In November 1989 my father emigrated from Morocco to the Netherlands. My two sisters, mother and I stayed behind in Morocco. I myself was born in August 1989. So I was 3 months old when my father moved to the Netherlands. In 1991 our family was reunited. I was 3 years old then. Sometimes when we talk about the past, I tease Dad by saying, “You thought you could run away from my baby scream. But I came after you. You cannot escape me.”
Once in the Netherlands, my father gave up his original profession as a caftan maker and focused entirely on his new profession as a flower grower. Twelve years passed without his thinking for a moment about a needle or a thread. For him, that chapter of his life was closed at that moment. Now it was all about providing his family with financial stability. My father has always been a hard worker. His days started at five in the morning, and there were seasons where he wouldn’t come home until it was bedtime for me and my sisters. In 1995 we got another sister (he has 4 daughters in total). Our family was now complete.
I was 12 years old when my father’s former employer decided to close his business. His health no longer allowed him to continue the business and so my father was out of a job. Dad is a nice man, has humor and you can have nice conversations with him, but give him a long period of doing nothing and he turns into a less nice person (to put it mildly).
What do I remember from that time? An extensive house renovation, a father who was suddenly at home a lot and was constantly thinking aloud about what he should do next. My father was already middle-aged, uneducated and it was a period when there were not many jobs available in the labor market. I can still remember that he got some odd jobs through an employment agency. No special jobs. They were more jobs as a cleaner at Schiphol, in hotels and the kind of jobs that are often offered to unskilled people. It was work that gave him no satisfaction.
Most people admire Dad for his expertise in his craft as a caftan maker. My sisters and I admire my father for his perseverance. Due to the fact that he does not settle for less and always strives to get the best out of himself. For example, he refused to apply for benefits and refused to take any more jobs that did not feel challenging to him. I admire him because he decided at the time that this was not the reason why he had migrated to the Netherlands. What I admire even more about him is his ability to continue to believe in himself. When our house was completely renovated and he literally had no room left to escape to, he started to think. There had to be a reason why Allah swt put him in this position. And he was motivated in finding this reason.
Meanwhile, the demand for kaftans in the Netherlands was greater than before. There weren’t many kaftan businesses back then. And the few that were there all did well. This got my father thinking and one day he indicated that he wanted to pick up his old profession. The family did not immediately react positively to this. After all, it would be a major investment and what if it failed? But as I mentioned, his ability to believe in himself is so great that no one could change his mind. He would visit his old contacts in Morocco, buy some fabrics and accompanying material and then start from home. I can still remember that I shouted: “yes and we advertise via marokko.nl (toen bestond Facebook nog niet)”< /em>
Supposedly done. His motto at the time was (and still is now) “deliver good and honest work and people will come looking for you. Even if you are hidden in a cave.” His clientele grew slowly. Dad did everything 100% himself at the time. From cutting the fabric to sewing the dresses. When I think about the old days, I see my father sitting in the corner of the sofa with a thimble on one finger and a needle and thread between his other fingers. Day in and day out he was busy making dresses. His motto turned out to be correct. Women from all over the world sought him out. There was a period when he supplied about 10 dresses a month (a lot of things as everything was handmade and he did everything himself without any help).
Not long after, my sister struck up a conversation with my father one day. a thenm