10 there to here

Swedish

THE BULLETIN March 2011

My Altegrim, 25, grew up in the woods surrounding the rapidly

growing northern Swedish city of Umeå, which will be the

European Capital of Culture in 2014. But My, who was named after

a character from the fairy tales of Tove Jansson, was hardly aware

of the booming city close by: “All I ever knew before arriving in

Belgium was nature and silence.” Her decision to come and live in

Brussels five years ago was, therefore, something of a gamble.

shuttersto

ck

Brussels identities from A to Z

‘People in

Brussels

are afraid

of nature.

In Sweden,

nature is part

of our soul’

“Before settling in Brussels, I f irst made a detour to the Wa l loon-Braba nt village of Tubize, for

an internship. I wanted to learn French, and the waiting lists for internships in France were too long, so I went for French-speaking Belgium. It was a good move, because I don’t think large France would have given me the warm reception that tiny Tubize did. Not being allowed to speak anything other than French, I got to know the language pretty well. And through the language, you also get to know the culture: the cuisine, the cus-toms, the national character. My time in Tubize was also very important to me on

a personal level. I was warmly received there and invited to have dinner in people’s homes. That is very normal in this country – you don’t even have to know each other very well. This warm humanity and hos-pitality is rather exceptional in Sweden.

After a year in Tubize, it was time for me to head back to Sweden, but I realised Belgium was something good and happy I wanted to keep in my life. So I decided to stay and study illustration at the Saint-Luc arts institute in Brussels. Now that was a shock. My move from Umeå to Tubize was one of one small town to another. But now I was thrown into the small metropolis of Brussels. All my life I had lived in the woods – as a result I know a

My between the two magnolias, which bloom in spring, near the Bois de la Cambre in Ixelles. “Even though I come from a country with much more severe winters, I still find it hard to get used to the cold, wet, Belgian winter. I always long for spring, and look forward to the moment when the magnolias will bloom again.”

010_011_brussels a to z.indd 10 17/02/2011 11:27:57

11

Interview by Veerle Devos & Kristof Dams

Image by Veerle Devos

great deal about plants and trees and I only feel completely at ease in nature. When I tell people in Brussels that in the evening I sometimes walk around by myself in Parc Duden, they look at me as though I were mad: alone in the woods! That always makes me laugh. People in Brussels are afraid of nature, of the dark woods. In Sweden, there is so much nature, it is so taken for granted, it is part of our soul. Here, nature is forgotten. The looks on Brussels people’s faces when I ask them where they go to see trees! They don’t know what to say – they don’t go looking for nature, seeing trees is not essential for them. So in Brussels I was the odd one out.

It took me a long time before I found I could breathe easily in Brussels. I wrote to my friends in Sweden saying that I felt locked in here, between all those stone walls. I’ve had to learn how to deal with this claustrophobic feeling. Moving here wasn’t a culture shock, it was a city shock. But step by step, I found my place. And nature helped me in that process. I systematically checked the map of

Brussels for green areas and went looking for them. Sometimes they left me feeling disappointed: a seemingly big green space would turn out to be no more than a sad little grass field with a playground. But in this way I discovered two wild magnolias at La Cambre abbey: they only bloom for a week and they are gorgeous – in the north of Sweden where I grew up, there are no magnolias. When my mother came to visit me, I took her to see them – she was as enchanted with them as I am. That the magnolias in Brussels were so big was to me a sign of hope.

Now, I am at peace in the city. The dots of nature you can find here, of course, are nothing like what we have in Sweden and I return there twice a year. But I am happy in Brussels. Even when you can feel that the city is becoming ever more busy and hurried, I still manage to find calm amidst it all. What is also special about Brussels is that the whole world is coming together here, so you can talk to an enormous amount of people from different cultures and regions: great! My boyfriend is from an Aramaic family who have fled persecu-tion in Turkey and started a new life in Brussels. Wonderful, no, that Brussels can be such a welcoming haven? If we want to survive in the city, we have to cooperate: a wholly different context than in a village surrounded by nature.

When I was new to Brussels, I often purposely got lost, and there was always someone friendly enough to show me the way. In Sweden, it’s different: there respect for personal privacy takes on extreme proportions. They will never approach a stranger, and likewise do not wish to be approached themselves. The climate plays a part in this, of course; people lock themselves in their houses, because it’s so cold. I try to keep the best of Sweden and Belgium. I want to keep the calm and stillness of nature in myself, but also the social aspect of urban Brussels society.”

In praise of: • L’Arrière Cuisine (11, Rue des Grands Carmes) serves good Belgian food and is right near my place of work. As a veggie I also like to eat in vegetarian restaurant Dolma (329, Chaussée d’Ixelles). In the evenings they have an extensive buffet with the most delicious dishes. The owners are Buddhists and real chefs. They also support Tibet – and that’s important to me.

• The Marché du Midi and the market at the Anderlecht Abattoirs. Prices are lower here, so you see a lot of poor people. As well as old people: the ones who stayed on during the urban flight of the 1970s and who know Brussels from before the EU, from before the development of the city’s bourgeois society. They are the real Brusseleers, the ones you see in the evenings alone in a bistro: lonely and pauperised. That you can still see them is exceptional: in any other city these kinds of people are simply wiped out.”

• Bois de la Cambre (Ixelles) is the most beautiful piece of Brussels nature that I know of. Even when you can see the roofs of the buildings and hear the roar of traffic, I’m happy to be there.

010_011_brussels a to z.indd 11 17/02/2011 11:27:57