The 38-year old Dutch man is Mihai Neşu’s friend. He has been living immobilized for almost two decades, 50 kilometres away from Utrecht. His story speaks about a different way of understanding suffering, forever separating the compassion of gestures from the pity of words.
Unfortunately, there is no train going to Ridderkerk. The Knights’ Cathedral’s Town is situated 10 kilometres away from Rotterdam, in southern Holland. Here, close to 50,000 people live on 25 square kilometres, in neighbourhoods made up of houses symmetrically demarked. Out of these 25 square kilometres, 2 are made up of water! Erwin’s street has a name impossible to pronounce. It comes from rekarreks, a dialect spoken in the province, even more complicated than Dutch. Yes, there is such a thing as a language more complicated than Dutch.
When he was a student of only 19 years of age, Erwin Hout had an accident quite similar to the one suffered by Mihai Neşu. Completely paralyzed, he graduated, made his way up within a Dutch company in an astonishing way, got married and has three wonderful little girls. He is 38 today and says that he’s the happiest man in his Paradise, trapped in a wheelchair.
He met Mihai Neşu last fall, when the specialists from the De Hoogstraat Clinic, starting point for both Erwin and Mihai, advised the Romanian to visit him in Ridderkerk in order to see how many possibilities are available to a man who cannot use his arms and legs.
Neşu’s life in the near future seems to be designed according to the following pattern: love from the people around him, inventions which make his daily activities easier, the wait for a miracle and patience with his body. The Houts’ home is a world in itself. We turned around it for a few hours, like some clumsy mice in a kingdom of fair-headed children and mind-blowing technology which make up the world of an accomplish
