"Fishing with Aris" "It was a beautiful day in Athens today." "So me and my friend Aris" "Came to a beach outside of Athens to fish." "But it turns out the sea is a trickster Because she fooled us." "It's not fishing weather." "There's too many waves and noise." "But the interesting part of this trip is not the fishing." "It's Aris' story." "Aris, which city of Afghanistan are you from?" "From Kandahar." "How old were you during the war?" "I was eight years old." "How many children?" "Fifteen brothers and sisters." "All older than me and from a different mother." "Did any of your brothers leave Afghanistan in the past or did you decide to on your own?" "On my own." "On your own, just like that." "How old were you?" "I was nine." "I went to study somewhere else, to go to school..." "In Afghanistan?" "Not in Afghanistan." "I went to Pakistan but it was the same there." "The people there didn't treat us well." "How did they treat you?" "They forced people to study just their own history." "I set out for London or Germany to study." "To grow up and not live like the people do there." "What was your dream?" "What did you want to study?" "My dream..." "I wanted to work with airplanes." "Or be a doctor." "A doctor." "Yes." "And at only ten years you just left." "Did you say goodbye to your parents?" "Did you tell them you're leaving?" "Yes." "What did you take with you?" "Tell me, what was in the bag that you took with you from Afghanistan." "From Kandahar." "Some peanuts, a bottle of water." "I didn't have any proper shoes so I just wore whatever I had." "You wore whatever you found." "Yes." "Didn't you have any other clothes?" "Just what you were wearing?" "Yes." "Where did you go after leaving Kandahar?" "I went to Iran." "To Iran." "How far was Iran from there?" "I got to the borders by transport." "So you paid a ticket." "Yes." "And from the borders?" "I talked to a man on the borders who knew how to cross." "I didn't have any money." "But he felt sorry for me and helped me cross with other people." "Running through the borders with the police chasing us." "Tell me how." "You found a guy, you asked him, he felt sorry for you, you didn't have any money and he helped you get to Iran." "Yes." "With other Afghans or alone?" "With other Afghans." "Through some very dangerous parts of the mountains." "Bullets flying, the police after us, Taliban on the other side..." "So you crossed on foot?" "Yes." "How long did it take you to get to Iran from Kandahar?" "We walked on the mountains for two nights just to get to the borders to cross them." "You crossed the borders." "Yes." "Were you scared?" "I had made my descision." "Being scared wouldn't stop me." "As a child of ten, well done." "You get to Iran." "You cross the borders." "Where do you go after that?" "After that I went to a city, I don't remember its name." "I went to the mountains." "We didn't go down to the city at all." "So you went to a village." "Yes." "How long did you stay there?" "We didn't stay in the village, we stayed in the mountains." "And we ate whatever we could find." "There was six of us." "We found some more." "And what did you eat on the way?" "The peanuts I had with me and whatever we could find that was edible." "Tell me." "What did you find to eat?" "Grass." "Dates." "The things that grow there." "Dates, peanuts, oranges, lemons." "Did you hide during the day?" "Yes." "We walked at night and during the day we got into holes or wherever we could find." "To hide." "And where did you get after that, after the mountains?" "After that we got to a city a bit before Tehran." "And a smuggler found me there." "Before that I worked in a city for two months doing construction work." "What did you do there?" "Construction?" "Yes." "You got some money there." "I got some money to buy clothes, pants, shoes, stuff like that." "Did the people there treat you well?" "You were just a child." "A child of ten." "No, they didn't treat me well." "How did they treat you?" "They cursed at me, asking me why I left my country and came to theirs." "And they beat me." "But I couldn't do anything." "I had to accept it." "They beat you?" "Yes." "You worked there and they beat you?" "Yes." "I took it all." "You leave there after two months." "Where do you go?" "I set off with some others and we head for the mountains." "We had spoken with a smuggler and he takes us to a mountain." "And at night he says "I'll be back in one or two hours"." "And he left us there for twenty-five days, we lived there below a road." "You were in the mountains in the middle of nowhere for twenty-five days?" "Yes." "What did you do for twenty-five days?" "How old were the others with you?" "One was twenty-five, the others were around fifteen, seventeen." "Young boys." "Were they all from Afghanistan?" "No, from various places." "We found one on the road, he was lost." "One was from Bangladesh." "The boy from Bangladesh was lost and you took him with you?" "Yes." "We stayed there." "No water or anything." "We just sat there." "Twenty-five days without water in the mountains!" "We had a small bottle and we drank from the cap." "Half a cap each." "And it was in the middle of nowhere." "It doesn't even rain." "There's only sand." "And while your thirsty there's only wind." "And we didn't have any food." "And whenever someone stopped a truck on the main road below we got up and begged for some water." "If they had any they gave us a little." "How did you leave from that place?" "From there we decided to walk the mountains and see where we ended up." "Tell me." "We started walking on the mountains and we walked for eighteen days." "Eighteen days!" "More than that, I don't remember exactly how long." "In the mountains!" "Did you pass any villages or was it just wilderness?" "We passed villages but it was just trees." "Apples, nuts, things like that." "That's what we found and ate." "Did the people give you any food?" "Did they offer you anything?" "No, no." "We were hiding." "They would shoot us if they saw us." "They would shoot you..." "After that we got to a village where Kurds lived." "Kurds?" "Yes." "And we had found two-three more." "They caught one of them and they nailed his feet to the ground and asked for money." "From you?" "Yes." "How old was that boy?" "He was twenty-three." "How did you get out of that situation?" "We left him and we don't know..." "You left him there?" "You don't know what happened to him?" "No, we don't know." "Nothing." "That boy was lost." "What was his name?" "Arfan." "What happened then?" "Where did you go?" "Afterwards, after a long time on the mountains, with our feet swollen from the snow..." "There was snow too, right?" "Yes." "My feet were this big." "I couldn't even wear shoes." "I was in a terrible condition." "And again in the city we went to... someone told us "go there to get help, it's a health center"." "You got to a city after the mountains?" "Yes." "Which city?" "Tehran." "Tehran..." "When you got to Tehran you were all hungry, wretched, tired." "Yes." "What did your group face there?" "The six of you... there was five left in your group, right?" "Yes." "Tell me their names if you can remember them." "Arfan." "One was called Uras..." "Uranos." "His name was Uras but the correct name is Uranos." "Uras... and Omar." "And Neim." "How long did you stay in Tehran?" "I worked there for three months." "I couldn't leave, my feet were in a very bad shape." "And the whole situation..." "Did you go to a hospital?" "Did they treat you?" "No, I couldn't go because if I did the police would beat us even more." "What about your feet?" "They got better on their own." "On their own..." "Just a small child..." "Were you making any money from your work?" "Not really." "Not really, to survive, eat and stuff like that." "I saved it to give to pay the smugglers." "How did you leave Tehran?" "I took a bus from Tehran in secret, they put me with the suitcases." "Inside a suitcase?" "Next to them." "In the luggage compartment of the bus." "You got into Turkey." "Was it easy?" "No, it wasn't easy." "How did you get in?" "Tell me." "I talked with someone who lived there." "He was from Afghanistan and lived there." "He worked." "He was raised there." "He was raised in Turkey." "Yes." "And he took us to some mountains." "And said "you will cross this"." "And we didn't know where to go and we started walking on the mountains." "Mountains again." "Yes." "How long were you on the Turkish mountains?" "For quite some time." "Six months." "Six months." "How did you survive in those six months?" "We were barely living, that's how bad it was." "Tell me." "I want details." "Details..." "We basically lived in the snow." "We got into the snow to get warm." "You got into the snow to sleep." "Yes." "Six months in the mountains until summer." "Yes." "Like wild animals." "In the middle of nowhere!" "Yes." "And we couldn't..." "One of us lost two fingers in the snow." "He lost two fingers in the snow..." "It was very cold." "In the mountains..." "During this trip to Turkey, wasn't there anyone... because you were just a small child," "Ôï support you." "To let you into their house to sleep." "There was one that brought us food." "A little bread and that was because he had interest and he would say:" ""If you want to stay here you will watch after my trees so the dogs and wolves don't get in to eat them"." "How many people were in your group in the end?" "In the end in the mountains of Turkey there was around fifty-sixty of us." "Fifty-sixty people." "And you marched, fifty-sixty of you, only in the night on the mountains." "And there were smugglers there and they caught us and beat everyone to give them whatever we had." "The police?" "The police too." "But before we got to Istanbul the police caught us and shot at us." "A bullet passed right next to my ear and hit a boy behind me." "Was the boy killed?" "Yes, he was killed." "They were two cousins." "One was in the front with me the other was behind us." "And the boy was killed." "Yes, we were climbing up a mountain." "His name?" "His name was Zarhim." "How old was that boy?" "He was my age." "When I left I had made my descisions." "I would either be killed..." "I didn't want to be killed by the Americans in my country or be tortured by the Taliban." "The Taliban had tortured us enough." "And my family was involved with the Taliban." "Instead of being killed by my brothers or the Taliban it would be better to leave and go somewhere else to study." "To have my own life, to have studied." "To live better." "I had made my descision." "I wasn't afraid to die somewhere or to have a hard time." "Because I had heard all that from others." "I had made my descision." "I didn't mind dying." "No one would know me." "They would bury me in the mountains." "A suddeny rain interruped my conversation with Aris." "We left the rods below to fish on their own." "And we came to sit here where it's nice and quiet to continute our coversation." "Aris, you get to Istanbul." "Yes." "Did you work there?" "I was looking for work." "There were three of us and we were arrested by the police." "And they took us to prison." "Because all three of us were minors they didn't allow us go out on our own." "And they locked us in the fifth basement for six months." "Was it dangerous in the prison?" "We didn't go out." "I didn't leave the cell for five months." "You spent five months in the cell?" "Yes." "There were ten people in the cell." "The cell was as big as this table and..." "How were the conditions?" "How did the ten of you survive in there?" "We barely survived." "There was nothing we could do to leave that place anyway." "Did the police officers treat you well?" "Some did, some didn't." "Did you meet any police officer that treated you well?" "One officer brought me his son's clothes." "He had a son." "He said "He's your age." "He looks like you"." "And he brought me his clothes." "A jacket." "I didn't have any." "It was winter again and I didn't have a jacket or anything." "Do you remember his name?" "No." "They didn't tell us their names." "And after five months..." "How did you leave that place?" "The parents of the others boys asked them to go back." "I hadn't notified anyone." "While I was in prison." "I hadn't called anyone either." "So they kept me there." "And then they decided and said "we'll leave him here to leave the country or work here and do whatever he wants"." "And then I started working here and there." "Tell me, what work did you do?" "I worked construction." "Ironwork." "How old were you while doing construction and ironwork?" "I was twelve." "Where did you live?" "With another man but..." "He told us that "you will stay here and pay me, I will cook for you and I will take half the money you make"." "How long did you stay in Istanbul?" "I stayed for four months to raise some money." "Did you?" "Very little." "One hundred liras to get an inflatable boat." "We went to Smyrna from Istanbul by bus." "How many people?" "There was four of us." "Four people." "Were they your friends?" "No, I met them in Turkey." "And you went to a village." "Yes." "And what did you do?" "How did you get to the island?" "We got on a mountain near the beach but we had to stay there for five days because of the bad weather." "Five days on a mountain again?" "Yes." "Where did you stay in the mountains?" "Under the trees." "We didn't have any things with us." "We thought we would get into the sea." "We were afraid we would be too heavy." "Was it the first time you saw the sea?" "Yes." "And you got to the island with the boat?" "We carried it with us in a bag from Smyrna." "Then we got to a village and there someone told us:" ""Go that way and go as deep as you can or the police will catch you"." "But because of the weather they said "stay"." "It was raining too, the weather was very bad." "And the sea was very rough." "There were too many waves." "So we stayed there for five days." "We stayed for five days and we didn't have any food with us." "What did you eat?" "Whatever we found on the trees." "Whatever was rotten there." "And then we all got sick." "We found some bean soup that was spoiled." "And we ate it." "We found it in an old house." "And we all got sick there." "You all got sick." "Yes." "I was already sick in the prison." "My feet were swollen again and I couldn't walk properly." "And from there we set off for Mytilini." "And we got near." "But in the sea our inflatable boat started losing its air." "And you didn't have a boat." "We did until we got there." "We were five hundred meters away when it completely deflated." "And then?" "We couldn't swim and we were only wearing our jackets and the sea was taking us in and out." "In the sea." "Yes." "Let me get this straight." "The boat started losing air while you were in the water?" "Yes." "And then you swam." "Yes." "Five hundred meters in." "Without knowing how to swim." "Yes." "I couldn't swim." "While you were in the water, just a small child, with a sinking boat..." "What were you thinking?" "I want to know what went through your mind." "I didn't have any thought." "At that moment I told myself:" ""I'm already done." "What's the point of thinking about it?" "If I get out, I get out." "If I don't, I don't"." "I didn't think of anything in particular." "But you all got out." "Yes, after a long time." "Two or three hours." "In the sea." "Yes." "Two-three hours in the sea without knowing how to swim." "Yes." "The sea took us out on its own and our feet touched the ground we walked out." "Had you arrived in Greece?" "Yes, in a village in Mytilini." "In Mytilini." "I don't know, it was in the mountains." "We stayed there for one night so we wouldn't be seen." "We were afraid of the police." "We got on the mountains and we got to a village with shops and things like that." "And then the police officers brought us to the camp." "Me and another boy were taken directly to the hospital." "Did they treat you well?" "I don't think so, it was a room for ten people and they put twenty-five or thirty people in." "Did the locals that saw you in the street treat you well?" "Yes, yes." "Well." "A lady brought us biscuits." "She left with her car and brought us biscuits and cheese pie." "After that I had a 42°C fever and my feet were very swollen." "And I stayed in the hospital in Mytilini for two months." "They gave us a paper to get to Athens without a ticket or anything." "But then someone there bought us the tickets." "He helped raise money in the neighbourhood to buy the tickets." "How much time passed from the moment you left Kandahar until you got to Mytilini?" "How much time was it?" "Two years." "A bit more than nineteen months." "What did life teach you?" "Life is very hard." "And there are good people and bad people." "But my feelings didn't change." "I'm the same." "All this taught me to be more mature in my life." "To show that I'm not who I was." "To be better." "All this didn't crush my spirit." "We laughed and cried, all together." "And it was better that way." "You can't ever forget this." "Do you remember the kindest person you met during your journey?" "Tell me of a very kind person you met." "You told me about the Turkish police officer that brought you clothes." "You told me about people on the road that brought you some food." "Tell me one..." "One was the police officer." "He treated me like his son." "Very well." "He told me "I would take you home with me if I could"." "I hope I didn't tire you and that I didn't bring back old memories." "You are a young boy..." "I want you to tell me of your dream from now on." "What is your dream?" "What do you want?" "My dream..." "I want to study something." "But I'm trying to study here in Greece and I went to various night schools." "And they all say that I need papers from my country." "But I can't contact anyone to send or get the paper for me." "I didn't go." "I only went to school for about six months." "So they don't take me." "I would like to study something." "To go to school like all the kids my age." "Do you want to leave Greece?" "Go somewhere else?" "I'm used to it now." "My mentality has changed completely now." "Do you love this country you live in?" "Yes, I love it." "You love it, don't you?" "Yes." "Are Greeks good or bad?" "Look, there's good people and bad people everywhere." "We're not all the same." "That's how I feel." "I feel the same thing equally for everyone." "I can't judge someone for being bad." "It's their right to be bad." "Or someone that's good." "It's their right to be good." "What I find really impressive..." "Let me tell you something." "I find it really impressive that all this time that we've been talking I haven't seen any bitterness from you." "You haven't said anything bad about anyone." "I can't do it." "I can't hold any hard feelings." "No matter how bad." "If you curse at me or slap me I won't hold any hard feelings." "I just get disappointed." "I don't say anything about it." "No matter how bad someone is." "Aris, thank you very much." "Because I feel that I've become a better person through you." "Thank you." "Let us go check the rods to see if we caught anything."