Dessin réalisé sur caneva.com par la rédaction vaudoise de Voix d’Exils.

Une édition limitée d’anecdotes du quotidien de l’asile

« Je parlais avec une amie » : nous l’avons toutes et tous déjà entendu et nous l’avons toutes et tous déjà prononcé. Cette formule a inspiré notre rédactrice Elvana Tufa qui a décidé de partager avec vous ses petites discussions anecdotiques – mais qui en disent long – sur son quotidien de personne en procédure d’asile (english version below).

Je parlais avec une amie de choses et d’autres et soudain cette pensée m’est venue à l’esprit

Je lui ai demandé : « Ne penses-tu pas que 2021 ressemble à une loooooongue semaine qui vient tout juste de commencer et qu’on est à peine lundi ? Puis tu te rends compte qu’on va la voir passer au ralenti, avant qu’elle ne se finisse le vendredi 31 décembre ? »

Elle n’a pas répondu pendant un moment. Peut-être qu’elle était en train de regarder le calendrier ?… Le 31 décembre 2021 ça tombe vraiment un vendredi!

Cette fois, je ne parlais pas avec une amie

Cette fois, je ne parlais pas avec une amie. J’ai juste imaginé ce dialogue, parce que je suis sûre qu’elle commence à s’ennuyer de moi et de mes 5 enfants. Je suis même persuadée qu’elle fait des blagues sur eux. La prochaine fois que je la verrai je lui dirai :

« Tu sais que dans un mois, il y aura de nouveau les vacances scolaires et je me demande s’il n’y a pas des gens sympas et géniaux qui auraient inventé une imprimante 5D ? Je pourrai facilement m’imprimer 5 fois et avoir 5 clones pour m’en occuper… »

Relire les chapitres précédents de « Je parlais avec une amie » :

Je parlais avec une amie #1/3 paru dans Voix d’Exils le 21.01.2021.

Je parlais avec une amie #2/3 paru dans Voix d’Exils le 03.02.2021.

________________________________________________________________________

I was talking with a friend about random things and suddenly this thought popped into my head

I asked her :« Don’t you think that 2021 seems like a loooooong week, that has just begun and we’re still at Monday ?

But you realize that we have to see it in slow motion, in order for it to end on Friday, December 31? »

She didn’t answer for a while. Maybe she was looking at the calendar… December 31 2021 is really a Friday!

This time, I wasn’t talking to my friend

This time, I wasn’t talking to my friend. I just imagined this conversation, because I am dead sure she’s starting to get pissed of me and my five children. I’m sure she’s even making jokes on them. Next time I see or I talk to her, I will say :

« Do you know, in a month there will be school vacations again and I wonder whether there are people nice and genius enough to invent a 5D printer ? I could easily print myself in 5 copies, so I could deal with them properly. »

Read the previous chapters of « I was talking to my friend » :

I was talking to my friend #1/3 published in Voix d’Exils: 21.01.2021.

I was talking to my friend #2/3 published in Voix d’Exils: 03.02.2021.

Elvana Tufa

Membre de la rédaction vaudoise de Voix d’Exils

Dessin réalisé sur caneva.com par la rédaction vaudoise de Voix d’Exils.

Une édition limitée d’anecdotes du quotidien de l’asile

« Je parlais avec une amie »: nous l’avons toutes et tous déjà entendu et nous l’avons toutes et tous déjà prononcé. Cette formule a inspiré notre rédactrice Elvana Tufa qui a décidé de partager avec vous ses petites discussions anecdotiques – mais qui en disent long – sur son quotidien d’une personne en procédure d’asile (english version below).

Je parlais à une amie qui se plaignait tout le temps

– « Oh mon dieu, je suis tellement fatiguée! J’ai cuisiné, nettoyé et fait la lessive toute la journée hier. Je ne sens plus mon dos. Et maintenant, je dois me dépêcher d’aller chercher mon fils à l’école. Quel genre de vie est-ce ? »

Je l’ai regardée et je ne savais pas quoi lui répondre. J’aurais déjà pu lui rappeler que j’ai 5 enfants ou tout simplement lui dire :

– « Ah, c’est la vie »

Pourtant, j’ai préféré lui dire :

– « Tu sais que hier, j’ai oublié d’aller récupérer le petit à l’école ? Heureusement qu’il sait où il habite ».

Maintenant, quand on se croise dans la rue, elle fait comme si elle ne me voit pas.

Je parlais avec une amie au téléphone

Elle me posait des questions sur le vaccin du Covid-19 et me disait à quel point elle était ravie de pouvoir enfin le prendre.

– « T’es aussi ravie, n’est-ce pas ? »

M’a-t-elle demandé.

– « Bien sûr. »

Lui ai-je répondu.

– « Mais j’attendrais plutôt la mise à jour « Covid 2.0 », compte tenu du nouveau virus qui nous arrive depuis la Grande-Bretagne.»

Je savais qu’elle ne comprendrait pas, elle ne connaît presque rien à l’informatique. Elle n’a même pas d’e-mail. J’étais triste que mon ironie ait été perdue en vain…

________________________________________________________________________

I was talking to a friend and she complained all the time

– “Oh my God, I am so tired, I cooked, cleaned and did the laundry all day long yesterday. I can’t even feel my back. Now I have to go and pick up my son from school. What kind of life is this, serving all the time ?”

I gave her a look as if wanting to say something, then I changed my mind. I could have reminded her that I had (and have already) 5 children, or could have simply said:

– “That’s life”.

So, I just went on and said to her:

– “Do you know that yesterday, I forgot to pick up my youngest from school ? Thank God he knows the way home.”

Now, when we cross each other in the street, she pretends she doesn’t notice me.

I was talking to a friend on the phone

She was asking me a couple of questions about the vaccine and was telling me how happy she was that finally she could do it.

– “You are happy too, aren’t you ?”

She asked me.

– “Of course”

I said to her.

“But I would rather wait for the update of  “Covid 2.0”, considering the new virus running against us from Great Britain”.

I knew she couldn’t understand, actually she knows almost nothing about IT. She doesn’t even have an e-mail address. I was sad my irony was lost in vain…

Elvana Tufa

Membre de la rédaction vaudoise de Voix d’Exils

Dessin réalisé sur caneva.com par la rédaction vaudoise de Voix d’Exils.

Une édition limitée d’anecdotes du quotidien de l’asile

« Je parlais avec une amie » : nous l’avons toutes et tous déjà entendu et nous l’avons toutes et tous déjà prononcé. Cette formule a inspiré notre rédactrice Elvana Tufa qui a décidé de partager avec nous ses petites discussions anecdotiques – mais qui en disent long – sur son quotidien de personne en procédure d’asile (english version below).

Je parlais avec une amie qui a obtenu le permis B et qui pourtant se plaint tout le temps

– « Je n’ai pas de travail ; je n’ai pas d’appartement…»

– « Est-ce que tu peux travailler ? » lui ai-je demandé.

– « Oui, mais… »

Elle ne m’a répondu que ça.

Alors, je me suis souvenue de mes diplômes suspendus au mur comme des photos d’enfance en attendant le permis B…

Je parlais avec une amie hier et elle m’a raconté ses vacances

Elle a passé le week-end dernier dans une station de ski et s’en est vantée. Et puis elle m’a demandé :

– « Et toi, où as-tu passé ton week-end ? »

– « Moi ? Je suis allée au supermarché 4 fois pendant le week-end, seule, sans enfants. C’était une sacrée pause et je me suis sentie si bien! »

________________________________________________________________________

I was talking to a friend who has already B permit but complaining all the time

– “ I don’t have a job; I don’t have an apartment…”

– “ Are you permitted to work ? ” I asked her.

– “ Yes, but…”

she answered but this.

And then, suddenly, I recalled all my diplomas hanging on the wall just like photos of childhood, while I’m waiting to obtain the B Permit like my friend.

I was talking to a friend yesterday and she was telling me about her holidays

She passed last weekend in a ski resort and was bragging about. And then she asked me :

– “ How was your weekend ? Where did you guys go ? ”

– “ Me ? ” I went to the supermarket like 4 times during the weekend, alone, without children. It was indeed “ a holy day ”, and it felt so good!

Elvana Tufa

Membre de la rédaction vaudoise de Voix d’Exils

Auteur: dimitrisvetsikas1969. Pixabay Licence.

80 million forcibly displaced people by the end of 2019

La version française de cet article intitulée « 80 millions de cicatrices sur la conscience de l’humanité » est parue dans Voix d’Exils le 3 mars 2020

Wars are provoked, countries are divided and refugees are flooding the world, while terrible images are displayed every day on television screens of migrants drowning in rough seas, dying of exhaustion or starvation, killed by mercenaries, exploited by human traffickers and transformed into merchandise and currency. They are victims of political machinations and « regime change », in other words, man-made misfortunes!

According to the estimates of United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), at the end of 2019, an unprecedented number of 80 million people were forcibly displaced worldwide and delivered to stormy seas, to the burning desert sun and to the whims of the immigration offices of host countries.

Children are the most vulnerable

Children are the most vulnerable among refugees. They are infected with widespread diseases, recruited as child soldiers in armed conflicts and are victims of rape and forced labor.

The other day, as I was scrolling through my Facebook page I came across this piece of news: “Fatima Ibrahim Hadi, aged 12, died of malnutrition on February 4 of this year, after her photos invaded international media as living proof of the ugliness of the war on Yemen and of the crimes committed by the warring parties and their patrons”. In Yemen, an estimated 3.2 million children and women suffer from acute malnutrition and 7,4 million children need humanitarian assistance (ICRC). Then, continuing to scroll down my page, I found this obituary: « The al-Ghai family is devastated by the loss of four family members who perished while crossing the Aegean Sea from Turkey to Greece. Four other members of the same family were saved. Many others have drowned. Most of them were from Hasakeh governorate of Syria ” located in the northeast of the country.

Weaponizing refugees

In October 2019, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Syrian Sunni Islamist allies launched a full-scale military offensive in this very region of Hasakeh. The incursion has triggered the displacement of 200,000 to 300,000 people overnight in the towns and villages of Ras al-Ain, Tal Tamer and Tal Abiad, and caused widespread devastation and pillage.
Turkish President Erdogan, whose country has been deeply involved in the war in Syria, and who opened his country’s borders to Syrian refugees at the start of the conflict, is now using them as bargaining chips with the European Union, and his latest attempt to pushing them to the Greco-Turkish border demonstrates his lack of concern for their well-being.
Moreover, the policy of weaponising Syrian refugees and recruiting them in Turkey’s proxy wars in Lybia and elsewhere continues full-scale. The Guardian’s correspondent writes the following from Ankara on 26 may 2020: In Lybia “an estimated 8’000 to10’000” Syrian mercenaries are fighting as “part of Ankara’s plan for supremacy in the eastern Mediterranean” (1). This blatant violation of all international conventions is another clear example of how Turkey is mistreating and manipulating an extremely vulnerable population.

Refugees die twice

Someone has said that these poor refugees die twice: once when their natural habitats is destroyed and they are bombed outside their countries. And a second time, when they struggle along the arduous roads in their quest to reach the host countries!
On an official mission for the United Nations, Jean Ziegler, a sociologist from Geneva, made a research tour in May 2019 to Lesbos, one of five refugee reception centers on Greek’s Aegean Islands. And in his recently published book « Lesbos, la honte de l’Europe », he describes how 20’000 refugees are crammed there in totally inhuman conditions, in a flagrant violation of the most basic principles of human rights! These conditions, he says, are « Set by the European Union for one purpose: to create terror and deterrence in order to prevent the arrival of other refugees »

Mainstream media dare not expose the real causes of these tragedies

Being well aware of the nature of politics, there will be no end to these man-made disasters in the future. The UN, the non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and people of good will do not have the appropriate leverage to end this situation. The mainstream media dare not expose the real causes of these tragedies. Meanwhile, the powerful countries that have been involved in these disasters do care only about how to « divide the cake » in countries like Syria, Libya, Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan and many others which have become failing states unable to protect their citizens.

Have human values and ethics become empty slogans?

If humanity had lived by certain human principles and values, most of these displaced people would have stayed at home, enjoying a dignified and secure life, even though they had to tolerate difficulties and poverty.

Hayro
Member of the Vaud editorial board of  Voix d’Exils

References:
(1) Turkey and The Weaponizing of Syrian Refugees.

The last Christmas in Syria (2010) Photo: Hayro, membre de la rédaction vaudoise de Voix d’Exils

My last memories of the magic of Christmas festivities in Syria

The end of each October and the coming of November and December had always been a period of special significance to my family. It was the arrival of an event which we all had been eagerly waiting for: the informal declaration of the Christmas Season at our home in Syria!

My wife, but specially my two children were insisting every time that we started the preparations for Christmas season as early as November. I myself, although sensing the same excitement as the children, usually protested at first, alleging that it was a bit early. A protestation that was proving to be vain

As a matter of fact, they had every reason to be so enthusiastic. This was an opportunity for the family to escape from the everyday cares and worries of the year, into an imaginary wonderland of our own creation.

Preparations meant a lot of work to do. First, I had to manage to bring from the attic the big artificial Christmas tree and the many small and big boxes containing Christmas decorations and ornaments. Part of them were painstakingly made by my wife throughout the years, accessories like, small pretty lanterns, Nativity sets, wreaths of different shapes and materials, colorful Santas and so on. Each of them was bringing sweet and cherished memories from the past.

The last Christmas in Syria. Photo: Hayro, membre de la rédaction vaudoise de Voix d’Exils

The decoration of the tree was taking two, sometimes three days and it was mostly done by me, but certainly not far from the watchful eyes of the children who often kept pressing me with their never-ending demands “Dad, hang this there, replace this with that this does not fit here”.

In fact, it was necessary that all the ornaments, balls, bells, pinecones, vessels, ceramic angles, snowflakes, be well fitted and balanced on the tree. Then, before the finish, the gold and red Christmas lights had to be symmetrically placed and finally, the glittered star of Bethlehem was fixed at the top. With the first twinkling of the lights on the tree, I would sense the eyes of children shining with ecstasy and joy.

Then, it was the turn of my wife to put the final touch. She added, with great love and care, different accessories to every room as well as balconies.

Even the books in the library and the paintings on the walls had their share of the small pretty ornaments. Nonetheless, it couldn’t be complete without the charming lyrics of Bing Crosby’s album “White Christmas” that was reverberating through the house into filling the air with cheers and warmth.

By the end of November, the house was dressing up for Christmas and this was immediately followed by the shopping sprees. Soon the refrigerators would overflow with various kinds of exotic produces and food that showed up only in December, and the house would smell strong spices and herbs bringing out the flavor of the season. The convivial atmosphere would reach a crescendo during the period between Christmas and the New Year’s Eve, where all the extended family members and in-laws would gather to feast and rejoice until the early hours of the morning.

This much cherished family tradition went on until 2010. That was my last Christmas in my country Syria, one year before the outbreak of the vicious circle of the war that has shattered homes, split families and wrecked all aspect of life.

Now, Christmas is approaching, it is already very cold. I am walking in the city center of Lausanne, one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Store windows along the street “Rue Saint-Laurent” have Christmas dressings. Shoppers hustle and bustle everywhere. Not very far, at St. Francoise square, pop up cabins offer hot chocolate drink and roasted chestnuts. Few meters away I hear a street music-band caroling:

“I’m dreaming of a white Christmas just like the ones I used to know”

A song that immediately touches a strong nostalgic chord in my heart.

Hayrenik Dono

Membre de la réduction vaudoise de Voix d ‘Exils