Paris / Kabul
In Paris, hundreds of young Afghans congregate in Villemin park, which has become a strategic arrival point between the Gare de l’Est and Gare du Nord stations. Some are waiting for the train or truck that will take them on the next step of their journey : Great Britain, Holland or Norway. Others are hoping to find a place in a migrant hostel, a positive answer to their request for political asylum, a permit and work.
Among them is K : he decided to flee his country to ‘save himself’ above all. His parents were killed for political reasons and his dream is simply ‘to have friends, walk freely in the street, study, work’.
Several thousand kilometers away from the park’s lawns are the families. A’s family live in a poor suburb of Kabul. His father goes out every morning to the bazaar to find work ; his older brother worked for an NGO for a while but hasn’t been able to find work again. He would like to leave too, but doesn’t have the means. He knows his brother’s life can’t be easy in Paris, but it can’t be worse than in Kabul.
Like most families, A hopes that he will soon be able to send them a bit of money, and that their debts will quickly be paid off. On the other hand, it is often very difficult to admit how long the fight for integration can take. So you have to lie, a little. To save face. Say that life isn’t so bad in Europe. That yes, it was worth it. Even at the risk that it will push others into coming.
In fact a friend of A’s who he ran into several times on the journey has just called : he’s at the station, he just got here, where is the park exactly?