Tony and I decided on a menu: Oven grilled herb roasted turkey breast with a side of roasted bell peppers and zucchini, basmati rice and mixed greens. Dessert: mini ice creams.
I decided I would do the grocery shopping and cook while Tony was at work. My middle eastern heritage was proven by cooking for 16 people instead of 8 and I ended up buying nearly 5 lbs of turkey breast, 4,5 lbs of veggies, 2,5 lbs of rice and one huge salad, tomatoes, cucumbers and ice creams.
Before I knew it, I found myself back in the kitchen cooking. I was so deep in my thoughts that I didn´t even notice how three hours flew by. I picked the Rasoul´s up from the shelter and we took a cab to my place. The Rasoul´s thanked me so many times on any day that it would make me blush. I would always reply the same: Family.
Life knows how to pull you out of your thoughts. Upon entering the entrance hall of my building with the Rasoul´s, I noticed a horrendous smell and I was not the only one. Someone was bathing in cooked cabbage and it wasn´t me. I was terribly embarrassed. Here I was, helping them to find a new place and the entrance hall of mine smelled like cabbage. We laughed as soon as we arrived in my apartment. I have no idea what they were thinking as Mo, my translator friend, was running late. I tried to use Google translate German- English whenever Mo was not around. Short, simple sentences, I thought would be translated well. How wrong I was with that assumption is another story.
Helz, the eldest, a teenage girl, was not able to attend dinner as she was not feeling well. Tony offered Diar and Mohamad, the two boys, to play with the X Box. I turned on my laptop and entered youtube. I let Abdelaziz choose the music and he chose some Kurdish songs. So there we were, sitting and trying to communicate with hand and feet and Google translate.
We were relieved when Mo arrived. We could finally have a conversation! Dinner was delicious and yes, it was way too much. After dinner, Shamse snuck into the kitchen and started to do the dishes. I got up quickly and when I was about to run into the kitchen to stop her, Abdelaziz pulled a chair and blocked the entrance. I laughed while running around the chair. I couldn´t believe how hard they were trying to keep me out of my own kitchen only to help me. Once in the kitchen i begged Shamse to stop. Any Middle Eastern knows that this procedure of going back and forth can take hours. The first one to give in looses. So I kept telling her to stop doing the dishes and she kept telling me it was OK. And at some point she grabbed my hand, looked at me and said "Family". That was it. She had me there. :)
After dinner, they told us a bit about their hometown. Abdelaziz, the father said: "We were not able to find bread in Aleppo. There were only weapons." Shamse could only shake her head. While I was listening, I looked over to Diar, the youngest, the one who had not spoken to me ever since we had met. He was sitting by himself in a corner of the room, listening to his father, thoughtful and quiet. I pulled his chair next to mine. He looked at me and smiled and said his first word that i will never forget: "Daesh".
I was so happy that he finally said something that I didn´t realize right away WHAT he was actually saying. I smiled at him for a split second before it hit me really hard... It broke my heart that the first word Diar told me was "Daesh". That memory alone will keep me going forever.
Mo was kind enough to drive them back to the shelter. I went back online, heavy-hearted. I had received a Facebook message. Eva, a friend of Tony´s sister who had shared my posts, wrote me that she had a friend in Upper Austria who would love to provide refugees with a home but that her idea of offering her house to refugees was failing currently due to the officials. There were plenty of housing options outside of Vienna, but according to several sources, those refugees who were waiting for their application for asylum to be approved by the government, would need to remain in the city they started the application process. In this case, the Rasoul´s had to stay in Vienna.
Eva also wrote me that if I were not able to find them shelter by Friday, she and her partner would be happy to offer a room in their own home. I couldn´t belive what i was reading. I called her right away, my heart beating like a hamster on the run. We spoke for a while. I explained the situation and told her a bit more about the family and what I have learned so far. I told her about how the government would support people who would invite families to their homes by for example paying part of the rent. Furthermore I assured her that I would keep taking care of them. All I asked her to do was to speak to her partner once more and to think about how long they would be willing to have the Rasoul´s over. I was already extremely excited as this was the first time a possible opportunity was provided. Ten people fell asleep that night, praying to wake up to good news for the Rasoul´s.
Clockwise from top: Tony, Mo, Mohamad, Diar, Abdelaziz and Shamse.
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