This was my first time on a bus in Italy so I had no idea how to pay for a ticket. I had money, so buying it wasn’t an issue, it was just the how. The Italian people seemed to have tickets already – they were pushing them into a slot in a machine by the door. The machine sucked the ticket in, then spat it back out.
The other Afghans just walked through and stood at the back. The driver didn’t seem to be checking, so I did the same.
Ten minutes later, I was getting off the bus by a vast park. The scene was incredible.
The park was surrounded by beautiful, historic buildings that made me gasp in awe, but everywhere else were bodies. There were people lying on cardboard cartons, on the footpath, on the side of the road, by the carved marble monuments, in the park grounds, under the trees – it was a shanty town in the middle of Rome.
I had that sense again that every face in the world was there. I recognized Ethiopians, Eritreans, Sudanese, Congolese, Somalis, Iraqis and Afghans. There were probably many other nationalities I didn’t recognize. But the overwhelming majority were Afghans or Iraqis.
I obviously looked a bit lost. ‘What’s the matter, boy?’ a narrow faced man asked me in Pashtu.
It was such a relief to be able to understand what someone was saying to me, but I didn’t feel I could reveal all to a total stranger. ‘I just arrived, kaka.’
‘Be careful, boy. This place is dangerous and there are some bad men here. Stay away from the police. They come at night.’
‘Oh.’ I really didn’t want to meet the police.
He pointed to a small side street. ‘There is an Afghan internet café there, where you can call home. There are many food places where you can eat. To sleep, come back here.’
‘Thank you, kaka.’
‘Where you going, boy?’
‘Going to my brother.’
‘Good. Keep moving. They don’t like us here in Rome. You keep going, and don’t stop until you make it.’
As I followed his directions, I was furious with myself. Why had I left that nice, safe home? What had I been thinking? Poor Alexandria must be in big trouble. I wished I could go back.
I found the nearby café. I could see the shop was more than an internet café: there were little booths with pay phones in them, and the man behind the counter seemed to be arranging transportation, and offering train tickets too. He was obviously Afghan. He looked surprised to see a clean and well-dressed young Afghan walk in.
We started chatting.
‘Do you live here?’
‘No, I just arrived in Rome. I am hungry and I have no place to stay. What should I do?’
‘Do you know anybody in Rome?’
I hesitated, then went for it. ‘Yes, my brother’s friend is here. I don’t have his contact details, but his name is Hodja and he is from Nangarhar.’
I couldn’t believe my ears at his next words.
‘I know Hodja. If it’s the same guy, then he’s a good friend of mine.’
He told me his name was Marouf. He gestured to the phones. ‘Do you want to call your family?’
I shook my head. I still didn’t have any contact details for mine, but I didn’t want to tell him this. ‘I’ll do it later.’
He was busy with customers, so suggested I go and eat somewhere. He promised that in the meantime, he’d try to contact Hodja for me.
I went to a Turkish café. I couldn’t read the menu above the counter so I signed to the guy to make me something nice. He returned with a can of Coke and a lovely hot sandwich with egg, chicken, chips and cheese all mixed together. It was delicious.
When I went back to the internet café, my new friend was smiling. He’d already spoken to Hodja but got him back on the phone so I could talk to him and ensure it was indeed the right man.
‘Salaam. Are you Hodja?’
‘Yes. Are you Gulwali? Are you the son of the doctor?’
As soon as I heard this I was so happy. I knew it was the right guy.
We chatted some more. He assured me that Hazrat was well but that he’d tell me everything he knew when we met face to face. He had already asked Marouf to give me a bed for the night, and would see me tomorrow.
I thanked him profusely.
By now it was very late. Marouf told me to go back to the park and come back when the shop was closing, around midnight.
As I walked around the park in the cold, late October air, I looked about me at the human misery. I was relieved to not be sleeping there, but worried about staying with a stranger.
When I got back to the shop it was locked and in the darkness. I banged on the door.
Marouf opened it. ‘Shush.’
I felt scared – the situation didn’t feel at all comfortable. I’d only met this man two hours ago.
I had assumed he had a flat above the shop or some rooms at the rear. Instead, he pointed to a small foam mattress behind the counter.
‘We need to sleep here tonight.’
I felt like running. Why would this man help out a young boy? Suspicions bloomed in my mind.
‘Apologies, Gulwali. My house is far from here. Tomorrow is Eid. We’ll go to the mosque together for Eid prayer, and Hodja will meet us there.’
I was only slightly reassured. It still felt odd to me that he was letting me sleep there, and not with the hundreds of other desperate migrants in the cold park.
I knew some men took boys like myself as bachas – I’d already been warned about this. Bachas, traditionally, are Afghan dancing boys, although they offer a far wider range of entertainments for their masters, very little of which is consenting.
I told myself if he was Hodja’s friend, maybe this was really just a stroke of luck.
I pulled a sweater from my bag for a pillow and tried to sleep, which wasn’t easy, given how worried I was. Trying to calm myself, I realized that I had known Eid was soon but had had no idea it was tomorrow. I tried to feel happy about that at least.
It was still dark when we woke up. We went to a nearby supermarket which my host said was owned by a friend of his. There we showered and had breakfast. My host had a bag containing his new Eid clothes: a lovely, embroidered, proper Afghan shalwar kameez. This made me even sadder. It was my first Eid away from my family: Eid al-Fitr – the Islamic holiday commemorating Abraham’s faith and his willingness to sacrifice his son for God.
That thought came with a jolt of realization that I had been on the road for a whole year. That meant I was thirteen years old now. I had completely forgotten about my birthday – I had unwittingly marked my passage into teenhood by jumping from the children’s home window in Italy barely twenty-four hours before.
I didn’t really care about my birthday – it was, after all, just another date – but it did make me feel more lonely and isolated. ‘Toughen up,’ I told myself. ‘You are a man now.’
Marouf took me to Rome’s central mosque. It was magical – the largest mosque I had seen outside Istanbul. It was raining, but that didn’t dim the Eid atmosphere: children in new clothes ran around outside, and there were food stalls selling all manner of deliciously scented kebabs, sweets and rice.
Inside the mosque I was thrilled to see the diversity of Muslims there – all colours, races and ages. I felt a strong sense of unity and brotherhood, something which eased the pain of not being with my family.
After prayers, we walked outside again, through some trees and flowerbeds. Marouf walked over to a bench and introduced me to a bearded man.
I was taken aback – Hodja reminded me so much of Uncle Lala.
He embraced me. ‘Welcome, Gulwali. Your brother told me so much about you, young man.’ He peered at me. ‘But you don’t look like the little kid your brother said.’
To me, being in Rome, being at the mosque, the hug, that fact that he knew my brother – the whole thing felt like an Eid miracle.<
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‘Let’s eat, and then we’ll talk.’
After we’d had our fill from the amazing food stalls, which offered an array of edibles that matched the nationalities of those inside – African, Arabic, Asian – we sat back down to talk.
Finally I heard the news I had been so desperate to hear.
Hodja told me that he had been with Hazrat a few months earlier. They had been travelling together from Turkey, to Calais in France. He had been looking out for Hazrat. ‘He was always concerned about you. He never stopped talking about you or worrying about what had happened to you. He asked every agent or smuggler if they had seen you or to look out for you. He had a passport sized photo of you which he showed to everyone he met. He was determined to find you.’ My heart sang to hear this. He went on to explain that after a few weeks in Calais, Hazrat had managed to get on a truck to England. ‘He was so brave. It’s hell in Calais. I only stayed as long as I did because he kept urging me not to give up. After he succeeded, I kept on failing. It’s a terrible place. In the end, I couldn’t take it any more so I gave up and came back to Italy.’
‘So Hazrat is definitely in England?’ I asked.
‘Yes. Some of the guys shared a mobile phone, in Calais. He called to tell us he had safely arrived, but since then I’ve had no way of contacting him.’
I had mixed feelings on hearing all this. On the one hand I was very glad Hazrat was safe in Britain; on the other, I felt depressed that I was still en route, facing all this hardship and these challenges alone. I was really happy to know Hazrat had been as worried about me as I had him, if not even more so, but I wondered how, even if I did make it to England, I’d ever find him.
What I was absolutely certain of was that England was where I had to go if I had any hope of seeing my brother again.
For the first time since jumping out of that window, I was glad I had run away from the children’s home. I still felt really guilty about Alexandria, Sabina and the other staff for letting them down, but I hoped if they knew my story they wouldn’t be angry and might even understand why I’d run.
Marouf had to get back to his shop but made Hodja promise to bring me to say goodbye before I left. I thanked him from the bottom of my heart for letting me stay with him the night before. I felt guilty that I’d been so suspicious of his kindness.
After mosque, Hodja took me to his house, which he shared with two other Afghan men. I stayed there for two nights. He had a daytime job doing some kind of manual labour, I don’t know what. He insisted on buying me new clothes: a really warm, bright yellow ski-type jacket and new jeans. He also went with me to the station to help me buy my train ticket to the French border.
He explained that I needed to get a train from Rome to Genoa, then from there to Ventimiglia on the French/Italian border. He paid for my ticket that far, but explained that from the border I’d have to buy new tickets for the French railway in the nearest French city, which was Cannes. And from there, to Paris.
‘In Paris, talk to some other Afghans and make a wise decision,’ he advised. ‘Calais is very dangerous. Please try not to go there alone.’
As he handed me the tickets he gave me 150 euros.
‘No, I can’t take this. You’ve done so much for me already. This is too much.’
He insisted: ‘Gulwali, you will need this in Calais. I have been there. Trust me.’
‘No, I have money. I still have some dollars and two hundred euros. I have lots of money.’
He laughed. ‘It might seem a lot to a child, but the train tickets in France will be more than one hundred euros. And there will be many people trying to part you from your money in Calais. You will need to survive there.’
He went on to advise me what to do when I finally got to Calais.
The most sensible thing, Hodja said, would be to find a good and trustworthy smuggler – well, the most trustworthy I could. I was to give them my cash but make sure they understood that it was all I had and that no more would be forthcoming.
If I could convince them, Hodja finished, they might guarantee to take me more quickly. He said the smuggling operations in Britain and France were highly organized, with networks everywhere. Where the system had gaps was that the smugglers on the ground were often short of cash, and someone waving a fresh 100 euro note in their face might get lucky.
He ended with a word of warning: ‘Handing over your cash is more risky. An untrustworthy agent might run away with it – I know people this happened to. This is why people prefer the usual system, which is guaranteed.’
Guaranteed. That word again. In my experience, nothing on that journey was ever guaranteed.
The train wasn’t for a couple of hours, so we went to say our goodbyes to Marouf at the internet café.
He was delighted to see us. But his next question threw me: ‘Gulwali, can you do something for me? I’d like you to travel with my friend, Shafique.’ He pointed to a teenage boy standing behind him, who looked as confused as I did.
‘What?’
‘Shafique needs to go to France. Travel together, and you will both be safer.’
‘No way. I’m not some kind of agent. Why do you take me for a smuggler?’
Hodja intervened. ‘Gulwali, no one is asking you to smuggle him. It’s a good idea. You shouldn’t be alone, and neither should he.’
I wasn’t happy – I could barely look after myself, let alone someone else. But Shafique looked so worried my heart went out to him. People like Baryalai had looked out for me, so why couldn’t I help someone else, now that I had been asked? I also felt that I owed Hodja and Marouf for their kindness.
So I agreed.
Shafique and I boarded a train to Genoa that night. There were a lot of Afghans on board, many of whom insisted on repeatedly asking the conductor how much longer it was until we got to Genoa. I told them to stop asking him. I was really worried it looked suspicious, and that we would end up getting detained.
On the train Shafique and I got to know each other a bit better. He was sixteen, and from Kabul. His reasons for running away were not dissimilar reasons from my own, arising from when his brother had been killed. He had been in Italy for a month, sleeping in the park. He had attempted to get to France once already, but had been sold the wrong ticket and ended up in Milan.
If you look like an illegal migrant, the Italian train staff normally refuse to sell you a ticket to the border unless you can show ID or a passport. For most people arriving in Rome, it’s the first time they are without an agent. Like my family, most families only pay for the trafficking up to Greece, so the migrants are very vulnerable and have no idea how to even buy a ticket. Shafique told me that selling on tickets to migrants was big business in Rome. He had been tricked into handing over money for what he was told was a discounted ticket to France when in fact it was to Milan. After that, he’d managed to get back to Rome, where he’d slept rough.
The day before, he’d gone to the internet café to buy a ticket from Marouf – dodgy tickets being another of his side lines. Marouf had told him about me and suggested he wait for me so that we could go together.
After my initial displeasure, I was actually quite pleased to have a new friend. Once again, I was grateful for the stroke of fate that had brought me to him.
When we pulled into Genoa station, still in Italy, late at night, Shafique and I ran from the train. The other troublesome Afghans had fallen asleep. There was no time to wake them up.
The station was much bigger than I had expected; we had no idea how to find the connecting train we needed to go on to Ventimiglia and the border. We stared at the flashing words on the departure board but could make no sense of them. I took a deep breath and approached a conductor, who took the time to read my ticket and point to the right platform. He looked at his watch and urged us to hurry.
I smiled, waved and we ran. We couldn’t find the way he’d
described but we could see the platform on the other side of the tracks. There was no time. I then did possibly one of the stupidest things I’ve ever done: I leapt on to the tracks and ran across. ‘Shafique. Come on.’
It was late so there weren’t that many people around, but those who were watched in disbelief. It was idiotic of me, because it was a sure way to attract attention and get arrested.
Shafique followed me, but when we scrambled up the other side to the platform he was furious. ‘What did you do that for?’
The worst thing was that we realized we were on the wrong platform. We ran to the end, then around a corner, where we spotted a train driver walking towards a train. I ran over and showed him my ticket. He smiled and nodded for us to follow him.
In the morning we arrived in Ventimiglia. Heading to the departure board to try and work out how to get the train to Cannes, we were deliberately trying to walk normally and casually, but still an Italian police officer approached Shafique and me. He asked to check our ticket. When he had done so, he shook his finger at us. ‘No France,’ he said in broken English. ‘No France. Go back or go outside.’
As we reluctantly walked outside I looked back and realized how we’d been caught. Less than twenty metres behind us were five Afghan men. They had been following us without us knowing.
‘Why did you walk so close to us?’ I was so angry. ‘You got us caught.’
The policeman was walking behind them, escorting them out. He walked back and stood at the entrance to the platform where the train was leaving for Cannes and France. There was no way we were going to get past him.
The seven of us drifted around the streets until we found a café, where we bought some food. I was still pissed off with the other guys, not least because they now stuck to us like glue. Shafique and I were both kids, but they seemed to be completely useless at this.
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