Ewdvard Bahadorinia

full interview

Can you introduce yourself?
Yes. I’m Edward. It’s my nickname. I entered Europe about a year ago.

Where are you from?
I am from Iran. I grew up in Iran. In the city of Isfahan.

What kind of housing do you live in?
I live in private housing. Inside the Mitilini.

Can you explain the situation?
Much much much better than the camp. Because we can manage the situation ourselves. It is true that the costs are our own and we have to pay the costs ourselves, but it is much better than the camp.

Who do you live with?
With another family.

How do you spend your time like this? Do you work?
Yes, I work part-time. To some extent, I use the phone to learn English while I am free at home.

What makes you happy?
Here?

In general.
Nothing. For now. For now, what makes me happy is that the result of the interview comes.

What has life been like since you arrived in Europe? What was hard and what was good?
Everything has been somewhat difficult for me. But I was able to cope with them, and the best thing that happened in my life, inside Europe, was that I was able to get out of the camp and move into private housing.

Can you describe how life here made you feel?
I feel imprisoned. Because I cannot go anywhere. And there is nothing I can do.

How does being away from home and family members make you feel?
The hardest thing in life, perhaps, is being away from your family. Because all your life, your best friends are your family.

Could you ever imagine overcoming this situation? How could you overcome these problems and live?
First, I never felt like I was leaving Iran. And I am always by my house and family. But due to what happened to me, I had to overcome my problems better through more communication with my God.

Do you think you have the ability to meet these challenges? Or do you think you always had these skills?
No, I’m not exactly thinking I’m finding these abilities. And the further I go, the stronger I get.

How has the corona affected your daily life, your mood, and your mood?
I cannot say that it has a 100 per cent negative impact. Because I found that I had more free time to do more study, and at the same time, it took away the fun activities from me.

Why did you leave your country? Can you explain what happened?
Because of the religious conversion I had given, I could not fully explain much, but I will explain to some extent. I was sentenced because of my religious conversion. I had a year in prison. But since I had no previous record, I was released on parole, and during that time I left Iran. Because I did not want to go to prison. Because the prison conditions in Iran are really awful.

How did you feel at that time?
I had a very bad feeling when I was arrested. They humiliated me a lot. When I wanted to, I went to court, I was somewhat released, so I was very happy. And I did not think that I was going to leave Iran. I said, well, then I am going back to normal life. But when I talked to the lawyer when he said you should go, it really seemed like the mountains of the whole world were falling on my head and I was saying why should I go? Why should I stay away from my family? And this became a process that I had to start outside of Iran.

How was your trip to Europe? Did you have a particular experience or difficulty that you wanted to talk about?
Traveling to Europe. When I was coming here from Turkey when we wanted to board that inflatable ship, I was really scared with the images I saw on the internet that the boat was sinking. But when I got on the boat and we were on the water for about three or four minutes, I was just praying at that moment that God would just keep us safe. And this word that thanks to you, God, that we are healthy, you say, thank God, thank God. I kept saying that until I got off. Because it was really stressful at that moment that if we were drowning, no one would be able to find it in the middle of the night.

How did you feel at that time?
I felt really scared.

Do you often think about these things? When? Is there a specific time you think about these things?
A specific time; I can say that when I am really lonely and alone, I think about what my past was like and what dangers I went through until I got here.

How do you feel when you think about it?
I don’t know, maybe I mean happiness, maybe I mean happiness or anything. Because all that past is somewhat over. And I know my last destination may be here. And when I get here, I feel a little happy.

Does the situation you are facing today affect you? How?
Yes. That is effective. For sure. I really feel some freedom that I have inside Europe and I achieved that freedom. Yes. I feel free somehow.

Did you think you could handle this situation?
No. No. I felt scared, helpless as long as I felt how to deal with this situation. But when I entered it, I might tell you that with God’s help we solved many problems; with the help of friends, with the help of acquaintances. In a lot of situations they helped me. They helped me a lot in this process so that I could be stronger and cope better with problems.

How did you manage to overcome these problems? Did you have any specific strategies and created them? Where did you get so much support?
The first was to help my God. Because I am really in this process, from when I left Iran until today, when I am sitting here, I thank God for every moment. And secondly, two very, very good friends who have known each other since the time of Turkey, helped me a lot, and they taught me certain strategies that I was able to strengthen to this day.

What were your dreams before the day when you ran away from home? It can be said that my dreams were:
My dreams were that; my dreams in Iran were like this, let me tell you, to have a normal life. I had a good job, I had a good life, I had a car, everything. My life was somewhat normal. I was thinking of marriage. But with what happened to me, I had to come out of Iran.

What is your dream for the future now?
Now my dream is to achieve a quiet life. At least to get my ID card so I can get off this island and go somewhere where I can start working. Because now we are not allowed to do anything; not allowed to.