Aftermath

Greeting from a country on hold. Today Belgium celebrates All Saints Day, tomorrow All Souls Day, so the streets and the offices are empty. We at the representation follow the Finnish calendar so we stay put at the office, in my case mainly communicating with Finnish colleagues and preparing for the coming week.

Life is getting as settled as it can. My new home is with a Finnish-Cameroonian family in the nice municipality of Woluwe St. Pierre. The family has 3 kids between 3 months  and 9 years of age. In addition, the house is the home of an au pair and an intern at the European Commission, both Finnish girls. It's a busy house with somebody always at home and three languages constantly in use. I was personally extremely happy to have found a place for the resting 2 months. The people are nice, the public transport works well and I have my own space and privacy. What I especially enjoy is that the father plays his guitar and sings blues every now and then. Blues can make me very dreamy, so I'm sometimes in a wonderful state of mind.

The episode with Mhamed didn't get an ending. On Thursday, when we were supposed to meet, I started calling him after waiting for half an hour. He was on his way. Next call, he was with a friend. Next call, he was in the nearby metro station. Next call, he was in a completely different part of town. At that point Mhamed was super drunk already and I was quite certain that all the cash he had had with him, was gone. After 2h of waiting for him, I went home.

I left Mhamed a very serious voice mail, saying I would call him on Friday and that I would come where ever he was. I called him from the office with another intern listening as well, in case I misinterpret something. After a long, confusing and frustrating conversation I had an address and directions that made sense. After the call the intern who was with me commented that Mhamed is a total nutcase. Well... yes. My hopes weren't really high up but I went to this place. I called him that I'm downstairs, he said he was coming down. 15 min later I called him again but I didn't understand much of what he's trying to say anymore. The third call got through but the only thing I heard was loud Moroccan music. After that he didn't answer me anymore.

Now I'm done. He still has my money and there is a fat chance that I'll ever get it. I sent Mhamed an email with easy instructions how he could still leave me the money and that I don't want to have problems with him. I doubt this has any effect but curiously new, almost bitchy, sides of me are emerging (for the record, bitchy is a word that is hopefully seldom associated with me). Anyhow, revenge is sweet. I have Mhamed's passwords to his email and to Facebook, I have a photo of him, a color printer and some knowledge about where he usually goes. So, if I don't hear anything from him, I'll go on a personal crusade and blacken his reputation or at least what's left of it. Exploring new sides of myself. It's a bit scary, though, if I can actually do something consciously evil. We'll see.

No matter what the outcome, I would most likely do everything all over again. This has been so interesting, so obscure, so "educational" to me that as an experience it's valuable. The only thing is that I could strangle Mhamed with my bare hands for all the hours I've been standing outside waiting for him, first waiting countless hours for Mhamed to come and open the door to my home (the record was 3h), then waiting for him to come to a meeting that he himself proposed. I strongly dislike people being late for no excuse. That's the Finn in me talking.

In any case, from now on I'll move on to happier things. I've been noticing a worrysome change of tone in my speech, almost a kind of negativity. It's time to get rid of that and get the old Hanna back. Hello world, I'm all yours!