I have just returned. Here I am in the city of my dreams again! New adventures and experiences are waiting for me... I love this town, its atmosphere, its energy, its illusions.
First... I should find my place of accommodation. I know the address but that is all. It is not easy to look after the streets as my hands are full of bags, packages etc. I have to see the map of the town...
My flat could be in one of the old buildings near the big Cathedral. I am just in front of the Central Station. Where to start walking? At this time I don’t realize that my adventure No 1 is getting closer and closer...
I can’t find the name of the street on the map, I can’t even pronounce it, though some words I have learned in Dutch. Trying to ask people, nobody knows.
In the meantime, a boy comes to me, perhaps he can be from Marocco. He is standing behind me and asks something. As soon as I am turning on, he grasps my handbag and running with it just away. Some people are trying to help me and run after him. But he has disappeared. How can it be? He may be a drug user as many others in this town and needs money for drug.Amsterdam is not only the city of freedom, democracy, liberalism, individualism and tolerance - but also that of free (soft) drug use. Many young people come here on so called drug vacation and try drugs. Soft drugs are not prohibited, you can buy them in the nearest coffee shop. If you want. But why would you, if it is not prohibited? Hard drugs, however, are not accepted at all.
Of course these were not my thoughts that time... That time I did not realize that this was one of my most important first-hand professional adventure to experience deviance, the practical side of sociology and social work. The Taoists say: the life events are neither good, nor bad, it depends on how we view them. What this event means for me? To take first hand experiences about drug use and drug users, prostitutes and about this multicultural mixture of happiness of freedom and unhappiness of loneliness...
But at this moment I know nothing about the Red Light District and neither about other things...
Difficult to call in my memory how I felt when all my properties (cash, cards, passport, eye-glasses etc.) have been stolen. Fortunately, not my suitcase with clothes. To tell the truth, I am not nervous at all, just a bit exciting. But I am not afraid of anything.
It was Saturday afternoon and the soonest date I can go to the Academic Medical Center is Monday. Perhaps I should sleep in the streets? I don’t mind and I don’t care. My feeling is: now I am out of the society! At home I was a doctor and other people handled me according to my social status. Now I don’t belong to any social classes, moreover, I have no passport , no identity card, no money, in a word: I have no identity... It is similar to what I have read in an esoteric book: Time is now and Place is here. I live here and now. That is the perfect freedom.
I am going to the nearest police station. The policeman helps me to find the flat in question. However, when we arrive there, we can find just a message from the landlord: „I was waiting for you till 5. I am back next time on Monday.” It is 6 o’clock...
Soon I have to take my contact lenses out, and I have lost my eye-glasses as well as the fluid to which I use to put my lenses. Interesting, I am not nervous at all. Just let things to be happening...
Everybody is very kind to me: I have gotten the fluid to my lenses and I have been transported to a shelter. I can call my husband from the police station. He is very worried about me. I don’t want him to be nervous. It is my experience...
-2-
At the shelter... Also a big adventure. I meet here so many interesting people. A funny boy from a suburbian London, an even more funny Dutch sailer, a beautiful beaten Turkish girl, etc. Volunteers are working here. All are open-minded, intelligent and altruistic. We are living here like a big family. Soon I make a friendship with the Turkish girl,her husband is a cocaine user. She speaks neither Dutch not English. We can even manage somehow to understand each other. She also invited me to a Turkish restaurant. Many Turkish families come here to Holland and form a special subculture. Anyway, Amsterdam is the city of subcultures. I also met an old schizophrenic woman, very intelligent (speaks English fluently) in other case, who gives me a necklace of gold. Still I wear it. Funny women... Who knows what schizophrenia is?
-3-
On Monday I am going to the Academic Medical Center. Louise, the Chair, is a very kind person, I already met her before. She is very sorry for me and invites me to her home to live with her family for a couple of days.
Another scenario: An old Baroque villa with own riverside. Moreover, a typical English couple, Louise’ friends, spend some days with us.
Typical English couple - typical English tea - a big South African dog - cats - all in Baroque style... From the underclass to the upper-middle class. A rapid social mobility! That is a dream, isn’t is?
-4-
Another scenario. I am going to my flat. That is in from of the big Cathedral and 5 minutes’ walk from the famous Red Light District, the place of the famous prostitutes. My professional programme starts: going to Rotterdam, Utrecht, den Haag. Fascinating cities. In the evenings I am going to see walk in the streets of Amsterdam. I am listening the prostitutes in the shop-windows. They are indeed beautiful and exotic, most of them are form Asia. I don’t fear of walking here alone, many people do the same, the Red Light District is a tourist attraction. When I go back to my flat I am crying. I feel lonely, I am absolutely alone here, flats are separated from each other, no neighbours. I am thinking about the prostitutes. I know that approx. 70% of them use hard drugs and 30% of them are infected with HIV. That is the world of illusion. The whole life is a kind of illusion. I am sorry for them and just crying and crying.
My daily activity is to experience public health programmes for drug users, prostitutes, deviants. I notice an ex-prostitute women suffering from AIDS. That is the other side of their lives... But what I like most: everybody handles the prostitutes and drug users like anybody else. „That is your life. You decide what to do. I respect your decision and just want to help you.” That is the philosophy in an individualistic society: The accept people what they are.
In the evenings I go home, thinking about trying a soft drug. I have never done before. I will not even this time. I am alone here and I don’t know what can happen to me. Insteas I hear the music of the Cathedral’s clock and trying to cope with my experiences.
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