Looking for a new home...

Whereas most of you write about serious global issues and existential questions, I am going to write about my life experiences. I hesitated a lot before writing this because it may sound self-centered or pretentious or make you judge me, but I will take the risk.

So, as you all know, I come from Bangladesh but what you may not know is that my family and me are political refugees. I'm not going to tell you why and how we got here, but more how we lived our first years in France. Of course, each refugee's experience is different, but I hope it will give you some ideas.

I don’t remember everything in detail, but some events just stayed in my mind and that’s what I am going to relate to you.

We arrived in France, the country I knew only thanks to the football world cup, on 23rd September 2010, in Paris precisely. To explain briefly why we came to this beautiful land, I can simply say that it was because my parents had very very complicated political problems.

In France, we had no family or friends, so we went to an association that helps refugees. We had nowhere to go and unfortunately when you sell all your belongings to flee your country and come to a completely unknown part of the world, you can't afford a hotel. So the association, after interviewing my parents, provided food, serving something my fingers had never touched before called « baguette ». I just remember that I strongly disliked that. Everything smelled so weird, even the tomatoes (although we do have tomatoes in Bangladesh); not only the food but everything basically smelled unknown and I didn't like that. Finally the association gave us the address of a hotel where we could live for FREE.

A man that we meet in the unknown city helped us to find the hotel; all I remember is that I was cold, hungry and that we walked for hours. We finally came to the hotel where we stayed for a few days and then, went to another hotel where we stayed for 3 months.

It's clear that we were completely disoriented in this country; everything was so different, but I was really excited to discover this great unknown land and motivated to learn French. My parents were less excited and much more worried, “what will we do if they don’t allow us to stay here?”, I suppose that was the kind of questions they were asking themselves. It's better to be a child sometimes.

Soon after our arrival, we celebrated our first Eid (Muslim feast) without our whole family; there was nothing Eid-like, so we were really sad. Just to make you understand how we felt: imagine a Christmas in summer in a completely unknown place, without family.

When you arrive in France and ask for asylum, you have to go to the prefecture and ask for a “récépissé” (that allows you to stay temporarily in France under the title of “demandeur d’asile”). At the time we asked for a récépissé, we had to queue up, and I believe you have never seen a line so long: we had to wait a whole night to enter. It was November (so very, very cold for people who had just come from Bangladesh) and moreover my younger brother and I had Chickenpox, so we had itchy spots all over our body. I just remember that I was cold and lying on a bench and mom was stroking me. We had to queue up twice. Actually, the prefecture lets in a certain number of people and the others are sent back, which was our case the first time; we tried to explain our situation (two sick children) but the agents didn’t care. The second time, we went even earlier; we had to run from our hotel to the metro (we missed the bus). I don’t know why, but this image just stayed in my mind: the image of my parents and my two year-old brother running in the orange-lighted streets of Paris. This time, we got the récépissé.

Then, my parents had to write our whole story, explain what our problems were in our country and why we came here, and give it to the OFPRA, which would then (after months or years) interview them and decide if we should get refugee status. So when we gave our file, we had to wait...

A memorable day: it was when we saw snow for the first time, on 26th November 2010, my mom’s birthday. It snowed really a little but it was enough to impress us.

After staying for three months in Paris, we were sent to Chatillon-sur-seine, about 2 hours 30 from Paris by train and bus. During the trip, which seemed infinite, we could only see the fields; it was snowing a lot, and we had the impression of going to another country. When we arrived the roads were blocked by snow; I have never seen that much snow ever since.

In Chatillon, we lived in a « foyer » for asylum-seeker, we met wonderful people there from many different countries (some that I never heard about); some of them are still in touch with us. We had nice social workers that helped us not only with the papers, but also psychologically.

I started going to school in January 2011. I went to a class (CLIN) for kids that don’t speak French, and my first teacher was Mr. Marc (that’s how we called him). I believe I learnt French mainly thanks to him (and Gulli)

We lived in Chatillon for 2 years, and I was happy during this period; I went to school, made new friends but my parents… It was much harder for them, because they couldn’t work (it’s forbidden when we’re asylum-seeker), nor could they learn French; they had to stay home all day long. They suffered from everything we lived before, and moreover they were worried because OFPRA took loads of time to answer us and we had no guarantee that they would allow us to stay in France.

My parents were interviewed twice, the first time OFPRA in September 2011; my father was interviewed for 4 hours!!! But they rejected our file (they reject most people’s demand), so my parents re-appealed to the CNDA and finally we got the status of refugee in December 2012.

We finally came to Dijon in July 2013 because my parents couldn’t find any jobs (Chatillon is very small).

And here I am, today.

I am grateful to France for giving people that are obliged to leave their country a new home. However, I want people to know that when you come to France, everything isn’t that easy; it’s hard to find your footing, to start a new life. I also want people to know that when you leave your  whole family and history, and come to a country where people tell you that you’re stealing from them, it hurts.