Chapter 7 - Emancipation and Paternalization

Summary

The Difficulty of ‘Letting-Be’

Elizibeth and her husband Milad are among the Iraqi families who took out a loan to buy a little house outside of Nitra. But while the family feels very comfortable in their own home, it comes with new challenges: the villages around Nitra are predominantly commuter areas. People commonly travel into town by car to work. Elizibeth's husband, however, works in Germany for several weeks at a time, taking the family car with him. Not just jobs, but also education and health facilities are concentrated in Nitra. Elizibeth has to travel from their settlement to the center almost every day, to attend driving classes and to bring her four-year-old daughter Lana, who has Down syndrome, to a daycare and rehabilitation center.

Having her long-term adaptation and ‘functioning’ in mind, social workers wanted to teach Elizibeth to go to Nitra by bus. They showed her where the bus stops were, and explained to her the connection, schedule, and where she had to change. Elizibeth was unenthusiastic about the proposal, to say the least. The bus goes only once an hour and takes, unsurprisingly, significantly longer than the car. But the social workers argued that many Slovaks rely on public transport daily, so they could expect Elizibeth to tolerate the inconvenience and do the same. Elizibeth claimed that the bus ride was a stressful and straining experience for Lana and that her daughter's restlessness could affect the other passengers. Anyone who ever accompanied Elizibeth and Lana on the bus (including me) got a rather different impression, namely that Lana, generally of calm and introverted nature, was not too bothered by the ride and the other passengers. “If a doctor or health professional confirms that it is bad for Lana's development to go by bus, then that's a different issue, of course,” Jakub explained, immediately adding that he was rather inclined to see it as an excuse. Elizibeth also complained that she had to carry Lana in her arms due to her difficulties with balance and coordination. The NGO promptly addressed this problem by providing Elizibeth with a secondhand stroller. Once, Elizibeth missed the bus but elegantly saved the day by calling her acquaintances from the village, asking them to give her a lift.