later I was in a different town, attending a different school and sitting in a different class when a new refugee girl from a far away place joined us and filled in an empty spot on my right side. I was relieved. I felt less stared at and whispered about. To other kids I was a “black sheep” and after discovering that my head became a habitat for a family of lice that had probably migrated from some of my constantly scratching classmates, I started feeling that sheep and I really do have something in common. I cut my hair short and sat for hours out in the sun like a chimpanzee with my mum working with her fingers through my hair until she would get tired saying “I’ll never exterminate these nasty bastards”. After all the smelly powders, shampoos and special extermination techniques she finally did succeed and I returned back to school, again relieved. And there, my new fellow refugee was waiting for me impatiently, eager to ask me a question “Do you know a girl whose name is… ?“ and just like that, one after another the sound of a name I hadn’t heard for a whole year and a half rolled out of her mouth. I was paralyzed for a few seconds before I answered with “Yes, but how do you know her?”. What followed was a bout of joy, clapping and hooraying on her side, before my curiosity was eventually satisfied. She told me a story of a letter that travelled for months determined to fulfill its mission.

Miles away, in a different country my crossroads friend wrote down “I’ll hope this letter will reach you…” , put it in an envelope and set it sail to my grandparents’ village with only my name and my father’s name on it. That was all she knew. There was no address. The letter reached the village but ended up in the wrong hands of a girl with the same name, surname and father’s name. So my double opened up the letter and was struck with this bizarre coincidence. However, the girl decided to try to help out and find the missing person so she searched high and low, all to no avail. Some months later she told the whole story to her newly arrived refugee cousin who was accidentally placed in my class to sit right next to me. By the time I answered the letter and sent it back to my friend, many months had passed. She later told me that she had almost given up hope on ever receiving it so when it finally arrived she jumped all around like crazy.

I’ve never stopped wondering whether this strange sequence of events was just a coincidence or something more than that? Can it be that when two people long for each other miracles can happen? Or perhaps future knew that we had some pretty hard challenges before us and so decided to make it a little easier for us? I leave all the options open, but I believe that in the years to come, our long conversations that moved from the street onto the paper meant a lot to both of us. There was somebody out there for whom you were not an alien, a connection with the world familiar to you that at the time seemed as if it had never really existed.

The two of us still keep in touch. Not as often as we used to but there is always this air of familiarity and closeness whenever we meet, even after a long time of no contact. I visited her a couple of days ago and she told me she still hasn’t been back to the old place. She doesn’t want to go alone and is looking for a chance to travel with somebody. I was later thinking of how it would be nice to do this adventure together. We would probably end up walking to that same crossroads together and just stand there talking for hours.

Check your expiry date on blaming!

Upon meeting a quiet, reserved, shy guy the last thing one would expect to hear, especially not from the guy himself, is that he is easily provoked into fight charging at his enemies like a bull while his friends try to pull him back by the sleeve. In my case the astonishment was even greater as only a few minutes earlier he had complained about having problems with girls for a reason he didn’t know. He wondered why they never stay with him for a long time.

If I hadn’t been so taken aback with this disconnected thinking I would have probably taken some time to predigest in my mind what I wanted to say instead of just blurting out  “Oh, no wonder girls dump you!”. Again surprisingly, my reaction was completely unexpected to him. It looked as if he bit his tongue for saying any of it thinking “Damn, that’s not the impression I’d wanted to make. Her mind went into wrong direction. “ I made him bite his tongue even harder by elaborating on the subject. I actually wanted to help giving him an, obviously very much needed, insight into fear his ex-es might have felt upon realising that they are with somebody who seriously lacks self-control and might lose his temper easily and, who knows, might even raise his hand on his girlfriend. His reassurance that any such thing would never ever happen simply wasn’t convincing enough so he, looking very troubled by then of trying to reverse this unflattering image, mumbled something about his traumatic childhood that taught him to fight for himself, in the real meaning of the word. This was supposed to justify his aggressive behaviour and short temper.

By the same logic I guess, upon hearing of my experience of a refugee, people often feel free to express their annoyance with somebody belonging to any of a number of  “not so popular nationalities” and especially the one that didn’t show much understanding for mine even if the person in question has nothing to do with it. The experience sort of entitles me to be rightfully angry and hostile to these people. I was supposed to learn to act aggressively in my future life as a measure of prevention or in self-defence when facing any different nationality. I am supposed to revenge for my bad fortune and make other people suffer some more, and oh yes, I should call it “fighting for myself”.  

With all these expectations of a person confiding in me, you can imagine their shock when all they get is one big frown on my face followed by a sharp “So what if he or she is (xy)-ian? Do you have a problem with that?”. I get all worked up, with a lot of steam coming out of my ears, but even then I don’t charge at anyone physically, only verbally perhaps, which is again not a good response as on several occasions I overreacted when somebody just wanted to know somebody else’s nationality not meaning any harm (or so they claimed as I am still not completely convinced). People usually don’t realise that it was exactly the same pattern of thinking on the opposite side that contributed to my refugeedom. Any such accusation of an individual on behalf of the nation’s bad reputation actually reminds me of the treatment I used to get in the past. Even though I’ve witnessed how much collective can influence the shaping of the frame of mind of an individual, I still feel it unacceptable not to give somebody a chance to prove you the opposite, that he or she is an independent thinker, and after all just a human being or even a potential friend. Why not? Most of my friends are a result of a wonderful combo of different origins. It makes them, and me as well, only richer.

On the other hand, accepting the same pattern of behaviour to protect yourself from whatever struck upon you in life is the easiest but at the same time a degrading choice. By doing so you perhaps involuntarily, yet inevitably, become exactly what you are fighting against. There is an array of reasons one can easily pull out of sleeve to account for any such irresponsible behaviour or thinking. You can always write it off to your parents, upbringing, war and life circumstances in general. Yet, aren’t these actually the lessons you should pick up some valuable experience from and use it to upgrade yourself?

People are amazing in that they have fought for centuries for freedom of act and speech, but when it comes to making important decisions in life they back up and rather let others make them for them. So even if there aren’t any past or present circumstances to put the blame on, they’ll go and ask somebody else to do the thinking for them. Instead of asking for advice, they often look for somebody to take all the responsibility off their shoulders. Isn’t it very convenient to have somebody else to blame if anything goes wrong? It was funny to hear this from a priest who complained of this twisted logic of the people who turn to him to solve their problems.

I believe George Bernard Show had some of the above on his mind when he wrote:

People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them.

An oracle called history

In the village where my father, grandfather and their forefathers were born, there was a hundred year old book written by a monk who came to do his service for the local church. This funny fellow was in the habit of shocking people with his strange visions of future often provoked by people and situations, but sometimes he would simply spell it out, in a manner of a local Nostradamus. These disturbing and often enigmatic windows to the future were said to be written down in that ancient book. I have never seen the written proof itself but I’ve been hearing some of his words circling around from mouth to mouth among the locals ever since I was a kid. Some whispered them with awe, or better say fear, others repeated them mockingly, yet nobody believed that some of his most alarming prophecies would come true, at least not in their life time. How on earth could one vast area of the country become deserted over night, as he used to say? And what did he mean by saying that “the ones who leave the first will eat with a golden spoon, whereas those who leave the last will have nothing but a wooden one”?

With the onset of war, these perplexing words started to make more sense and when the day came when deserted soldiers, runaway husbands and fathers rushed from battlefields to their villages spreading the word that the enemy was approaching fast and that there was no time for packing, people jumped in the cars and tractor trailers knowing that their wooden spoons were waiting for them.

Some time ago I was reading a non-fiction book written by a renowned local historian describing my homeland less than a hundred years ago when I came to a passage that gave a very vivid account of a situation shockingly similar to the one my family and I went through in recent history. There was an ethnic clash in which one side was breaking the shop windows of another with the same hatred and even identical  threatening words shouted out loud. I marched into the kitchen with a book and demanded an explanation from my father. I wanted to know if he knew anything about it. Actually it was not a question, it sounded more like an accusation and I didn’t quite believe him when he said he hadn’t heard about that very episode. Yet, even so, he knew about the animosity, and the hatred, and how unwelcome we were and he still let us go through that same hell our forefathers had gone through, obviously in vain. I held him responsible. I found him guilty of being naive for believing that people are too good to let horrors happen or, even worse, repeat. He trusted them too much, he didn’t take the warning signs seriously and completely ignored history that made a fool of us again. I could almost hear it laughing.

My anger waned quickly as I knew I loved my father for what he was, sometimes too naive but more often as openhearted and giving as one can be. However my issue with the history remained unresolved. How are we to handle it? Ignore it, scorn it and each and every time learn all over again, or acknowledge it and approach life and the world more carefully? If we could only know who wrote it and whose version of a story we are presented with. And which version is the right one, if there is the right one? We are living in an age of doubt acutely aware of what a little propaganda and marketing can do. Words have become the most powerful weapons.

Another issue is how to approach people then? Seeing the worst of them made me perhaps too careful. In an attempt not to be naive, at one point I became too reserved and sceptical. And when it comes to people, it is not hard to guess what happens if you keep yourself at a safe distance from the potential danger. Yes, you are bound to end up feeling lonely.

Perhaps father was right after all. Even if you do know historical facts and learn its lessons, living by them turns out be too hard. I may still be confused about the best approach to history, but I am nevertheless more than thankful to both my parents for being raised as a human being, neither superior nor inferior, but equal to anybody on this planet no matter what any propaganda may try to convince me into believing.

Christmas fever

I returned to my grandparents home in the middle of the night and tiptoed into the empty side of the bed, next to my aunt. The floor complained squeaking with every careful step I made but nobody seemed to be disturbed by it. A tune from the radio in the car was still playing in my ears. Soft, mellow voices were singing about love, peace, faith and hope, appropriately soothing for the important religious holiday. Only the circumstances in the world outside the car weren’t exactly tuned in neither with the melody nor with the holiday. 

After a week or so of staying with my friends for Christmas holidays, everything changed over night. Fear, panic and confusion took hold of everyone because the other side changed their mind about the peace treaty and struck with all the force. I was quite safe staying with the good old family friends but still inside I felt eaten up with worry and suspension. No news from my family. They were close to the line of defence. Only 30 miles away from it. Were they still there or evacuated? When would I see them again? What if all of us had to go? How was I going to find them?

Days and nights passed with gnawing fear and anxiety growing larger until one evening I saw Dad stepping into a room, wearing a uniform. A heavy stone fell from my heart upon seeing him and the air suddenly became more breathable. There was no time for warm greetings however, as the car was waiting for us outside. A quick goodbye with the friends and I was on my way to join the rest of the family, still at my grandparents place, thirty miles away from the guns and fire. The nearness of guns didn’t really matter. It was easier to bear anything as long as we were together.

The next morning I got up a little later than the others and slowly descended the stairs that were stuck on the outside wall of the house, leading to the bedrooms upstairs. As usual, half way down, I peeped through the steamy window curious to see what was going on in the kitchen. I was struck with the sight, almost rubbing my eyes to see if I was in the right house.  An army of unfamiliar faces sitting by the long table was eating the familiar polenta with yoghurt. I sneaked in shyly and waited for an empty chair. The mystery was soon resolved. The unfamiliar faces were "never seen before" distant relatives and family friends who had to leave their homes and had nowhere else to go. The house and the yard soon turned into a refugee camp and so Christmas seemed more like a Refugeemas. It was the biggest family and friends reunion ever indeed.

Interestingly, at the time when people were supposed to bury their axes and remember of brotherhood and humanity the worst would come out of them. “Their” Christmas was the most hated days of all, because what is dearest to your enemy is of course the object of the greatest hatred to you. That reminds me of a kid breaking the dearest toy of another kid out of spite, in the middle of a quarrel. And if two Christan fractions are not able to show understanding and respect for each other, how can it be expected from others. Thus, an occasional bomb or the whole rain of them would follow as a very special Christmas treat. The whole scenario would repeat reciprocally 14 days later when the other side was celebrating the other but essentially the same Christmas.

The only person who openly ignored this battle cry was my Grandfather. Even though his birthday happened to be on, alas, “the most detested day of all days in the year” it gave me a lot of fun to watch him argue with the rest of the family about throwing his birthday party. While the others worried about what neighbours might say and in general ridiculed his idea to celebrate birthday at that age and in those depressing circumstances, he would remain as relentless and stubborn as a little kid. First he would raise his voice in an outburst of fury and then sulk for a while like an old Indian chief, lips tight together, arms folded, legs crossed and then again he would wave his big hands around until everybody else got tired and gave in.

As I think of it now, there was much satisfaction in seeing individual overpowering collective, in heart instead of rule following and in universal madness being defeated by a small, personal, childish whim. 

Couple of years later:  How to survive escaping a bullet? 
                                A survivor