Two Worlds
50 young people.
From 50 different countries.
What expectations do they have here?
Franciska, 15
Biology and English are my favourite subjects. Maybe I shall be a teacher. Best of all in Kenya. But I shall never hit my pupils with a cane if they haven’t done their homework or don’t have clean fingernails. That’s what the teachers did in the boarding school where we lived, until our mother took us away over a year ago. She got married here. We already knew our stepfather; he always visited us with my mother in the holidays and practiced German with us. He is ok. He even understands Swahili and does a lot for my relatives. ¶ The thing I really miss here is my large family, the warmth and for example the mangoes and papayas which you can just pick from trees. Here things like that are very expensive – and I so love to eat African food! ¶ I’m really looking forward to the holidays. That’s when everyone goes to my grandmother’s, and the whole family is finally reunited once more. And then we celebrate and eat and talk the whole time. And I tell them about Germany and everybody laughs about my second career wish. You see, if I can’t be a teacher in Kenya I want to be a professional footballer in Germany. I’m really good at that!
Tian-Gu, 15
Hong Kong almost completely consists of high-rise blocks. Proper skyscrapers, lots of them. It’s an up-to-date global city, pretty loud and sometimes chaotic. But that’s exactly what I find so great – that something’s going on everywhere day and night and you can do a fantastic amount of things. I go back there at least once a year and am always delighted to see the city and my relations once again. ¶ Of course I speak Chinese; but it’s really difficult to write proper long letters and read books. In order to do that well I would have to live there. Either that or learn a lot and practice like mad. I haven’t got the time because I’m interested in so many other things. Well, instead I can speak German perfectly and know both countries well. ¶ This school year I spent two months in Sydney, which was fantastic. I also want to go to America and later I should like to live in a lot of different countries. I think I could feel at home everywhere in the world – the main thing would be to have German bread and an amazing amount of different sorts of chocolate!
Artem, 15
I didn’t want to go to Germany. What would I do there, I thought? But I didn’t have any other choice. ¶ Luckily we were able to buy papers for Chip, that’s the name of my dog. So he also was allowed to cross the borders. Without him I wouldn’t have started the journey at all! He still can’t understand a single word of German, because we only speak Russian at home. I’m the only one who can speak German meanwhile. ¶ My parents believe that we’ve got better chances here. But I’ve lost at least one year in the school. If we now won the Lotto we could go back immediately and build up a new existence in Kiev. And if not now, then later.
Zikria, 19
The only thing I still possess from Afghanistan is my brother’s prayer chain. I wear it day and night. He was the first person in my family to be murdered. I shall never take this chain off my neck. When I was 15 the Taliban killed my second brother. Then I fled and at first I was two and a half years in Pakistan. Alone. ¶ The flight here lasted a total of four months. We were almost always on the road at night, sometimes in small groups, sometimes alone, sometimes with a hundred or more persons. I don’t even know which countries I travelled through. I thought I’d never reach my destination. But somehow I did it and got to Germany. This is where my oldest brother lives. All the others, my sisters and my parents, are almost certainly no longer alive. ¶ At sometime in the future, when I am properly healthy again, I shall probably write a book about everything I had to go through. Luckily I have found a family again with my brother, and can even go to school once more. It could be like a second life if only I was sure I’ll be allowed to stay. The thought of being sent back to Afghanistan makes me sick to my soul.
Tania, 17
My brother was six or seven when we came to Germany. Probably he wouldn’t feel at home at all now in Iran, he can remember so little about it. After living here for six years I too cannot imagine living there. People change in another country. That’s all there is to it. ¶ All the same I feel torn between the two cultures and want to benefit from the best of both. My mother understands that, but my aunt from Tehran who recently visited us here thought that I should be living here the way a girl should live in Iran. Then I told her: “But we’ve been living for ages in Germany!”. I don’t think she wanted to understand me. We had a real row! I didn’t back down, why should I?
Mirlinda, 17
Our house in Kosovo was burned down in the war. Luckily I was wearing my mother’s small chain when it happened. It’s the only thing of hers I still own, for she died when I was only three. Apart from that, everything has gone. Even all the old photos, that’s the worst thing. The new album starts here in Germany as if there had never been another life before. ¶ Somehow I’d like to go back because it’s not so good here without my grandparents who brought me up. We lived in a little village with plenty of countryside around. And I still miss being able to be outside a lot, like I used to. ¶ But now it would be impossible for me to live there as a dependent young woman. So I prefer to stay here and be a nurse.
Razan, 15
My home is Palestine. But I only know what it looks like from the television. I hope I don’t die before Palestine is free and we can finally go back. ¶ I was born in Syria, but lived in Saudi Arabia until four years ago because my father worked there as a doctor. Now we’re here and suddenly everything’s completely different. It begins with the fact that Germans can’t pronounce my name properly. That’s not so bad, but I’ve had to get used to so-o-o-o many new things: the school, people, the many trees, the silence and the many forms of freedom which people have here! Some of my non-Muslim girlfriends think that everything is so strict in my home. But for us that’s normal and on top of that I’m allowed to do much more here than in Saudi Arabia. For example I’ve learnt to ride a bike. Women aren’t allowed to do that there. Basically you weren’t allowed to do anything there and you’d sit around the house almost all the time. ¶ If we were to go back sometime, then hopefully to Syria. All my relations are living there, and I also want to study there later to become a chemist – a chemist in a free Palestine of course!