My Blog

Thursday, Sept 28th, at 15.44 my plane landed in Montreal Dorval airport. Alhamdulillah, finally 6 months after the announcement about the scholarship I got in April, I am now in Montreal…

The city looks like a bit of Jakarta, except less jams and clean environtment. I said to my coordinator, ”Everything is big here compared to the Netherlands”, and she said, ”Well, this is America!” The autums is starting and I can see everywhere the leaves are turning into yellow, orange and red, so beautifull…

I’ll be working at a frenchcapone hospital, meaning all communication will be in french. Something that I didn’t expect at the time I applied the position. Luckily, except the hopsital, everything is bilingual, including all TV and radio channels. I’m so happy to finally live in an english speaking country!

I am also happy to become Indonesian since we are everywhere. And the first rule of any gathering held by Indonesian community is that there should be Indonesian food from Indonesian kitchen! So, coming in the fasting month is a good moment for me. On my third day of arrival I’ll join a breakfasting with Indonesian mosleem community in Montreal. Really looking forward to it!

However, the biggest excitement is about my new work. This time I’ll work with clinical researchers. A totally new environtment compare to my institute in Utrecht where everyone dress up and behave casually, something that I like better actually…

So, let’s see what this year is going to bring me. New friends, new adventures, and a lot of exciting trips across the country and its neighbour: US

Last thurday I went for my wisdom teeth operation at UMC Utrecht. I have paid a lot for my health insurance so why not take the opportunity to do surgery in the best hospital in the Netherlands for free, I thought. Not like the previous operation 2 months ago, this time the surgeon had to drill my left jaw to remove the teeth. The whole procedure lasted in less than 30 minutes, amazing!

However, due to the local anaesthetic effect I felt numb on my lips, my left cheek, and I couldn’t swole solid drug. For a second I thought  this might be  what the TIA (transient ischemic attack) or stroke patients feel. Thanks God in my case this only lasted less than half day, and I knew exactly what cause the disability so i didn’t feel worry that much. But if this happen abbruptly to a lay person, as to TIA or stroke patients, they must be scared! Wondering the causes and the consequences that are beyond their knowledge, it must be a terrified experience…

Indeed, the lesson learnt is that we have to be gratefull for the health before the sickness come, how perfect and complete we are as human before the death come…

My office building is a unique one. Eventhough it’s a 2-floors temporary building but it has everything: a very modern lab facility with advanced cooling storage system, and a high-tech security system. We could pass the entrance door without a  passing card only between 8 AM and 8 PM. If you want to work longer in the office or lab, you have to switch the alarm off exactly at 8PM, call the security that you work over time, and switch the alarm on again before you leave the building. Once the alarm is on, a movement detector inside the building will be working and steel layer will scroll down automatically to cover all the glass windows.

It’s the duty of the last person working in the evening to check if all the lights have been switched off and make sure all the passing doors are closed perfectly. Otherwise, the next morning the earliest person working will send an email around with an ‘impressive’ warning. And of course the security officer will easily find out who’s the last working person, because everyone has to beep their passing card for time registration. Amazing!

So, one evening, almost 7 o’clock I decided to go home after a long working day. Usually I’ll be the last 2-3 persons working in the office,
because when it’s summer in the Netherlands people tends to leave their
office earlier to enjoy the luxurious warmth of the sun shine. I saw there were 2 new guests working at the lab, and usually they’ll work over time. In the hall way we passed each other and one of the guest took the inisiative to ask about this security matter. 

"Hi do you work here?" she asked me
"Yes"
But her next question really surprised me
"Are you from the cleaning company of this building?"
"No!"
"Oh, I am sorry.." I could see guilt feeling on her face
"Could you please tell me when is the closing time in this building?"

For a second I thought what’s wrong with this lady, she’s also from a minority ras in this white european society. It’s a big mistake and so unpolite to ask this kind of question to a stranger. She could definitely skip her second question and directly ask about the closing time. However, this incident made me think of the image of mosleem women
among western society. The equality of women rights, their position in
the family and role in society in mosleem countries are the most FAQs
from my international colleagues.

It is a fact that in the Netherlands a lot of Morrocan ladies or men work in the cleaning companies because they are cheap labours. Nevertheless, my former Dutch bos, for whom I worked as a data entry assisstant at his pharmacovigillance company, respects these immigrant people more than the Dutch people (in productive age) who lives from the government financial support. It’s also a fact that in the Netherlands the Morroccans in average has low education level and therefore could only participate in low level of the labour market. Fortunately the Morrocan women showed better statistics than the men.

That’s why I am very happy to see more and more women in veil (head scarf) in  the high level of education society here in Europe. Last week in the European Respiratory Society congress in Munich which was attended by more than 5000 health care professional and scientist from all over the world, I saw less than 20-50 women with veil. I am pretty sure that there were more mosleem women participated, because there were a big number of the representatives from the middle east countries such as Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Tunissia, and Turkey. But they are ‘invisible’, because without veil they are not recognized as mosleem.

Nowdays people tend to judge a person from his or her outlook. Unfortunately because of the 9/11 mosleem around the world has to accept false negative impression. So in my view, wearing veil, especialy in non mosleem countries has more social impact. Whether you want it or not, it gives you an opportunity to show a better picture of mosleem women.