Migrant Tales comment: Our longtime editor, Dana, has promised to update a diary of her life in Alppikulma, a shelter for the homeless. We publish this for others to know what a special woman Dana is but to get an insight into the lives of the homeless.
Today, 18. May. 2021 was a rainy day, and it was dark and cold for me because I have been homeless for 6 years. I trembled. And I have been living in an addicts’ shelter for a year now. The racist government and system of Finland oppressed me in the best possible way and put me in the depths of humiliation and insult to break me. Still, I have broken the recession, I have broken the enemy’s horn, the rotten horn of the racists has crumbled to ashes under my feet… I am alive, and I am still struggling, every day and even night, with the pen that God has given me. A magical and exceptional pen that God has made for me with His own hands.
Today, as usual, at 4 o’clock, I stood in line behind the closed door of Alppikulma, it opens at 5 o’clock, my legs hurt a lot, my back was dry, I was shivering from the cold, but I was comforting myself. It was just the foreign man and me. Later 3 other homeless Finnish men came … I feel very sorry for this foreigner. He is a heartbroken man…The Finnish wife took his children from him and sent him to the streets. In these 6 years, I have seen many foreign men, even from Europe and Scandinavia, who have been caught in this tragic fate after marrying a Finnish woman and living for many years. And in all cases, Finnish law gives oppressive women the right. In my opinion, a woman should irrigate her family with love. My mother always drowns me in love even though she does not live on Earth.
Fortunately, there were no bullies today, they try to hide in the corners of the city when it rains, but this is fifty-fifty, and maybe they will come and bombard me with vulgar obscenities, the stench of alcohol, and cigarette smoke. Thank God they were not here tonight.
I am in room 10, my room above is on the third floor, number 18. When men and women get drunk, this room becomes a war room, and noises come to my room, and I can’t sleep until morning, they swear until morning, and sometimes they beat each other. This is a gambling house. I do not know how to get into it, insecurity or under the bombardment of obscene prostitution. Rarely, yes, I seldom enter the building in peace. Tonight was a rare night. But it is not clear whether it will be a quiet night or a war night. But only God has kept me here so far.
The empty room bothers me a lot. I miss our Iranian carpets, family photos, and even my clothes. I have been going to the city every day for a year in the clothes I wore yesterday. During this year, several of my clothes were torn due to excessive wearing and washing, and I went to the warehouse and found some clothes for myself with difficulty. I do not even have the key to the warehouse. To remove something from the warehouse, I have to beg and beg several people in a few days for someone to come and open the warehouse for me. The warehouse is not here. It is somewhere else.
I’m just praying for a restful night now. I need to sleep. But my brain is full of poetry—full of words. But I’m tired. I write by force: original Iranian music and Rumi’s poetry. My friend, I listen to my cave, my love, my thorn liver. I do not want to hear the sound of traffic and screams. I want silence.
Good night universe. Sing aloud, O angels, lest I hear the sound of fighting and shouting.
God take my hand. My feet hurt, I had pain in my feet last night until morning, my toes hurt a lot. God, I miss the colors. I am tired of the shelter blankets that are white and colorless. I am tired of plastic spoons and forks and black plastic plates. I gave all my life and belongings to the people and the church … Now I need a spoon. I do not have a knife. I wish I had access to my belongings in the warehouse.
My brain is full of poetry, oh my God, how can I write, my eyelids…
19.5.2021
This morning again a female worker opened the door of my room.
They treated me like an animal most of the time here in Alppikulma. They open the doors and inform the homeless that it is morning and get ready to leave. But I have been here for a year, and everyone knows that Dana is never late, and Dena always leaves the building very soon. I have protested many times. I have strongly protested. But it did not work. Before, they used to open the door of my room every day, yes, every single day… Different workers. I was given racist insults. And even when I was in bed, I was treated violently. I was thrown out in the middle of the night in wet clothes and by the bullying of a guard because I did not want an addicted woman to enter my room. Because I protested. Because addicts attacked me in my sleep or many other things happened.
This is Alcatraz prison Alppikulma Prison yes Alppikulma prison Alcatraz prison, sigh. Today the worker wanted to make me angry for she hates me.
They want to make sure I am afraid of them. I have always assured everyone that I am not afraid of anyone, and I have been imprisoned precisely because of my courage and freedom. But in any case, they ruined my morning. I left the building quickly and, of course, went downstairs as usual and expressed my dissatisfaction, but I encountered disrespect and humiliation. These things have become normal for me in Finland and Alppikulma and Diakonialaitos.
Continue reading “Dana’s Alppikulma diary (May 18 and 19)”
