Language: German Subtitles: English / Portuguese Format: HD, 6:17 min
Excerpts from the play:
When people go to Germany to acquire skills or to study, and do not come back, then the investment was all in vain!
I have a cousin in Lisbon and we talk on Skype regularly. She said most Africans in Europe only do the jobs that white people do not want, since you cannot even see Africans behind the cash register at the grocery store, let alone behind the counter at a bank! She says Africans clear up rubbish from the streets, clean hotels, or take care of the old and the sick…
There are Mozambicans in Germany who feel at home, and have a job and a family. And there are Mozambicans who would prefer to be back in Mozambique, who have no work and are not integrated, who weren’t successful. Those who did not integrate do not speak out much, because they cannot explain to their families why they have failed in Europe. Their families would never understand. Living in Europe is, and remains, a dream for many Africans. It is the dream of “El Dorado” – the hope that everything is better there!
But when you look at us, you only see what we do not have instead of seeing what we do have. That’s why you think you are better, because you have more! But you need me, because I still can develop while your development stagnates. If there was an index to measure happiness, the joy of life, the intensity of life – then I would be the world champion and you the third World. But for this you have not developed any categories yet, there’s no study, no index…
Assado Lichane is 21 years old. He studied German for three years at the Goethe Institute in Maputo. He speaks it well, and ever since he went on a Language Exchange to Frankfurt for 4 weeks, he only wants one thing: to get out of his poor circumstances in Mozambique and return to Germany. He wants to work, eat whole-wheat bread, sleep on a friend’s couch and send money back to his mother so that he can finally help the family. Determined, he goes with a small backpack to the airport. He does not have a ticket or a visa. He tries to find a path onto the tarmac in front of the departure gate, but he cannot find one. Assado cries out to the planes and breaks down in despair in front of the window.
Susanne Jahn sits in her empty classroom at the Universidade de Pedagogia de Moçambique, where she was sent by the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) to teach German to Mozambicans. She considers the "golden illusion" many Africans have about life in the West to be naïve and doomed to failure. She describes the legal way into the "promised white land": through studying, or applying for Erasmus or a master's degree program in Germany. She doubts whether this hard path is worth it.