I knew that the family was keeping their hopes up when it came to finding a larger apartment. After all they have been on the road for far too long deprived of a home and they were five people in a studio apartment. Another move was inevitable and necessary for the family´s well being however due to most of the home proprietors barbarous refusal to accept refugees as tenants and the lack of real estate agents advocating for the refugees, a studio apartment was currently as good as it gets. I tried to explain the situation several times to the family and my intention was not to crash their hopes but to make them understand that it would be difficult to find a bigger apartment and that it might take longer than expected. That studio apartment was like winning the lottery.
It was day before christmas and as the company I worked for had a plant shutdown for that week, I met Shamse at 10am and we went to the Wohndrehscheibe which is part of Volkshilfe - an organization that helps refugees and underprivileged persons in finding a home. My hopes were up on this day too but were crushed right away when I found out that the institution was dealing with the same exact problems as I did. The difference was however that certain private people would call them and offer a room or an apartment to rent - without security deposit or commission. Unfortunately the person with whom we had our appointment did not speak Arabic. While we spoke about the issues of the real estate market, Shamse was unable to understand much. The gentleman offered Shamse to attend a little one hour informative talk held by one of the employees who was fluent in Arabic. He would explain the Austrian real estate market and the options that refugees were having when it came to housing.
While Shamse attended the event, I went downstairs and visited a coffee shop. Shamse would call me once done and I would pick her up.
It was around 12:30 when I received her call. I picked her up and for the first time ever, I could sense that she was not doing well. Shamse who is a fighter, a lioness of a mother, one of the rare people who keep their heads up no matter what, seemed defeated for the very first time . When we walked to the subway, she started having cramps. She turned red and I stopped walking. I held her hand, looked at her and asked her to breathe slowly in and out, to take her time. It broke my heart to feel that she was almost falling apart.
After a while, we kept walking and I took her to my apartment and made her coffee. We were both tired. The last month and a half had been filled with uncertainties, stress, running one errand after the other, leaving very little room to breathe.
I had found another warm down blanket at home that I gave her, before we walked to the registration office again. Shamse, who was the lessee, needed her registration form signed by the landlord while her children and her husband only needed her signature. I had collected the landlord´s signature a day prior but one of Shamse´s documents was missing. I told her to wait for me, went on my bike and drove as fast as possible to Shamse´s home in order to make it to the registration office on time. Abdelaziz, her husband, was already waiting for me downstairs, handed me the document and off I was. I really made it on time to the registration office and I was able to get Shamse´s residential registration done that very same day. The couple was thankful beyond words. After all, Christmas was around the corner, the offices would close for a while and we were still waiting to hear back from the Department for Asylum regarding Abdelaziz and the children´s status which would be sent out by mail.
Later on that day, a plumber, organized by the landlord, visited the Rasoul´s to set up the washing machine. I received a phone call that it was unfortunately out of order. What a mess. I had organized a washing machine through donation, friends had picked it up, the landlord had organized the plumber and now it turned out that it didn't even work. On top of this, there is a difference between going to the laundromat when you have laundry for one or laundry for five. The latter is just painful. I called my mother who was kind enough to donate a washing machine. As this item was one that I was not able to transport by myself, Tony and Mo organized a car and picked it up the very same evening. The landlord was kind enough to send the plumber one more time and the Rasoul´s were set.
Tony and I had planned a trip to Germany to visit family and I notified the Rasoul´s that even though we´d be gone from the 26th of December on, they could reach me anytime. I had a few more things on my list that I really wanted to get done for the Rasoul´s prior to departure. As the kids would be on vacation, I thought it would be nice to get them a TV and a DVD player with movies that they could watch together in German with German subtitles. Not only would it improve their German, but it would also be a form of entertainment during the upcoming holidays. A bed for Helz was still missing and I had found one online. I was just waiting to hear back from the guy of the nursing home who was giving it away for free.
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