Legal alien in den Haag

Elizabeth Owuor-Oyugi, Chief Executive Officer in ANPPCAN-Kenya, dived into it and went for studies in Holland. Here, a glimpse of that world through the eyes of a legal alien.

The voice of the captain informing us we will soon be landing at Schiphol International Airport, Amsterdam wakes me up from an uneasy slumber. We’ve been flying for the last eight hours and are finally approaching our destination. Instead of feeling relieved, I am disoriented. I have been to the Netherlands several times before but this time round it is different. I am not going to attend a one week or so conference and then return home. Instead, I am going to undertake an 18- month M.A. degree course at the famous International Institute of Social Studies in The Hague and as such am legally sanctioned to live in the Netherlands for one and a half years. Even my entry visa this time round is different. Yes, I have to pass through immigration and all but there is a small rider in my visa that states "to report to the alien police within three days of arrival into the Netherlands". The plane touches down and in a few minutes we are out and through out my 18-month stay in the Netherlands, I encounter one surprise after another. Below is a summary of some of these ‘surprises’.

Immigration officials meet us just at the entrance of the plane before any of us disembark and we are told to have our passports ready. We are instructed to form two lines: one for aliens and one for citizens. The citizens do not have to show their passports before disembarking; the aliens have to not only show their passports but also their return tickets or proof of sufficient funds to buy a return ticket to wherever they have come from. I join the line for citizens but am politely informed by a smiling immigration official that I am in the wrong queue. He suspects I am an alien to which, I protest, "No, I am not an alien, I am a Kenyan citizen". But he is not impressed and insists I change queue, which I eventually do. The queue for the citizens moves very fast, that for the aliens not half as fast. I am relieved when I eventually reach the counter for aliens. A cursory glance at my passport seems to convince an over-zealous immigration official of its authenticity and my noble intentions and he waves me through and thus I get into the Netherlands as a legal alien!

From the immigration desk I head for the train platform to buy a ticket for The Hague. My spirits are a bit high and I am humming some patriotic song about Kenya when I encounter my next ‘surprise’ of the day. Yes, the notice board with train schedules is quite well displayed only everything is written in Dutch and for the first time in my life, I begin to understand what it means to be functionally illiterate. I recognise the letters of the alphabet but cannot make head or tail of what they mean. As I stand there contemplating my next move, a voice from behind excitedly shouts in impeccable English "there she is" and I turn round to see bunch of Africans all of who turn out to be Kenyans. Two are old students of the ISS while the other five are ‘aliens’ like me. The former tell us they have come to meet us and soon take over our travel arrangements. Within no time at all, we have our train tickets and are en route The Hague.

In the train I watch both landscape and people. Perhaps because this is going to be ‘home’ for the next one and a half years, I am more keen today and noticing some things I have never noticed during earlier visits to the Netherlands. One thing that strikes me is that people of all ages are strutting around in various degrees of undress. I remark on this to my newfound alien friends and together we swear we will never fall victims of this Western decadence. We reach Den Haag Central Station in less than one hour from Amsterdam and are shown to our hostels. Our first night is spent wining and dining with our Kenyan colleagues who have prepared a feast to welcome us into this foreign land.

The next morning we are all herded to the supermarket by a Kenyan colleague and once again we are stupefied. Again everything is in Dutch and none of the attendants speak English. Our interpreter, the Kenyan colleague comes in handy and advises on what to buy. Everything is nicely packaged and looks very attractive. On cooking it however, we find the food completely tasteless. No amount of spices can add flavour to the food. All of us are wondering where we can buy Royco Mchuzi Mix but are advised not to even waste time looking for it because it is not available. We are amazed by the European love for bread and an assortment of vegetables. We are literally starving and when we are told there will be a welcome party for the "New Batch" as we are called, we are all too excited especially when we hear there will be a lot of meat to eat. The party is a ‘blast’ alright only the meat is not what we had expected. Instead of juicy goat ribs roasted in charcoal fire we have the European version of meat – an assortment of cold meat and of course the inevitable wine. We leave the party disappointed and head for our rooms but hunger gets the better of us and before we know it, we too are beginning to eat bread and more bread.

But if the food is a disappointment, the weather is even worse. The first few months, it rains at least five times a day but that we can cope with. What is wreaking havoc with our systems is the sunshine that does not set until around 9.00p.m. We all feel disoriented and hardly get enough sleep. The worst of the weather comes in October however when instead of the late sunshine we have almost total darkness throughout. It is dark when we leave to go to classes in the morning and it is dark when we come from class at 4.00p.m. Everybody is jittery and tempers are getting shorter by the day. For some strange reason, everybody is having skin problems manifested in itching bodies and occasionally white spots but nobody is confiding their problem to a third party. Everything is hidden under the heavy winter gear. Secret visits to the University Doctor result in a seminar the key objective of which is to advise us to reduce the number of times in which we take a bath to a maximum of three times in a week and preferably not to use soap. It is a sigh of relief when we learn we are not all HIV-positive as we had all individually secretly suspected and now people can exchange experiences on their various ailments.

With the advance of winter, there is love in the air. It is so cold especially at night and people need more than just blankets to keep away the winter chill. We have been undergoing a metamorphosis without our realising it. Slowly the wedding rings that people had been proudly wearing when we first arrived are quickly disappearing. The mode of dressing too is changing. The long skirts are quickly being replaced with trousers that get tighter by the day. Close friends are getting even closer and soon graduate into "pairs" (People can’t be "couples" because that is a respectable term used only for legally sanctioned relationships). A few enterprising fellows even try to incorporate the element of sustainability in the relationships by adopting the "spare wheel lest you have a puncture policy". In other words being involved with more than one person. Occasionally, this brings conflict but we all understand. I mean we have been liberated from our otherwise retrogressive ideas of fidelity and all and we have all developed this "none-judgemental" attitude. The rules of the game are also very clear. "No strings attached. Everything ends at Schiphol Airport just before you board your plane back home!"

All in all, a very interesting experience, I must say. As the ISS Counsellor told us during the orientation week, one can never be the same again after an 18-month sojourn in a foreign land. When first spoken, we all dismissed the sentiments with what we believed the contempt they deserved. After 18 months of staying in The Hague, I think she was right after all, or was she?