"A Friend is Better than a Stranger"

Well,
Here I am in Leuven.
After five years of steadily growing anticipation, I have finally arrived in that place I once heard of in a classroom back home. Now I anticipate new classrooms, and do what I can to make my new room a suitable home. It has been five days since I drove with my cousin Huub from Maasbree to Leuven and signed in at the de Blauput hostel. Since then I have registered as a K.U. Leuven student, I have secured a room for then next 11 months, and I have registered as a Leuven resident at the Stadhuis (City Hall). Not to mention, I have recieved lessons in Arabic and shared in interfaith dialogue with a doctor from Sudan. I have discussed the disappointing direction that American capitalism is headed towards... with an undergraduate student from Ohio. I have shared excitement about coming to a new city and shared concerns about culture shock with a girl from England. Needless to say, the K.U.Leuven posters weren't lying when they proclaimed that my experience in Leuven would be an international one!
My first day in Leuven happened to be a Belgian national holiday and the final day of a three-week long celebration in Leuven. Midway operators yelled out the Flemish equivalent of "Everybody wins!", and vendors listed off the benefits of their products. To my horror, every main street was as crowded as a Disney park at Christmas. On my first morning on this first day of my year in Leuven, I was not so surprised that there were people of all ages drinking in the street. What did surprise me, however, was the sheer number of people doing it at 10 a.m. on a Monday.
By noon 40-year-old couples staggered in each other's arms, doing everything in their power to walk in a semi-straight line and not spill their beer. Bands played on street corners, where crowds would dance and sing along to a somewhat unnatural mix of Belgian folk music, dancehall, and nineties American pop. With only the slightest hint of seriousness, I once again ask myself, what have I gotten myself into this time??
The answer came later that evening in the form of a very moving conversation with a medical doctor named Amir from Central Sudan. The night before, I had noticed that my roommate at the hostel had a prayer shawl and rug, so I wrote a note to him while he was out:

"Hello, my name is Josh and I'm from Canada. I hope we meet sometime soon. Cheers, salam!"

Salam is one of the only Arabic words I know, and perhaps it is the most useful for making new friends: it is a holy greeting that essentially means peace be with you.

Anyway, the conversation I had with Amir on the next night was most certainly opened by this very simple and yet infinitely complex word. I shall not explain in detail what we discussed, but I can tell you it involved sharing our ways of personal prayer, a comparison of our respective faiths, as well as a proper exchange of food. In exchange for one of his granola bars, I gave Amir a fresh pear from Huub's garden. With this he broke the day's fast (Ramadan). We discussed two reasons or justifications for fasting. The first justification is simply that fasting is the instruction of God. In a world of faith, there is no greater justification. The second justification is perhaps more aligned to strictly scientific outlooks: to limit the satisfaction of appetites for food, intoxicants, and sexual pleasure increases spiritual appetite for understanding, wisdom, and awakening. Such a concept was not new to me, as it is the 'second reason' for so many other mystical traditions, be they Christian, Jewish, Hindi or Buddhist. I welcomed it as a healthy reminder after a long day of festivities and a long week of jovial beer drinking with Thijs and Liesbeth in Maasbree!

Finally came the answer to my earlier question concerning my current situation. My heart was tickled when Amir taught me my second Arabic phrase: Hem duril'a. This utterance essentially means "I am satisfied". One says this when they finish a prayer, a meal, or when they get caught up in happiness, sadness, frustration, and so on. It is a way of accepting with open arms one's fate. An ecstatic moment elapsed as Amir promised me that he would, whenever I requested, teach me Arabic free of charge. At this moment the two of us understood that we had made a very special bond. Hem duril'a. We finished the evening with prayer: him on his rug and me bed-side.

It seems that the two other people I met may becomes friends during the year, albeit perhaps not friends with such a spiritual link. Perhaps. The future is yet-to-come. I met a German philosophy undergrad from Ohio in the hostel as well. He had spent the previous year studying in Austria, and surely it had rubbed in. He and I shared our views on North American media, consumerism, and corporate control. Our discussion was not limited to Walmart, small-town quarterback stardom, and the complete obliviousness of a large section of the population to what is really going on in the world, beyond the shield of corporate-controlled media. My new friend decided that perhaps it was growing up in such an environment that led him to such a great interest in Marxist and Socialist theory.

The third person I had a good conversation with was a law student from England here on exchange. I met her at the 'Stadhuis', the City Hall, to register as a resident. We discussed our mutual early onset of culture shock, as she told me that I was the first person she was able to have a real sort of conversation with... one not in embarrassed, broken English. It was nice to not have to worry about the language barrier for a bit. I suppose I shall meet her and her friends soon, and together we can, so to speak, break that barrier down over several alcoholic beverages.

Something I said to Amir quite perfectly sums up my attitude during these first days in Leuven: "A friend is better than a stranger."