Oussama Azzouz

full interview

Okay. Let’s start. Yes?
Hello.

Hello. Okay, I’m going to ask you a few questions. Uhm … well, let’s get started, eh? What type of housing do you currently live in?
I currently live in a reception center that belongs to a foundation that helps people at risk of exclusion and who do not have documentation and things like that.

Mmm, eh, can you describe the conditions you live in at that place?
The conditions, honestly, are, are basically good. These are conditions with basic support, the support that any person needs on a daily basis, for example, such as housing, food, clothing, everything that is necessary. And well, if we talk about living together, living together is fine, it’s fine. There are rules, the place has rules to maintain a good living environment. Naturally, it’s not like your own place, like a house. But it’s okay to, to, to follow the rules to have order in the house. Only that with people, there are people who behave and follow the rules, and there are people who have a hard time and that sometimes makes things difficult to, but everything is fine, everything is fine.

And this situation that you are telling me about, how does it make you feel?
Well, the truth is this situation makes me feel, uhm, quite, quite happy. It makes me feel very happy, it makes me feel with, with, with, with love and with, with, with, I feel safe, with trust, I also have confidence in myself because I know that I am safe in a place. It’s no longer the street, it’s no longer a precarious place, but a place with a lot of love and that makes me feel with, with trust and love.

You, you just told me about the street. What do you mean? What do you mean by  the street?
Normally immigrants in general, any type of immigrant and their situation when they migrate here in a way can be illegal or another or any type of way that does not give them the possibility of having the documentation or residence permit to work and live like anyone else. So then, myself and several immigrants lack that aspect, we need that, that, that card or whatever they call it here to live normally and have an income, pay rent, live a decent life and get out of the street. But obviously, when there is a lack of that you have to go on the street, you have to, to, to live in a situation of hunger, a situation of fear, a situation of going through the cold, of various circumstances that a person cannot handle or endure, and that makes us feel quite bad and discourages us a lot. It makes us feel very, very, very with, with bad feelings, very bad.

Eh, okay. Who are you currently living with?
And I currently live with my mates in the reception house, that is, the center. So then, uh, mmm, I live with them, we’re people of different nationalities and, and we’re different ages, usually very close in age. And we’re fine.

And, uhm, what do you work? Eh, how do you spend your time here?
I spend my time here, uhm, basically I study, do courses and try to, to, to fill my time with, with doing, doing activities with the foundation, for example, volunteering. In spite of everything, I’m already volunteering in one of the foundation’s activities, eh, and that’s helping people too, to feed them, to serve them, to get closer to them too, to share, the, the, the, the meaning and the common point that is the life of the emigrant here in conditions of irregularity and of not having the documentation. But of course, eh, this activity for me too, makes me feel valuable, it gives me, it gives me hope, it makes me feel love, that there’s still hope, that there’s still love in this world and things like that.

Does it make you feel joy in the activities you do while volunteering?
Of course. A lot of joy, a lot of love, a lot of affection and total happiness.

That’s good. And what are the things that make you feel happy, that give you joy?
Well, the things that make me feel happy are, for example, the volunteering where I do, the fact of helping others and serving them; eh, playing sports, going out for a run or some type of physical exercise; going out with my friends, spending time with them, eh, seeing that there are a lot of people that I consider to be a big family, who support me, who help me, who always get close to me and, and are always looking out for me. Things like that make me happy and I always feel happy in the love of the, of the family. And when I say family, not only in my biological family, but also my friends, who are also my family.

Okay. What has your life been like since you came here?
Well, my life, eh, ever since I came here was, was, was quite hard, very hard, very hard. Because at first I didn’t know anyone, I didn’t know the place, and then it was a different world for me, a new world. And then, of course, the fact that I didn’t have the documentation, eh, made me go through the street situation too, made me go through several circumstances, for example, going through the cold, the hunger, the fact that I had basic support, the fact that I experienced difficult moments in life. And that, honestly, was, was a great challenge, a great challenge. And it also made me feel a lack of confidence, the, that the hate, the, the discomfort too. Sad, it made me feel very sad.

Eh, what’s the good thing about being here since you arrived?
Well, since I came here it was the, the fact of, firstly, changing my life, that is, putting myself forward because I want to improve my life. And so here, with the basic support that the foundation offers me and their love and the love of my friends, which gave me a lot of hope that, that, that there’s something good that’s waiting for me and that there’s still opportunity and hope to achieve my goals and to improve my life.

Okay. What has been the difficult part?
The difficult thing was the street situation, because when, when the person lives the street situation, eh, in, in other words, you sleep on the street, you sleep on the street, hunger, there’s no food, there’s no clothes, there’s no basic help, shower, eh, and then, eh, really, that makes you lose hope in life and you keep wondering until when and why, until when and why is this happening to me? Why couldn’t I have a normal life, a happy life like anyone else? But of course, it’s immigration and the fact of not, of not having my documents in order, but it’s fatal and, and it put me through several emotions such as sadness, it made me feel sick, it made me feel a lack of confidence in myself, and well, now it’s alright, now it’s alright.

Eh, can you tell me how it feels to live here? Here, uh, I mean in Barcelona since you arrived.
Living here first made me feel in the city as a city or as the ‘new world’ here for me. That at the beginning was very difficult, my feeling, I felt a lot of difference. And specifically when I didn’t know anyone, I felt a lot like, like a type of rejection, a type of rejection just because of my nationality, because I came from another country. And then, uh, I felt people rejecting me. People didn’t, didn’t, didn’t, didn’t want to know me because of the bad prejudices. But, uh, then, little by little and with time, I could make friends, I could find my place. And when I say my place, it’s how I could fully integrate and continue with the criteria of life here. And I’m very grateful and, and now this makes me feel like a very happy, very happy person.

Eh, can you tell me how it feels to be away from your family, from your home?
The truth is a very difficult question, but well. After immigrating or before immigrating, my feeling has always been sadness, sadness and sadness and sadness. Because of course, before I immigrated I thought about this and I was feeling sad. And also after arriving here, having a life and everything, it made me feel sad again. And of course it’s thing, I would say, that anyone could feel, being away from their family.

Yes, of course, being away from family, it’s not, it’s not easy at all. Have you ever imagined that you could handle this situation? Like, how to go about it? How to overcome it? How to survive all this? The fact that you are far from your family, your home, your people, the people that you say support you and love you.
Well, honestly, not at first, I had no idea how to handle this. Because I was so caught up in the precarious situation, so it didn’t give me the opportunity to see, uh, to see how things are, how they act. So at first it cost me time, it took me time to understand the people here, to understand how things are. And of course, when you live in a different and precarious situation, you always go with what, with what you find, and they are usually random things like meeting people from, with, with the same situation as you. And of course, those people don’t, they won’t give you advice about this place because they’re also on the same level with you. But in the end I was able, I was able through my friends, by getting closer to the culture here, getting closer to the language, getting closer to people, despite all that, I was always willing to try, always, always.

Do you think you developed any capacity to face all of these challenges?
Eh, honestly, yes, honestly, yes. Now I have a lot of abilities, such as my communication with people, because after reading and getting closer I was able to understand culture and things, that, that, uh, and the, and the, the things that these people here also understand. Because of course, every, every place, its culture, its way of understanding things, life, the way of life. So, after getting closer to this and understanding it, I could evolve my communication skills with people in understanding their way of being, uh, the fact of being with, with, with these people here and being part and being part of them. And then skills, for example, the language, now that I’m speaking in Spanish, which is not my, my native language, eh, I evolved with this and also, eh, several things, like doing things here, like, how to manage emotions in difficult times, things like that.

And what, what, what do you think your strength has been since you’ve been here? Since you arrived in Barcelona? What do you think has filled you with that strength, those skills, that enthusiasm?
The truth is, my strength has always been the love of my family. That was indeed a great emotional resource for me. The love of my family that I have always, always admired, always, always. And also the love of my friends here, because a lot of people want to see me well, want to see me happy and love me very much. So for me it’s love. It’s love.

Eh, could you tell me why you’re leaving your country? Can you describe what happened, what made you say: ‘well, I’m leaving now, I can’t stand this situation’?
Well, the truth, the things or the reasons that made me immigrate from my country were, were economic reasons, reasons due to which I couldn’t achieve my dreams. I wanted to improve my, my way of life, I wanted to improve my family’s way of life, then there came a time when I saw that there are no more horizons and there are no opportunities for me and for achieving and doing and moving forward, then it came to that point where we have to change, we have to make a change. And immigrate and, and improve things and move on.

How did that moment when you said ‘the time has come, it’s time to leave’ make you feel?
Honestly, those moments were some of the most difficult times in my life. Because it’s time to say goodbye to, to where I was born, to my culture, to my family, to my friends there. And go alone to another place and look for something else. So then it was, it was very difficult, it was very difficult for me. It made me feel, honestly, very sad, very sad.

How, how was your trip here? How did you get there? Any particular experience that you can tell us and express?
Actually, I came here, I came by plane. I came here by plane, to search for a ‘new world’. And that was, that was my means of transport, which was for, for, because the opportunity appeared to me like that. So everyone as it appears to them, there are people who come by plane, there are people who come by boat, there are people who come by skiff, there are people who come under a truck. And then for me, for me it was, it was like that. And if it weren’t for that, this way, I would have come in another way, in another means of transport, no matter how. The goal is to arrive and move on.

Do you think, uh, often about this situation when you decided ‘I’m leaving’; in other words, do you often think about how this particular situation made you feel? Do you often think of something that you remember, that you miss?
Honestly, this experience made me cry a lot. This experience made me cry because I was away from my family, my mother, my sister, my family. And then, uh, it made me feel really, really bad, really bad, really bad. And it was really hard for me, it was really hard. It was, it was very hard, the emotion of being far away, very hard in ‘new world’, it was, everything was hard, everything was hard.

And, did you ever imagine that you could handle this situation of leaving your country, leaving your family? How does this make you feel? How does all this affect you?
The truth is, at first, when I lived in my country, I thought that this would be something easy and that I could handle it very quickly, but after arriving here I felt, I felt alone, I felt alone, alone in the world, because I was really alone, in a place where I didn’t know anyone, where there were no friends, where the, the, the street that is a jungle the fact of living there, in the street situation, the, the fact of being alone. That made me feel alone.

Okay. And how have you, how have you faced all, all, all these difficult moments? Or the painful memories? In what, in what do you find strength and support to move forward?
The truth is that I find support in, in the good memories of my country, of my family. And I always remembered that and I always put it in front of me to motivate myself and to make sacrifices and put up with all this and get better and better. And I always said and thought that this is temporary and that soon things will work out and everything will be fine. Everything, everything.

Before this event occurred that led you to flee your home, what was your dream?
Before coming here, my dreams were to, to, to continue my studies, to have a good job, to work a decent job, to have a business, to live happily, to travel, to live close to my family, to be, to live the life of young people, to be content, to be well and to be very happy. That’s what my dream was, and, and to see my family happy with me.

Before leaving your country, what were your strengths?
My strengths before leaving my country were that I have studies, for example, that I am not a person without studies, that I know how the world works, I know how to act, I know how to, uh, live the daily life of a person with studies, for example, I know languages, for example, I know, uh, I follow the news of the world. So one of my strengths was my studies and also the fact that, you know, I always had the love of family by my side.

Do you think that what you have experienced is really difficult?
Of course, of course. What I experienced was really difficult. But what can I say? Being here was very difficult, but it’s worth it, it’s worth it, for a better future. And that makes me proud, proud.

You feel like it is, you tell me you’re proud, so it means that somehow, uh, you’ve grown, haven’t you?
Of course, of course. All this time since I came here until today, eh, I changed a lot, I changed a lot. And, and I evolved. I grew in various ways, such as the way I see things in life, um, perspectives, expectations too, points of view, uh, the fact that I control my emotions more, uh, things, things, good things that work in my favor today.

And what were your hopes and dreams for the future? What are your hopes and dreams for the future?
My hopes and dreams for the future are basically and what comes first is to get the documentation out and get regular, get regular, get regular and get on my feet. And that’s what I mean by living normally, like anyone else. This is the basic dream. And the other dream is to return to see my family, to be with them, to feel their love again and to feel their presence and also to contribute to improving this world and living well and happily.

Well, I think it’s super good. I really appreciate your answers. Eh, would you like to add anything else to this interview that might help me?
I would like to say to people who live in this situation that on the one hand I have never encouraged immigration because it is a very difficult thing to do and it is a very, very, very important change in life. But if people see that, that, that they’re here for example, and that they’re going through difficult times, then they should endure, there’s hope, there’s light,there’s, there’s love, they should be patient and keep going and everything will work out.

Okay, well thank you very much for your …
Thanks a lot to you too and it has been a pleasure.

Likewise, thank you.