Ramin Heydari

full interview

Please introduce yourself.  Can you give me your name, your last name and your age please?
My name is Ramin Heydari and I am 25 years old.

And where are you from?
I am from Afghanistan.

Can you give me a description of your living situation right now and where you are staying?
Right now, I am staying in the new camp. Earlier, they took us out into the street, and after a week they took us back here, to the new camp. The situation is despicable, it is horrible. There are so many people all around us. And then there are thunderstorms, it rains often, and there were some robberies close to us a couple of nights ago. We have to just put up with it.

Can you tell me the conditions of the camp and what the living situation is like?
The camp really has no conditions. For example, there are a lot of robberies, the camp is not secure. The lie here is horrible, you know, the cleanliness, the food situation, and there is no work also.  There is no electricity. LIfe just passes.

Are you happy, are you content?
No, not really at all.

Can you tell me who you live with in the camp?
I live with my wife. The two of us.

Just the two of you together?
Yes.

Do you have a lot of neighbors or any neighbors?
Yes, there are a lot of people all over the place. There’s people everywhere.

So, is there enough space, or there are no empty spaces, and people have no privacy?
No, the space is not enough at all. But for the number of people, since we are just the two of us, that’s why they are putting us with a lot of other people in the same room. There is no choice in that for us.

Can you tell me how you spend your time and your days in the camp?
Here, we try to keep ourselves busy and just stay active, but it is a horrible situation, as the weather has been horrible this winter, storms, and there is no assistance, so we try to just keep ourselves busy. And I keep busy with the work that I do.

Can you tell me what kind of work you do?
I work in the kitchen, in the food line. And in the afternoon I work in the nurse area, where I keep the people’s hands clean for the COVID-19 quarantine area.

Do you work there all day long?
Yes, from 8:00 AM to 10:00 AM and then from 2:00 PM to 10:00 PM.

Can you tell me what keeps you happy these days?
If someone were to bring me to Canada that would make me very happy (laughs).

Can you tell me, since you got here to Europe, what has your life been like? Have there been good points, bad points?
From the minute I got here, this stress and despair began. We thought we would reach a better place, that they would take care of us a little more, but they have not. Where we were before, if it wasn’t so dangerous, it would have been better than here. There are many fears.

Can you tell me what you thought it was going to be like before you got here, and why it is different and you are not content?
I thought it was going to be like a few years ago, and that they would take care of us when we reached our destination.

What happiness and what hardships have you experienced while you have been here?
All the things that I mentioned before, and nothing good. I have not seen anything good about here. Nothing.

You said you live with your wife. So, can you tell me about the distance from your family and homeland and how far you are from them, has it affected you at all emotionally or physically?
Yes, because I have never been far away from my family before, so it is hard. And I have been here for a year and two or three months. Emotionally it is very hard.

What helps you deal with being away from your family?
Just keeping busy with work, this. It’s necessary to keep busy.

Did you ever imagine that you would come to Europe and be stuck in this situation?
Never. They always promised us when we talked to them that when we got here it would be good, and that they would take care of us for four or five months and then they will take us and we will get to a place and have a home, but it was not like that. So we said okay we will come, but it was not at all like what we expected.

I am sure you had a tough time, and it was dangerous for you to travel here from Iran. 
Definitely.

When you think about those hardships, how were you able to look through them and make it through?
We were just happy that we were going to Europe and were going to have a better life. We always imagined the better life we would have here.

Has it changed your life since you have been here? Has it added to your unhappiness or happiness?
Nothing really here is good but in terms of hardships, yes, there are a lot. It has brought me down. It is hard, and we are pessimistic.

Now about Corona, has it affected your life?
No, not at all. When we ask about Corona in the camp, they say it is not here. Only we must wear a mask. It has not affected us.

Even wear during work, has it not affected you?
Yes, even there. We only must wear a mask.

Is that hard for you?
Yes, it is hard. But we must do it.

Now I am going to ask some questions about your past. Can you just describe to me what the reason for your immigration was?
Three or four years before we left our country, my wife and I had gotten to know each other before we got married, and we wanted to get married, but I went to her family to ask for her hand and they would not accept. Every time they would say no, I would always go back and ask for her hand in marriage again. I would never let her go, but they would still keep saying no.

So we decided that we had to run away, since my father had a lot of people in Afghanistan, and her father is a mujahid. So we had to run, and we did go to Iran. We were engaged at the time. Her family wanted to marry her off to someone else just two days after we ended up leaving, someone who was much older than her, the same age as her father. So we had to leave.

So how were your emotions and your feelings then?
It was just that I was in love, that is all. You can do anything for love.

Were you worried?
Yes, but they had threatened us, so we were afraid also. Even after we got here, they threatened us back in my country, even two or three months after our arrival. They went to my parents’ house and threatened us.

So were you worried about migrating, and about your trip, was it dangerous coming here? Were you stressed?
I was more stressed about the threat to my life back in my own country.

So you were happy that you were together when you came here?
Yes, we were very happy. But we were in love, we just wanted to get out of that situation where they were threatening us in our lives, and just wanted to be together. We were in love.

How was your journey here to Europe? Was there a lot of hardship? Do you have a lot of bad and bitter memories? What was your biggest hardship? Please explain so we can understand about the journey.
Since it has been a year and two months, I don’t really remember a lot. But it was very hard, I remember that. When we attempted to cross the ocean it was very dangerous, there were 40 of us in the boat, so that was dangerous and hard. Then we were in a trailer and it was very dangerous, it was only 6 metres in length and there were 50 of us in it for hours. But we made it through.

What is your worst memory, your most bitter, horrible memory that you have about your trip?
That boat trip, the ocean. When I saw the ocean underwater it frightens me. But we didn’t think much then, we just thought let us reach Europe. But now that we’re here, when I think about the water and the ocean trip, it was horrible.

Can you explain a little more about your trip over the ocean? What were you thinking?
First, they took us to the jungle. Then in the jungle, they told us when it was nighttime that we must leave now and cross the water at night. There were a lot of waves. Water had come into the boat, so they blew it off with air, and then we had to wade into the ocean for four or five meters to get to the boat. So we were wet, and it was cold, and there were waves. It was night too, so that was very scary. I took my wife on my shoulders and I carried her to the boat, I was up to my chest in water. We climbed in, and we were all sitting there, all the people shivering together.

And what were you feeling then?
I had this emotion that I was just running on adrenaline at the time, I was not scared, I didn’t think of anything, but now that I think back on it, I was scared, and I didn’t know how to swim.

You did not know how to swim?
No, I did not. I only thought about when we arrived here, I was not thinking about anything at the time. The only thing I was thinking about was when we would reach.

When you think about what you were just talking about, how are your emotions and how are your feelings?
The only thing I say when I think about those memories is that I hope I never feel like again, I hope I am never in that situation again.

You have no regrets? You do not say oh I wish I had not done that?
Regrets, no. When I was back in my country, maybe if I knew at the time what it was going to be like after we reached, I would have regretted it, but we did not know how it would be at the time. And now I do not have any regrets.

How often do you think about those memories, and during what times do you think about them?
Most of the time when I look at the ocean right now, since we are near the ocean, so when I see the ocean I think about those memories. And when I am not busy working or doing anything and I have down time, I think about it.

Can you tell me whether you ever thought that you could handle all these situations and hardships before, the way that you managed through them?
In the beginning we just left, we did not think we had to do what the people bringing us here told us. It was necessary for us to come here, and we had to do everything that would help us come here.

Can you tell me you were before you thought of leaving your country, when everything was fine there. What were your dreams and hopes for your future? Perhaps in your childhood? 
When I was a child I would just dream and hope that I would be in a good place, a better place, in the future. That was it. Because earlier when we immigrated to Iran, my mother and father came to Iran. I was born in Iran, but I was a refugee there. And because I was a refugee, we had a lot of difficulties in Iran, many Iranians were racist towards us, it was hard to get an education and to look for a job, to prepare for the future.

And how about when you decided to come here and leave your country? What were your hopes and dreams for the future then?
I had my wife, and we were excited about getting married and having a future together and having a good life. We were always saying let’s go, let’s reach, and have a good life.

When you would hit a roadblock or hardship or a problem you had to solve, how would you go about solving it or dealing with it, making it through? For example, some people call their family for advice or ask a friend to help them.
First, I ask God for advice and pray. I don’t really discuss much with my family or share too much information with them. I generally just tell them the good things, so they don’t get upset or worry.

I speak with my wife, sometimes I discuss with her and decide. We pull each other up and try to be optimistic, that we’ll reach some place and everything will become better.

My questions are finished. If you have anything you would like to add on your own, so that Europeans can understand what you are going through and what is happening here, feel free to mention it.
Well, I told you what our situation and reasoning was when we left Iran to come here. We were forced to come because our lives were threatened by my wife’s family. And when my father-in-law found out we were here, my parents told me they were hoping they would send us back, that he was waiting for us in Afghanistan. It is because they (my wife’s family) are mujahideen, they have a lot of influence in Afghanistan. Also my brother-in-law and my wife’s brother attacked and ransacked my parents’ house, they broke my father’s hand. It has been very hard for them there.

We can also not go back to Iran because it is hard to be a refugee there, we had nothing and we could not achieve anything. We had no job, no education, nothing to do, and we also faced racism. And we can’t go back to Afghanistan, because there will be a lot of problems and dangers with my wife’s family. And also problems with racism, since some people would look at us as we have grown up in Iran, not in Afghanistan.

Thank you for giving me your time. Goodbye.