Nima’s Journey from Iran
Sometimes what we have to share is our story.
A story behind the numbers; from Iran to the UK, this is Nima’s journey in his own words.
We recommend reading Nima & Omid’s Stories together; two young men who made the journey to Europe who, at their very lowest, found strength in each other.
PART 1/3
BORN IN TEHRAN TO A PERFECT FAMILY
I was born in Tehran to a perfect family: my mother, father, sister and I have always been incredibly close. My parents did not have a good education but they were so open minded about everything. Though my father is a Sunni Muslim, and my mother is Shia, it was never an issue and they would always encourage me to think for myself. The first time I drank alcohol was with my father. I am so comfortable with my parents that I don’t even call them mum and dad: I call them by their nicknames.
When I turned 15 I became so curious in life, and I started questioning everything. I started reading the Koran to find my own truth. I became obsessed with religious books and would be up all night reading. I realised that what I was reading didn’t always fit in with my own beliefs. I felt like religion should be a deeply personal thing, and that it should never have an effect on other people’s life: but in Iran that is not the case and many people are suffering because of religion. The government uses Islam to control people’s lives, and I felt it was my responsibility as a young person to help people see with their own eyes and think with their own minds. For example people are taught that dogs are dirty and that animals can’t feel suffering. And there is a disgusting class system that exists in Iran where Afghan people are looked upon as subhumans. Girls are expected to be virgins when they marry, but men can have as many girlfriends and encounters as they want. And one of the worst things is that the regime is sending civilians to fight in Syria under the pretence of fighting ISIS, when in fact they are supporting the Assad troops commit heinous acts of war.
I decided to become an activist to make my country better, even if that meant going to prison or being killed for speaking out.
I met a group of people who had the same thoughts as me, and we started organising protests for political prisoners through social media. The group was set up against the regime and against extreme Islam. We shared opinion pieces, articles, photos and videos. Many people didn’t like it and I would receive threats every day telling me that the security forces are looking for me and that it’s only a matter of time before they will find me and kill me. I was accused of working for Saudi Arabia. I was threatened by a famous Iranian actor (the arm of the regime reaches far). But I didn’t care about any of it: at some point our group had a huge amount of followers and it just goes to show how many people are unhappy living under such oppression. At one protest my face was published by the New York Times and the BBC News, we shared videos and information from the ground with journalists across the world. My parents were terrified. Even though they wanted me to express my own voice they were also so aware of the danger. Sometimes they would try to dissuade me but I was completely stubborn.
At some point our activist group fell apart: one of my friends who I had started the group with was not practicing what he preached. We had been speaking out on the practice of men keeping multiple wives but we found out he was keeping several girlfriends on the side. One of the girls he was dating was in love with him, and when she found out about the others she killed herself. After 3 years as an active member I couldn’t deal with the hypocrisy and I decided to leave the group and delete my account, I wanted nothing more to do with him. I created a new fake profile to follow what was being said in the group. One morning I woke up to the news that some of the admins of the group had been arrested by the internet police, and I knew that they would be out looking for me as well. I decided to lay low and stay with a friend. I was expecting the police to turn up at any moment but they never did.
I returned to university for my studies, I was studying accounting at the university of Tehran. 6 months had passed when an old friend of mine called me. She had been kept in prison for half a year. They had interrogated her every day and she said to me ‘Nima - they are hunting you down, they have screen grabs of all your messages.’ They would ask her continuously to reveal my identity and tell them where I was. She told me they caught one of the other ringleaders and he was sentenced to death by hanging. There are 3 others who were arrested and still to this day I don’t know what happened to them - wether they are still alive in prison or whether they have also been killed. My friend was eventually released because they couldn’t find any substantial evidence against her, but mostly because her family paid a lawyer 30.000 euros to get her out. She told me she is so paranoid now that sometimes when she is walking on the street she is scared of her own shadow. Whenever we talk now, she instantly deletes my messages after reading them.
I was scared to be found, but my sense of duty to change my country was still stronger. I owned a lot of illegal books against the regime that were very difficult to get hold of. I decided to distribute them secretly around the campus. One day I was warned that the university got wind of my activities, and they knew exactly who I was.
I wasn’t ready to leave my country. Everything I ever wanted, I had it: a loving family, my studies, a beautiful home and friends. But I knew that if I stayed I would be arrested and executed, and that would kill my mother. I couldn’t say goodbye to anyone, because I knew I wouldn’t be able to leave if I said bye to my parents, my town or my friends. I pretended that I was strong and certain and fearless, but really I was full of sadness and full of anger. I swore to myself I would take revenge on the government, and I would continue my activism from abroad.
My city was close to the border with Turkey, and I paid a $1000 to a smuggler to take me over to the other side. I had no idea what I was in for: we were dropped off in small groups of people and then it was a 24hr walk across the mountains. I would say it is the worse thing I have ever done in my life. It was dark all around and we had to walk on a narrow path high up in the mountains, you couldn’t see anything in front of you but you could just hear shooting in the distance, women and children crying nearby. My vertigo made the walk even worse. A handicapped boy who couldn’t walk was tied to a horse. I could see in the distance that he kept falling off, and I could see the blood was pouring out. They paid one of the smugglers to carry him the rest of the way. After an entire day of walking most of my toenails had fallen off. At some point we came across a road block and we had to cross a river, the water came up to my waist. The woman in front of me lost hold of her child and the child floated away. I was able to grab her and drag the child across to the other side. It was all so messy and frightening. A message came through on my phone from my sister saying that they were going out of their minds with worry about me. But I couldn’t get any reception to message her back as my sim card had stopped working when we reached the Turkish border. I thought of my parents and my sister non-stop. I wondered if they would have been arrested because of the things I did. And I wondered what would come to pass if anything where to happen to me along the journey: I know my mother and sister would not be able to take it.
Nima crossed to Greece on that dinghy
The smuggler forced 50 people in a small room for 4 days. I couldn’t breathe and it all just felt like I was in a bad movie. Right before I was moved along they brought in the handicapped boy I had seen earlier. He was bleeding very badly but the smugglers refused to take him to a hospital. I’ll never know what happened to him.
I paid them 2500 euros to take us to Greece and they took 7 of us towards the coastline. It was a sweltering hot, long walk through the forest and I was carrying a small boat with me. The smuggler told us to spend the night in the forest and go the next day because we were so tired that we would never make it, but I insisted we go the same night: I knew that if the Turkish police would find me here I would be arrested and sent straight back to my country. I couldn’t swim, but my choice was to defy the waves, or be sent back to Iran and face the wrath of the regime. The smuggler refused and we spent the night in the forest. We were woken up to the sounds of policemen approaching. I was terrified, and I was so sure that they were going to kill me. But eventually they moved on and let us be. We waited for a long time in the heat, we had no water and no food. I decided to write a letter to my mother and my sister in case my body would be found. I wrote ‘Now I am dead and you have found my letter, but you must promise me not to join me. I am sorry for everything, I know I have been selfish, but I want to thank you for everything and I love you.’ I wrote their number on the paper and on several places on my body so they would know if anything happened to me. The next day we put the boat in the water, it even had a small hole in it, but we just had to keep going anyway. There was no motor, only two peddles to move ourselves across. It took us 8 hours to get to the other side. We arrived to a beautiful Greek beach on Samos, but I couldn’t get out of the boat for half an hour - the boat was so small and 2 other people had sat on my legs and I couldn’t move them. When I finally got out we started walking and I said to myself ‘I am safe, I am finally free’.
PART 2/3
GREECE: IN WHAT I CAN ONLY DESCRIBE AS A CAGE
I didn’t know much about Europe but I believed that people were progressive and open minded, that everything was clean and fair and that the governments care about people. I thought the racism and closed-mindedness doesn’t exist here the way it does in Iran. We found a restaurant nearby and we ordered food and drinks, I felt so content. Then the police came to pick us up and take us to Vathy camp. As we approached the camp I couldn’t believe my eyes: the smell, the dirt, the violence, the desperation, all the hope I had felt melted away in an instant. They put us in what I can only describe as a cage, to register us and take our finger prints. We watched the scenes of the camp from behind the barbed wired gates: people shouting and fighting in the food line that never seemed to end. The staff were so unkind and harsh, we were treated worse than animals. We were made to spent the night inside this cage, as the temperatures dropped I started shivering from the cold: all of us were still in our wet clothes from the boat journey. One of the guys from my boat went to speak to the police and asked for a sleeping bag, in response they started hitting him. To have fled the police state of Iran and to find the same violence here, I felt so disillusioned.
In the morning we were given a toothbrush, a towel and a sleeping bag: they told us to get out and find ourselves a place. I didn’t really know where to go or what to do. At home I had my own room, my own bathroom. And here I had to share with a thousand other people these horrible plastic toilets that were covered in shit. There were some Iranian residents who helped us find a place to set up a tent and talked us through how the camp operates. At night I couldn’t sleep, because as soon as darkness fell the violence would start. I would try to leave the camp at night but the police wouldn’t let us. After about a month I heard about an NGO group that do classes. I would wake up early in the morning and go there and stay until they would kick me out. I couldn’t face being inside the camp, so I would avoid it all day and just come back there to sleep. I started to feel depressed and empty, and I would start drinking every evening to escape the realities around me. I started smoking again, something I had quit whilst I was still in Iran but here it was a momentary distraction from my shitty life. I didn’t tell my parents very much, because I knew they were heartbroken and I didn’t want them to worry any more than they already did, so I told them I was doing well. My father was hugging the last t-shirt I wore in bed every night. My sister was fasting to pray for my wellbeing. I just had to get out of the camp, so I paid a smuggler $1500 to make me some fake travel papers, so I could get to Athens. I got lucky when I was able to cross, but I was also scared of going to Athens - there were so many rumours of bad people there, smugglers who wouldn’t hesitate to kill you over your money. I didn’t speak a word of English, and I didn’t know anyone there, but I had to move forward. I stayed with some of the smugglers from the network for a few days, and at night I didn’t dare to even close my eyes because I thought they would try to steal my money. And my parents had sent me a lot of cash to push on with my journey. They were using drugs every night in front of me. I wondered what would happen if they would kill me and take my money, I didn’t have any documents, and my family would never even know what happened to me, I would simply vanish. I’m not sure how I did it but somehow I managed to get out of that apartment. I connected with some other refugees who were also trying to get out of Greece, and they put me in touch with a new smuggler who promised to get me papers for Germany. I paid him 9000 euros. I spent the rest of my money on hotels and new clothes, because I kept telling myself every day: ‘tomorrow I will be in Germany’. But that day never came and I was held hostage when I met my smuggler again. They hurt me and stole all the money I had left.
I couldn’t ask my parents to send anymore, what they had sent already had been their life savings, you could buy a house with it in Iran, and in a flash it had all disappeared. I had nowhere to turn, nothing to eat and no place to sleep. At night I had nightmares of crossing the borders and I filled my thoughts with frenzied daydreams: I would wish that I was a little mosquito, so small that I could fly onto an airplane that would take me to another country. In my daydreams I could go anywhere. Away from the squad I was living in, where the bed bugs feasted on my skin.
I tried to report the smuggler - I had photos and videos of him, I had his number, his Western Union details. But the police told me to get out. They said I was here illegally and I cannot file a report without valid papers. I decided I had to go back to Samos and get my papers in order. When I got back to Samos I went to report the smuggler at the station, but the police instead locked me up and threw me out after a few hours, they said they didn’t care. The camp seemed worse than before: more overcrowded, full of rats and even dirtier than I remembered. I said to myself: I cannot stay in this camp, and I want to spend my time learning something useful. In Iran I had never felt the need to learn English, but here it seemed like a good way to pass my time. I didn’t want to spend hours in the food line for the disgusting food that was distributed so I would eat only one meal a day, in the evening. Learning was difficult, because I felt so hungry all the time, but I persisted. The first day there I saw Omid and I started talking with him, he was Afghan but born in Iran and we had an instant connection. He told me he is planning to go to Athens, but I told him about my bad experiences: I didn’t want him to make the same mistakes that I had made. Omid was different: he was active in wanting to learn, and he didn’t waste away his days staying inside his tent. He didn’t know me, and even though he didn’t have a lot of money he gave me some. From that day onwards we were together all the time: if one of us had food we shared it with the other, if we had a pack of cigarettes we would smoke them together, if one of us was sad, the other would bring them back up. One time we even split a peanut in half.
We began looking for a room to rent in a house somewhere, but nobody would rent to us because we were refugees. My parents sent a little money every month to top up the 90 euros we received from the camp. After a while I met some other Iranians who were in a house share. I asked if I could join them, they said I could but I would have to go to church first and meet the priest. I went to meet him but what I saw made me uncomfortable: I saw other refugees pretending to be Christian and kissing the priest’s hand. I didn’t like it. When I went to see him he lifted his hand before my face, but I didn’t kiss it, I shook it instead. He asked me: ‘Are you a christian?’, I replied that I wasn’t. Then he asked me if I was Muslim, and again I told him I wasn’t and I said I don’t even really believe in God. “You were honest with me” he said, and he gave his permission for me to live in the house with the other Iranians, on the condition that sometimes I would visit the church. I didn’t mind going to church, in fact I was always interested in different religions. After a while Omid was also allowed to join me in the house. The first time I went to the church I was observing the rituals and the praying, and it was interesting to me. At the end the priest asked me how I felt. I think I lied because I said I felt good. But I didn’t really feel good, waking up at 06:30 and standing for hours on my feet listening to things that made no sense to me. Omid and I started to look for another place.
I thought I would try volunteering with an organisation: I saw volunteers coming from all over Europe to help others, and I thought ‘why not me?’ I liked washing peoples clothes, making tea and it helped me with my English. I would accompany people to the hospital as a translator. I was starting to feel I had more of a purpose and I could fill my days, there was a nice atmosphere there. They talked about being one family and about everybody being equal. But after a while I started to see some things that didn’t sit right with me. People who were coming from abroad to help would be called volunteers, but we had our own label: ‘community volunteers’. They set up separate whatsapp groups for the refugees and we were not allowed to be added to theirs. They held meetings without us, and organised separate briefings for us. They were not allowed to accept our facebook friend requests, and they were not allowed to go out with us. They brought us lots of food all the time, and it just felt like they thought we were helping for food, not because we genuinely wanted to help. I hate pity, and it didn’t feel like they were taking us seriously. They would say we are a family, but there was one rule for them, and a different rule for us. Why could we not mix with Europeans?
I saw it all, but I kept my mouth shut. Until one day I had had enough. I spoke with the other ‘community volunteers’ and we decided to confront them. We asked the founders why they couldn’t accept us as friends on social media, and why they couldn’t go out with us. What do they really think of us? How do they see us? And what do they tell their friends back home about their experiences: will they say we are too dangerous to go out with? One guy said he couldn’t answer the question. Another volunteer said it was because they had a passport and they decided to come there for humanity, and that for us it wasn’t a choice. I felt so sad: I was on Samos because I believe the people in my country deserve better, I risked my life to stand up for human rights and I lost everything I ever had for the sake of humanity. But they believed they were heroes because they were teaching a class once a day? And so we are not worthy as a friend on social media? I felt I had to constantly prove my own dignity to them. I had to answer ignorant questions like: ‘do you have a television in your country?’ Sometimes I would make fun of their questions and tell them I used to send a pigeon instead of an email. We didn’t come here because we are poor and we didn’t come from the middle-ages, we came because we have no choice.
Some of our friends decided to open up a free restaurant for refugees, and Omid and I decided to be a part of it. We started helping them with the cooking and cleaning and serving people. One day I said to my friends that I want to be a coordinator: I was tired of being looked at like I was incapable because I was a refugee. At first they told me I couldn’t be a coordinator because I was always making fun of everything and I always questioned everything and I was known as a bit of a troublemaker. But I told them that if they would make me a coordinator I would be very serious and dedicated and they would see the real me. They made me a coordinator for a 2 week trial. I did a really good job, I was happy and they were happy. But then something happened: Omid and his girlfriend broke up. By this point I would say Omid was the most important person in my life, and if he is happy I am happy, but if he is sad, I am even sadder. I told the group that I loved my job and I loved the project, but I loved Omid even more, and right then I had to be with him. They would send me messages everyday asking me to return, but until Omid needed me I wasn’t going to come back. It took about 2 months before I decided to rejoin the project as a kitchen manager, but by that time everything had changed, and all the volunteers were new. It wasn’t easy to gain the respect of the other refugees who had been cooking there for longer and who knew how everything worked already. But I was making schedules, coordinating food deliveries with other NGOs and making sure we were feeding about a thousand people every day. I worked really hard and I wanted to show to the volunteers that refugees can also do this job, and I insisted on joining the coordination meetings even though I was the only brown person in there. I gained respect and friends and a good position during my time there, I would say I had a good life. But at the same time it wasn’t easy and sometimes it was so hard to say no to people. Sometimes I would have to send away a crying mother who was hungry, if she wasn’t on the priority list for that day, and there was never enough food to serve everyone. People would tell me about their asylum case rejections, their health issues or the money problems they had. It broke my heart a little more each day. When someone told me they were hungry, I could feel it with my whole body, because I knew what hunger felt like. If someone asked me for a cigarette I knew what it felt like not to be able to smoke one. I would buy tobacco every day to hand out, and I would spend my days from morning till evening trying to sort out problems and having meetings. I felt I was drowning in other people’s problems, and it was so hard. I would feel like shit when someone asked for my help and I couldn’t give it, but I also needed help myself. I now had some money and I had my asylum, but I hadn’t yet thought about my own future.
PART 3/3
I KNEW I COULDN’T STAY IN GREECE
I knew I couldn’t stay on Samos. Everywhere I went I was reminded that I am not welcome. I didn’t dare to go alone to a restaurant because I knew they wouldn’t serve a refugee eating by himself. One time I was at the beach with my friends and an old man started shouting at us: ‘Go back to your countries you motherfuckers!’. I went to him and I said: ‘You cannot talk to us like that. I wanted to leave your country but I couldn’t, and I don’t have a choice’. He threatened to call the police to remove us from the public beach. One time I went to the port to wave goodbye to a friend who was leaving. The police stopped me and asked me why I looked so clean - I didn’t even know how to answer that. If he would have asked me why I was dirty I would have probably had an answer, but how do you answer a question like ‘why are you clean?’
Nima (left) with his two best friends just before leaving Samos
Or the time I had gone into work early in the morning and I went to the bus station to go back to the house in the evening. It was a 40 minute drive by bus, it was so far. I was waiting by myself inside the terminal when the bus pulled in, I could see the driver looking at me but he didn’t open the doors. He pulled out again and drove off. I started walking back home. I told my friends I had missed the last bus because I had fallen asleep at the bus station, and they came to pick me up, we laughed about the me napping at the bus station. But I couldn’t tell them the truth: that the bus driver wouldn’t pick me up because I was a refugee, I felt such shame. Or the day I went to the post office to post some things to a friend. I was waiting for 2 hours, but it was like I was invisible, as if I didn’t exist, and everyone who came in would just cut in front of me. I didn’t dare to say anything, I felt like I didn’t have the right to speak up because this is not my country. I was so upset that I forgot to take my change, which was almost 15 euros, but when I came outside and realised I didn’t dare to go back in. I know they would tell me I’m lying. The time I brought an injured friend to the hospital and accompanied him to translate, and the doctor started shouting at me ‘why are you bringing people here? He is just lying - you just want to sleep somewhere warm’. I had come in my pyjamas and I had to show him the contents of my wallet to prove I had money for my own house, only then he would look at my friend who was vomiting blood. It turned out he had a severe chest infection. There were so many more instances, I can say that I completely lost my confidence and my sense of self-worth in Samos. I was offered a founding position with the NGO to open a new project somewhere else, but I was reluctant. I took some time to visit my girlfriend at the time in Athens. I now had my papers, I had some money and some freedom. And when I was there I felt different: people wouldn’t look at me with hate in the shops, I could go to restaurants, and I felt like I could be part of society, even though finding a job and an apartment would be impossible there. But again we had really terrible time in Athens with one of the smugglers. It was so traumatising I can hardly talk about it, but one of the smugglers we met ended up breaking Omid’s arm and we felt so unsafe. The second Omid and I got back to Samos we went to do some shopping and the same feeling washed over us: the shopkeeper followed us around and he accused us of wanting to steal. For me it was the final straw and I knew we had to get out of there, we packed our bags and headed to France.
I had heard about Calais before we went but I was still shocked when we arrived there. We were back to square one: everything we had build in Samos was lost. We were sleeping in a freezing cold tent again, with no toilets, no showers, everything was so dirty and miserable and only occasionally food was handed out by volunteers. At that point in my life I literally felt nothing: neither happiness nor sadness, no fear, just nothing at all. We tried a few times to pass, but it took a few attempts. The day that we crossed to England I turned to Omid and I said ‘I wish we die, so everything will just be done’. We were living only for our families, and if I had an accident on the way, than at least it wouldn’t be my fault if I died. But we made it across. When we arrived all the others were so happy, but I still felt numb. My body was there, but still it felt like I didn’t really exist. The police separated our group and they put us on busses. I asked about Omid and they told me he will join me again in a few hours. I saved the seat next to me, and the whole journey I kept repeating to myself: Omid will come and sit beside me’. But he never came: they took him somewhere else because of his broken arm. In my mind I was with Omid, I imagined myself as that tiny mosquito again, sitting next to him on his bus.
I was taken to a deportation centre where I was kept for 8 days. I wasn’t allowed out, and I had given my phone to someone who needed it in Calais, Omid and I were sharing his. I was in a small room, locked up only with my thoughts, far away from Omid, and I couldn’t call my family. I knew they would be be going crazy with worry, and I suffered so much from thinking about their pain. After 8 days they moved me to London, and finally I could see Omid again. It was one of the best days when we reunited, I finally felt happiness again. I asked Omid about his operation and he told me the doctor had been so nice to him. I couldn’t believe it, for us it was completely new that a stranger would be kind to us. On the second day of being in London I got lost and couldn’t find my way back to the hotel. It took me 2 hours to build up the courage to ask someone for directions. This woman stopped and she took the time to help me, and she was so kind. For the rest of the day I couldn’t stop thinking about how nice she was. Some of my friends in the UK tried to persuade me to meet up with others who lived nearby, but I didn’t really want to. I couldn’t face explaining my life and situation to anyone new. But Amber I remembered from Samos, and she understood my situation so well. The day she visited me I had felt so helpless because my lawyer had told me that morning there is a chance I will be deported back to Greece. But when I saw her in person, she filled me with hope. I could feel she is different: she didn’t know me very well, but she cared about me and my situation, and she still cares about everything.
I wanted to be active again, as that was the one thing that had helped me get through life on Samos. I started volunteering with a group who were helping the homeless, I really wanted to be involved because I noticed there were so many homeless people in London. But one day some people came to my hotel room and they told me I was being moved. I was being taken to old army barracks. I felt so powerless, I had no choice but to go with them, I was going to loose all my stability again. I felt so tired of this life. I told my girlfriend she should break up with me because I am a helpless case. When I arrived to the barracks there were people outside demonstrating and shouting ‘Go back to Islam’. The spark of happiness I had felt in London ebbed away, and I started taking a lot of my allergy pills to make me feel drowsy and sleepy. I could find no peace. I told my parents that I was still the hotel, I didn’t want them to know I was back in a terrible camp, I could never tell them my whole story. One day one of the guards who I was friendly with told me ‘Nima, the police are here to see you.’ I started shaking uncontrollably because I thought they had come to deport me. But he was actually just joking with me.
I was watching the other refugees there waisting their time away and it would have been easier to do the same thing, but I picked myself up and tried to focus on my studies. I wrote a small piece for a charity, and I started teaching the other residents basic English. I would translate for people the same way I had done on Samos. One day Amber came to visit me in the camp and told me that she would speak to my lawyer, she also said that I could come and live with her and her husband Fred. That night I couldn’t sleep because I felt so happy. I moved into their home in Croydon. In the beginning I felt shy, but they were so friendly and welcoming. I was expecting them to ask me about my story on the first day I moved in, but they never did, it was all just normal and so comfortable. I watched her closely, and she works from early morning till late at night because she cares so deeply, she doesn’t use empty words but she shines through her actions. I never felt pity from them, only respect and they looked at me like a normal person. I hadn’t felt like that in a long time. They listen to everything I say, sometimes I will talk to Amber for hours, and she gives me advice and she gives me hope. They bought me such thoughtful presents for my birthday and christmas, and they bought things for Omid that they knew he would like. They feel like family now. I volunteer for the homeless together with Amber here in Croydon.
Life has been so ruthless for me: one day I had everything and the next day it was all gone. I remember when I was younger one day my uncle brought home a small child who was begging on the streets. I bought him things and my mother cooked food for him. Now I recognise myself as that child. I was homeless and Amber took me in. I was fighting for the rights for Afghan people living in Iran, and now I see that people are also fighting for me here. An Afghan colleague at the factory I was working was so worried about his identity, and I couldn’t understand why he was so scared. But now I know what it feels like to try to hide my own identity, and I am still worried that people would recognise I am a refugee. When I was at university, one of my classmates came from a family who didn’t appreciate him and he didn’t have a good place to be able to study. He would come home with me and we would study together and he ate with us. One day he told me that he wished he had a family like mine, and that he had a room like mine. I laughed inside and thought it was such an odd thing: out of all the things to desire in life, to just wish for a small room. But now I get it: when I was in a small tent in Samos and in the shared barracks all I would wish for is the shittiest, smallest room, just for myself. I can’t quite face continuing my activism against the Iranian regime, because surviving this journey has taken all my energy. I do love volunteering and helping other people though. I know what it feels like to be looked down upon, and to loose the life you lived. I would say to anyone who is thinking about volunteering to really learn about the people and their situation before you arrive and don’t think of yourself as a hero. Just be straight: we don’t want pity, just give us your friendship and your honesty as you would with any other person.
I don’t know what will happen to me tomorrow. I don’t dare to hope for too much. I have told myself a thousand times that I should never have come to Europe, but here I am and I want to do something with my life. I don’t just want to work in a restaurant or in a factory because I know I am capable of much more. Some days I wake up early, I exercise and I focus on my studies, but on other days I wake up and my mind is so full that my brain just doesn’t absorb anything. Sometimes I’ll pick up a book but two pages later I realise I have no idea what I just read. I find it hard to respond to messages and to keep in touch with friends and family, I don’t really know how to answer when they ask me how I am, and how my case is going. I don’t tell my parents much and I keep a smile on my face whenever we speak. I would say that most of my European friends would think I am one of the happiest people they know. I lie about how I really feel inside, because I cannot stand pity, I just want to feel normal. Living with the insecurity of my future, and not knowing what the Home Office will decide on my case is like living in limbo: you cannot move forwards because you don’t know what forward is going to be. I have been accepted onto a university course in September, but I’m so anxious about whether or not I will be allowed to stay and continue my studies. One of my biggest worries is that I may never see my family in person again, it would be so hard for them to get a visa to visit me here, and I will never be able to go back to my own country. 10 years ago my mother gave me a ring for my birthday. It is the only thing I still have with me all the way from Iran, and I feel her spirit and her love is in that ring. I haven’t seen my family in so long that when I think of them they are an unchanged picture in my mind.
The Nima I once was died when I left Iran. I am a new person now, a different soul. I would say the best thing to ever happen to me is Omid, and we speak every day. We understand each other without saying a word, we even got matching tattoos. When we are together we laugh non-stop and we forget for a moment all the bad things that have happened to us along the way. The only thing I do know, is that no matter what happens in the future, Omid will be there beside me.
This is Nima’s story to March 2021.
He’s 27 years’ old.
To be continued.
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