‘The Poetry Project’: How young refugees in Germany are bridging the cultural gap with their voices
Author: Anna Fleck
Sitting at a family meal one night in 2015, 15-year-old Shahzamir Hataki had no idea that the next day a car would come to take him away. The fare had already been paid, and soon he would set halfway around the world, leaving his home in Mazar e Sharif in northern Afghanistan to head towards Germany. He didn’t want to leave his friends and family, but he didn’t have a choice.
As Shahzamir journeyed towards Greece on a boat filled with women and children, it capsized, with small children and babies drowning all around him. Of the 65, only 20 survived.
My mother said, »Why didn’t you call?
I haven’t eaten in three days out of worry!«
I told her that I arrived safely,
But simply hadn’t had the money to call.
How could I tell her
that for 10 days, I could only drink hot chocolate,
because my body was so full of salt water?
Extract from ‘The Only Son’, Shahzamir Hataki
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