Christine

“When I left Africa I thought: ‘Wow I’m going to Europe!’ Because the way people talk about Europe, I was telling everybody: I’m going to Europe. I thought Europe would be the place where I can solve my problems, come here, and get rich and go home and build my parents a big house, my brothers and sisters let them go all the way to university. I thought it’s the place where there’s no problem. My hopes and my dreams, I thought they would be fulfilled, but it was not really like that.

“The moment I entered [Europe] I felt very lonely … It’s very difficult to get to know someone easily. When you want to see your friend, or somebody, you have to make an appointment. Everything you want to do you have to follow the rules. There is a lot of stress, because everything you do is recorded. I felt not secure because if I have a problem I cannot go to my friend and say ‘that is what I have’. Everybody is busy, everybody is running up and down and you don’t know what people are doing, everybody is walking here and there.

“In Africa you stop somebody and somebody sees you and sees that you have a problem …. Here, everybody is running his own way, you can fall down and somebody will just pass you. There is no connection. Although there is a lot of things in Europe that is good, but people are not connected. You feel lonely, feel sad, most of the time you eat alone, you wake up alone, you work alone.

“I miss to be myself, just to be free, just be me and do the things I want without anybody looking at me behind my back.”