They call it “the game”

I think back to the big fenced-off sports field, to the kids shooting penaltys on the muddy meadow between lying around PET bottles, flying kites and racing with the dog. The sun shines pale, mist lies over the town and the air smells of tar. It took a lot of persuasion, a whole hour to be precise, to get the boys and girls outside. Now that they are outside, most of them are completely wrapped up in the football game. One of the girls is struggling to get to the ball now and then. The boys don’t think it’s cool and behave just like young teenage boys behave towards girls of the same age – uninterested and repellent. But she doesn’t let herself be intimidated, giggles and shrieks when someone kicks the ball away from her feet and stays in the game. I encourage her to keep up and order the boys to let her play.

The second girl, who belongs to the group, is sitting on the covered bench at the edge of the square, her feet dangling above the ground, her scarf tied over her eyes to protect herself from the sunlight. I sit down next to her and ask if she is tired. She doesn’t like playing football so much, she replies. I ask if she would perhaps rather play badminton. She has forgotten what badminton is, but she says yes to my question when I explain how the game goes.

The next day, it takes the same persuasiveness as the day before to get the young people outside to emaciate the rare winter sunrays in Loznica. Today I also have four rackets and a badminton with me, on which we play a pair of rounds – mainly against the wind, which is not on our side today.

During the daily workshop we made kites together the evening before from plastic bags, string and sticks, which are now being tried out. You notice immediately that some of them are absolute professionals in kite flying – within a few minutes the kites are several dozen meters high in the air. In Afghanistan, the country of origin of many of them, kite flying is a popular leisure activity that also includes tournaments. One of the boys tells me about his kite tournaments, pushes the spool into my hand on which the black kite is hanging, high in the air. “Go wherever you want to go”, says the boy, looking at the dragon, with a shy, longing smile. After two hours we pack everything up and go back into the house, where soon everyone will either hide behind their mobile phone or gather in front of the TV in the living room and watch music videos.

I am thinking about what we could do today during the 5 o’clock workshop. The aim of the workshop is to spend time together, without mobile phones. Usually this moment of the day is also an exercise in patience and motivation. However, as soon as everyone (or almost everyone) has been convinced to participate, the play, handicrafts or painting takes its momentum. It is loud, lively and fun. This is the time of day when I get to know the boys and girls with all their character traits. Some of them are completely absorbed in their own creative work, others prefer to work in twos or threes, one goes from group to group to give a hand, one usually just watches the action. Everything is allowed, as long as nobody is disturbed and participates in the moment, in an individual way. Like a balloon, which suddenly deflates, the group dissolves as soon as a few have finished their work, are tired of it or start fighting and running away because of a broken rule. Then everyone leaves the room, the two or three usual ones stay behind and finish their stuff or help me tidy up. One might think that the workshop is not appreciated by anyone, it is even perceived as a tedious task, similar to household duties. But when it’s their turn, I can find an expression of enthusiasm, of inner peace and presence or curiosity to try something new in most faces.

My uncertainty about the benefits and meaning of my presence faded into the background at the latest on the day when I counted one morning in the house to see if everyone was there and I kept coming up with only 10 instead of 11 children. “He’s back in the game,” I was told. He left half an hour before I arrived. He had to hurry to get to Subotica in time, where a smuggler was waiting to take him to Hungary. From there his brother was to come and get him, to take him to Germany. He is still waiting at the Hungarian border to cross over to his family. His sudden, for me unexpected disappearance was shocking at first. That is the reality in which these children live. It doesn’t matter whether you more or less make a windmill or play football or not. It’s all about getting to relatives as quickly as possible and building a new life in Germany, France, Italy or Belgium in the hope of finding a new home.

A spirit of optimism is in the house. Suddenly everyone is talking about “going on game”, continuing their journey, even though it is the middle of winter, far too cold to stay outside for days and nights. Two days later, three others pack their bags. I still try to convince them to wait until spring to leave and to go to school in Loznica, which is scheduled to start in mid-February. But her uncle in Afghanistan has decided that now is the time to leave. I notice that they themselves do not really know where their journey is going. Only the smugglers know that. Or maybe they don’t want to tell me? It’s hard to find out, because the language barrier between English and Pashtun is also too great. Despite the lack of words, I can see the emotional chaos in them, the mixture of joy at perhaps getting a little closer to their destination, excitement about what is to come, at the same time sadness at leaving the people in the house behind and fear and uncertainty about how they will survive the next few days in the cold and the danger of being caught. It becomes clear to me that these three children will be gone within the next few minutes. Out of desperation and a feeling of helplessness, I slip my woollen scarf over my most motivated German student to keep him warm during the trip. He thanks me and hugs me: “Thank you, my sweet teacher”. A few more photos as a reminder and then we wave to the boys, who close the garden gate behind them. They all retire to their rooms, the office, the living room. For a moment it is very quiet in the house.

In order to distract myself and the children from what has just happened, I suggest that we practise some German, whereupon two boys take out their learning material and we start translating sentences and words and practising pronunciation. With seven instead of eleven children in the house the mood is different, calmer, but a certain emptiness also spreads.

In the evening we receive a video of the boys sitting under a bridge in Belgrade. They grin into the shaky camera, all of them muffled up in their jackets, sitting around a small fire. That’s where they will spend the night and I wonder how it comes about that I am just watching. The next evening one of the three boys comes back. Totally exhausted and with a headache, he eats something for a short while and then goes to sleep for a day and a half.

There is not much talk about their individual fates and how they ended up in the House of Rescue. At least not in English. Every now and then, however, one or two of them tell me a little bit about their own lives or about their escape. Most of the boys laugh and talk about their brutal, life-threatening experiences as if it had been a ticklish adventure trip, in which they have always made progress with luck, risk, agility, tricks and skill. Just a game. Sometimes you are alone, sometimes in a team. There is a goal, hurdles, rules, strategies, losers and winners. What there is not, however, are extra lives.

It strikes me that the embedding of experiences as well as feelings of homesickness and sadness in humour and wit is common among men and boys. There are also moments when thoughts are expressed more directly. One of the boys told me before he left that his heart actually wanted to stay here because he felt that he could be well here. But since he is travelling with his uncle, who is two years older, he cannot decide where he wants to be, so he has to follow him, either to Belgium or to Italy, where his relatives live. But he doesn’t really want to go out in the cold anymore, he doesn’t want to walk through the forest and in the mountains for nights on end without having enough water and provisions. He also doesn’t want to be beaten by the police and have himself squeezed into boots. But if the family in Afghanistan decides that way, he and his uncle will have to move on. So now the two of them are sitting under the bridge in Belgrade, waiting for the smuggler to take them to Romania.

Not everyone can talk about their situation so easily. In the case of the girls, for example, I find it difficult to obtain the information they need because I realise that it is unpleasant for them to put into words the horrors they have recently experienced. I do not want to squeeze them and I do not want to be rude to them. However, they will be forced to explain every detail of their story, at the latest when they are interviewed by the UNHCR, so that they can live with their mother in Lyon as soon as possible. When I phone the mother to explain the process of family reunification to her in French, I hear her crying and sobbing through the phone. The girls can hear them too, they are now sitting silently on the sofa, waiting for this moment to pass.

Despite the insight into the harsh fates of these people that I have received, I hope that, at least in the short term, for a few moments, I have been able to awaken positive feelings, distraction and self-confidence in them. I will remember singing “Tujhe Dekha” in Hindi karaoke with a teenager from Syria, holding a paper flower as a microphone. I will remember those evenings when we pushed the dining table and sofa aside and everyone danced and clapped along to Afghan and Arabic music. Nor will I forget the hours when I tried to explain the difference in pronunciation between an English and a German A. Finally, I will remember the bravery, uniqueness and smiles of each of these young people.