In the Philippines you don’t eat chicken at Christmas. This year Bing (55) is making an exception. The thought of the dish ‘chicken adobo’, with vegetables and vinegar, takes her back to her native country. In her grandmother’s kitchen with the chicken that they just caught and slaughtered themselves.
It is a dish for everyone, rich and poor. People with and without a refrigerator. In the Philippines, vinegar is used to keep food fresh for longer. It’s not just on the table every night. “Only at special moments, with special guests. Like now.”
Everything breathes Christmas in the decorated kitchen of the Rotterdam Undocumented Support Center (ROS). People stay there without a residence permit. Three weeks ago they were in court because their ‘bed-bad-brood’, a shelter for vulnerable undocumented immigrants, was going to close. Minister Marjolein Faber (Asylum and Migration, PVV) no longer wanted to finance it. Last week the judge ruled against the minister: the shelter will remain open for the time being.
They are relieved and cheerful. They feel much more than just “undocumented,” they say. Today they are mainly cooks. Together they have put together a cookbook of their most special dishes. They explain how to make their favorite dish. Interested Rotterdammers can come and taste it and purchase a signed copy.
Bing, wearing a bright blue sweater, purple glasses and a bursting laugh, has made her recipe at least a hundred times. “Chicken, garlic, onion and bay leaves and some other ingredients in a pan, fry, add water and vinegar, cook briefly and you’re done. Just twenty minutes!” Welcome tips, says a visitor. “And hopefully the chefs will also earn something from this.”
Greenhouses and slaughterhouses
Bing would like to earn her own money. But without documents you are officially not allowed to work in the Netherlands. At the same time, everything costs money, so work has to be done. It is estimated that there are approximately twenty to sixty thousand undocumented migrants living in the Netherlands, the vast majority of whom are surviving. They work undeclared, often in cleaning, in greenhouses or slaughterhouses.
Undocumented migrants only run into problems when they can no longer work, because they are ill, too old, or vulnerable for some other reason. This group is accommodated in National Alien Facilities (LVVs), a facility that has become known as ‘bed-bath-brood’. Without this shelter they would be on the street. Lawyer Pim Fischer, who filed lawsuits on behalf of more than three hundred undocumented immigrants in five cities, boarded the train after the ruling of the preliminary relief judge in Rotterdam to personally tell the residents of the ROS that the shelter will remain open for the time being.
“We couldn’t have gotten a better Christmas present,” says Maarten Goekomen, coordinator of the ROS, with a tray of Christmas stollen in his hand. “We are tired of it.”
“Tired? Then you should eat Sancocho, it’s very healthy!” says Penguina, the nickname for a small, calm woman of 45, with a woolen sweater in all the colors of the rainbow. When she thinks about the Colombian soup with chicken and corn, she suddenly becomes a twelve-year-old girl dancing with her family in Cali, Colombia. They always made Sancocho together. Outside on an open fire by the river. “Then it was a party.”
In the Netherlands, everything has to be done quickly
The dish takes at least three hours to make and that’s exactly the point. “In the Netherlands everything has to be done quickly, quickly, but for Sancocho you have to take your time.” Penguina found two Colombian friends at the ROS to make the soup with. Together they spent hours dancing and singing in the kitchen, to Colombian music. Thinking back to her youth is twofold for Penguina. She has fond memories of Colombian culture, which she misses so much that she finds it difficult to talk about it. “But it was not an easy life. That’s why I’m here.”
Bing recognizes that struggle. Sometimes she would like to bring the Philippines here, although she is happy with her life here. Seen in this way, the ROS kitchen is not just a kitchen in a residential area in Rotterdam. For residents it is a gateway to the Philippines, Colombia, Bangladesh, Somalia or Morocco.
Tagine
In Morocco it always smells like Tajine, says Hassan. He’s beaming. “Oh, that’s really wonderful.” The 61-year-old man with a large hat on his head and a neat coat would prefer to let everyone taste the Moroccan dish. “Fish, lemon, tomato. And herbs. Lots of herbs.” He not only makes it at Christmas for the residents of the ROS, but tomorrow also for 160 people in the mosque. He doesn’t actually celebrate Christmas himself, but he has something to celebrate. He will probably receive a residence permit in February, he heard today. The reason is not cheerful. He is seriously ill. He is on kidney dialysis. But still, a residence permit would be wonderful.
Bing and Penguina look ahead. They make plans for the future, even without papers. They volunteer, go to church, make friends and have dreams. They know plenty of people who did receive a residence permit, but according to them, they get much less out of life than they do. Penguina: “Whether or not you have a residence permit says nothing about who you are.”
Hassan also does not sit still despite his illness. If he gets that coveted residence permit, he will open a Moroccan restaurant. He already knows exactly in which Rotterdam district. “Then I can make Tajine for everyone.”
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