Day 11 - Registration 3 in 1 - November 24th

Now that the Rasoul´s were staying with Eva and Stephan, a whole new world of possibilities opened up to them. My morning started at 06:20 am. I picked up the parents as well as Diar and Mohamad, the two youngest children who are school-aged, at 7:30 am and we walked together to the nearby authorities.

The "Magistrat" office opened at 08 am and we were the first one´s to enter. Shamse had all the necessary documents on her. I had already printed out the registration forms online, one for each family member, and had Stephan, who owned the apartment, and the Rasoul´s sign them. The lady at the responsible department however told me that children under age 18 would only need their parents signature. She then worked a few minutes and printed out the registration forms for the family. The residence registration is connected to the postal services which means that the ministery for asylum for example would be able to send the Rasoul´s a notification about their status right away. 

With the registration form, we proceeded upstairs to the school department where I handed out Diar and Mohamad´s white cards as well as their freshly printed residence registrations. The department for school assigned both children to a school nearby in the second district. The school principal was called and informed right away. She was expecting us. 

The Rasoul´s and I walked quickly to the school. It was the first time that I was at a principal´s office in ages. The principal made copies of the registration forms, handed us the class schedule for both children and informed us about a few things that the children would need right away such as slippers for school and gym clothes. Diar was able to start the very next day, Mohamad could start on Monday. 

When we left school, Shamse ran to a nearby supermarket and got me chocolate. They were so thankful and excited and so was I. On our way back to Eva and Stephan´s home, Shamse and Abdelaziz were laughing with the children and would joke around. I didn´t understand a word of what they would say but I could tell from the way they were looking at each other and from their body language that they were genuinely happy. My heart was filled with joy. 

At work I had to contact a company called Securitas that was employed by the Wiener Lokalbahnen (a form of transportation). The day the Rasoul family and I met in Vienna, was the day the Rasoul´s were denied access to the Traiskirchen camp. They took a train, one of the Wiener Lokalbahnen trains, from Traiskirchen to Vienna. As they did not understand a word in German nor in English they were fined for not having a valid train ticket - 100 Euro each! The Caritas caregiver of the family told me that she had already sent out a fax to the company who would handle the fines. That fax however did not go through. I scanned the letter of full power I had from Shamse and sent the ticket information including a brief description of the situation to Securitas, asking for a gesture of goodwill. I did not hear back from them for two weeks so I sent out another email asking for an update. This time I promptly received a reply: the request to pay a fine of 100 Euro each was cancelled.

I also called the ministery for asylum. I was hoping to get an update on the status of the father and the three children but they had no news for me. Their paper work was on its way from Graz to Vienna and I should call again in a week or so. I also asked about Shamse´s white card. During my online research, I had found an article that mentioned that white cards needed to be returned to the ministery of asylum once the person had a grey passport, which was the case with Shamse. I added it to my to do-list. 

After work I decided to go to a an arts and craft store. It is Austrian custom to present kids who attend their first day at school upon entering first grade with a school cone - a cardboard cone filled with plenty of lovely candies, chocolate and other goodies. Even though Diar was not entering first grade, I decided to make him a school cone as tomorrow would be his first day at an Austrian school. I gooogled how to make school cones and purchased enough blue cardboard for both children. I also bought yellow and orange crepe paper and, needless to say, plenty of candy but also little school supplies such as nice pens, pencils, erasers, pencil sharpeners etc and a brand new pencil case. 

Back home, I started to build my first school cone ever. The best part was to fill it which also happened to be the easiest part of the procedure. I was a little bit nervous as I really wanted it to look fun and cool at the same time. Tony mentioned that the kids might be embarassed to take the cones to class, after all they were teenagers already. Now that had not crossed my mind. I almost felt offended but decided to give it a try anyways as I was proud of my work. ;) I used a golden coloured pen to write Diar´s name on the cone and drew a few hearts, peace signs and suns on it. It looked pretty good but it turned out bigger than expected. Tony was thrilled too. I wrote Shamse that I would pick them up the next day at 07:30 am to get Diar to school.