Hassibullah
Azzizi biscuits for sale soon
Hassibullah knew little about sweet buttered biscuits and Flemish pastry recipes when he left his home village at 23, two years and a half ago. Actually, he didn’t really know anything about Europe, even less where to pin Scherpenheuvel-Zichem on a map. However, that is where he would spend a year of his life in a refugee centre in Belgium. All he was certain of was that he was fleeing his native Maidan Wardak province in Afghanistan, running for his life from the Taliban with a little bit of family savings, an unclear destination, and a few words of English.
“Greece and Turkey that was a hundred percent danger. For two hours, the engine was down. On that boat, I told myself: “maybe this is it, maybe I’m going to die right here”. For two hours, we tried to start the engine, again and again, and then, finally, the engine started and we arrived in Greece. From then on, it was better.”
This was in November 2015. The borders of the European Union were still open and UN convoys were still helping refugees along the Western Balkans route with food, covers and transport. From Macedonia, they arrived in Germany but Hassibullah and a travel companion wanted to see the Eiffel Tower. A few insta selfies later in front of the Parisian landmark and they were flipping a coin to decide of their fate:
“The person my friend knew in Paris never answered our calls. I told my friends let’s go to Belgium, but he kept insisting to stay. We decided to draw it at heads or tails. Tails won and we were going to Belgium.”
At that point, Hassibullah still didn’t have a clear notion of what to expect: this was new territory for him, a new culture, new borders — or absence of borders, back then.
42 days after his departure from Afghanistan Hassibullah arrived at Parc Maximilien, in the middle of Brussels’ North Station neighbourhood, surrounded by menacing towers, large banks, and electric companies’ neon signs twirling under a grey north European sky. At the closest police station they applied for asylum, without having eaten and having barely slept. But while his friend was complaining, Hassibullah kept thinking how he had just felt in his heart that Belgium was the place to come.
It was quicker for Iraqis and Syrians, but finally Hassibullah got the refugee status, after a long year in Flanders, in the Scherpenheuvel-Zichem Caritas refugee center. “This was a very difficult year for me.” The uncertainty, seeing friends’ asylum requests rejected, living on a day to day basis and doing… nothing, except teaching himself Dutch from a book. Finally, the decision from the authorities came and the relief.
Shortly after, he found a job: learning the skills from scratch, he became a full-fledged pâtissier under the guidance of a biscuit shop owner in nearby Diest, and has been working there ever since.
Serge Stuckens, 40, was impressed by the motivation of this Afghani who barely spoke Dutch but was able to understand the basics of the recipes he was handed. Hassibullah started his new job while improving his Dutch, attending evening classes.
For Serge, giving a chance to Hassibullah bears a special meaning:
“Clearly Hassibullah gives me the impression to be much more empowered and self-confident and he has become an example for the residents of the centre”.
So much so that when being asked whether he would want to run a shop of his own, Hassibullah assertively replies:
“Of course, I like to learn, get better at what I do. And I would love to run my own shop, the Azzizi biscuiterie.”
Although he has a job in hand, has made great progress in Dutch, housing is still an issue, people just won’t trust his stability and won’t rent to him. Nnevertheless, he walks out of work with a smile on his face with the sun setting on his new home in Flanders. His head filled with a new vocation and the hope of building a life in Belgium, Europe, a place he knows much better by now, but which still holds many challenges. A job was the place to start, now a stable home is the next step in his still ongoing integration journey.
One flew into a new home is a blog page promoted by the S&D Group in the European Parliament. In the lead up to UN World Refugee Day it will tell the stories of people who have arrived in Europe as refugees and made new lives here. It aims to tell the stories of every day integration — of people who have been given a chance for a new life in Europe and how they are contributing to their new adopted homes. The S&D Group is fighting for more funds to help the integration of refugees into their new host societies and has been at the forefront of the push for reform of the EU asylum system. The Group wants to see a fairer sharing of responsibilities between all EU member states and wants to push back against the demonisation of refugees and asylum seekers that has become common from right wing media and politicians in many EU countries.
