Many and very varied things have happened since I came to this Country 10 years ago. According to different witches and other friends, my personality has radically changed various times. Just in the first year I had my first job, I was sacked because I was useless, and before two weeks, I got a new one where my abilities were venerated – doing the same thing.
Although I was not illegal I felt the same solitude and exclusion as Mimi in New York, I met political refugees (here they are hideously called asylum seekers) from foreign wars who often agreed to feed me for free; and I also met “Children of the Spanish War” for whom memories of sharing amidst poverty were a bit too distant. Also in my first year I suffered the hardest emotional blow I have ever had at least until now, and from which I have yet to recover.
Since then, things have normalised. I’ve had so many jobs that I’ve stopped counting. I once had a stable job where I asked my boss to please sack me. She had to refuse, even though it was her uttermost desire to get rid of me – stories of Capitalism and precariousness, of which I hope to speak on Sunday in my Tube Radio program… I also had to move houses eleven times.
On one occasion a friend started to think aloud, in front of me and of another girl whose whole family are immigrants, about the impact that excessive immigration can have on a society. Before he began to vomit his thoughts on the necessity of quotas, I answered almost with pain, that an immigrant is NEVER an immigrant because we want to. NEVER.
Back home, I never needed to change houses. I never had to have dinner on my own without anyone to kiss good night, and I never had to keep my plates and food locked away to stop them being stolen, and I never left a job agency in pain and rage because the blonde at the counter refused to understand my foreign accent. But I needed to come over. I wish I did not have had to, and I wish thousands of people in the world who are even worse off than me did not have to do it. At least I am lucky enough to return once in a while for a visit.
The children of the war thought that they would be away for just three months. The luckiest ones returned three years later, the some returned to a torn country, torn families where most of their members had been tortured and/or killed, and some others could not never return.
Aisha, the girl who never told me what country she came from nor why she had to come, and only told me she was a refugee when she was given a work permit, knew from the beginning that she will never be able to return. I really can not understand how these people can cope. Some certainly can not, and suffer mental illnesses.
… And, after seven years and the many more that I have been alive, I can say that I have ALWAYS had the luxury of not being hungry, so stop moaning and celebrate, girl – it’s your anniversary.
