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+--- Thread: Return Flight: Why A Young Iraqi Left Germany After Only 100 Days (/thread-2364.html)
Return Flight: Why A Young Iraqi Left Germany After Only 100 Days - C C - May 8, 2016
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/why-an-iraqi-refugee-wants-to-leave-germany-a-1079992.html
EXCERPT: A young man from northern Iraq crossed the Mediterranean Sea in the hope of a better life in Germany. Frustrated by his experiences in the refugee camps, he flew back to his native country after only three months. [...] The Germany he experienced in his 100 days, says Mohammed, had an average temperature of just above zero degrees Celsius (32°F), with frequently drizzly weather and no leaves on the trees. All in all, he thought it was an attractive country. The Germans he encountered in the streets smiled, he says. He saw blonde hair for the first time, and concluded that German women are very athletic. He never heard the abbreviation AfD -- three letters that stand for Alternative for Germany, an anti-immigration political party.
He didn't have a single personal conversation with a German during those 100 days. When he did speak with Germans, they were police officers, volunteers or doctors, and the conversations revolved around his residency status, his spending money or the bullet wound in his stomach. An ambulance driver wanted to have a conversation with him once, but there was no interpreter nearby, so the two men merely smiled at each other. [...] His dream of a better life failed because he did not obtain the necessary information before embarking on his journey, even though it would have been easy to do so in Kurdistan, where people have access to the Internet. His dream of recovering, and of finding work and an apartment in Germany failed because he did not learn to speak German, and because he gave up after 100 days. He returned because he was homesick....