Go, thoughts

 11 a.m., Latif and I are on our way to the hardware store. Squalls are challenging us from all sides.

I tell him I don't know if one is "better" than the other. After all, I have never lived in Switzerland as an adult and I like to live in Germany. I feel at ease with the country and presumably the country is at ease with me. Latif's impression that there might be fewer foreigners in Switzerland is not true. Within the population as a whole its share of foreigners is higher than in Germany: one out of five inhabitants is an alien.

A few steps later I add that Switzerland is very beautiful to me and seems to be untroubled. I tell him that I do not perceive Germany as peaceful. Latif shares my impression of Germany.

All of a sudden I feel nostalgia. Switzerland is on my mind like images of a postcard: the mountains, the lakes, the meadows and cows, bells around their necks. Colorful pictures of clichés - sweet as chocolate, everlasting cheese.

For a week we had been braving the elements. Cold, storm, and rain. On Holy Thursday there is no more power left. The asylum looks abandoned. At night, the security guard arranges food on the small table in the hallway, as it had not been picked up during the day. The storm does not detain the memory of experiences made. It does not banish people's problems, sorrow, and thoughts. They are almost tangible tonight - like ghosts and soundless performers of Verdi's Prisoners' Chorus.

Go, thoughts, on golden wings;Go, settle upon the slopes and hills,where warm and soft and fragrant arethe breezes of our sweet native land!

"Sono infortunato," Faris sums up his life. Within the asylum "fortune" only seems to exist in its denial. Most residents are at one with him. I ask him whether he'd consider the Asylum as "Casa degli infurtunati - house of the misfortunate". He fringes, negates it and then chooses the name "Casa dei bisognosi - house of those in need."

11:45 a.m., Latif and I walk back to the Asylum. Under the bleak sky, we carry surface and silicon in our hands, a yearning for the ideal world in our hearts.

"How come," Latif asks at last, "people in Germany prefer to do grocery shopping at Kaiser's and not at Netto?"

Ali

Faris | Aymen und eine Aufenthaltsgenehmigung bis 26.4.