Autumn 2015 I was in Switzerland. No passport. No driver's license. No credit cards. No work permit. No home. When one applies for political asylum upon entry, one forfeits all those items and much more.
Technically, one is supposed to receive housing in a refugee camp. After being released from my two weeks in Zurich airport's international zone, I went to the refugee housing office in Zurich. I was met with blank stares. Persona non grata. Mr. Obama had got his hooks in.
More than a month later, I volunteered at a soup kitchen in Winterthur, near where I was eventually housed at an abandoned, delipadated textile factory with convicted rapists, thugs, and the usual suspects whose asylum applications had been refused and would soon be deported to another country. My application was still pending, and would have been to this day had I just been willing to sit in Switzerland and do nothing for the rest of my life.
The soup kitchen I volunteered at gave me a bicycle to use. I put many kilometres on that bicycle, and visited all sorts of places, e.g. the FIFA headquarters during the scandal. I went to an Apple Store and received a very pointed inquiry about how I would select the next President of the United States of America.
The non-verbal conversation included this.
enquirer 'Who do you like for the nomination for the Republican candidate for the Presidency?'
SMA [standing near the third party products in the Apple Store] 'How about that HP CEO?'
By Antônio Milena/AB - Agência Brasil [1], CC BY 3.0 br
enquirer 'Is that how the Americans choose their next President? You just made the decision?'
SMA 'G_d no! I tell them what they should do and they do whatever the hell they want. Why do you think they are such a mess?
Mark & Sparks
Altstadt, Winterthur, Canton of Zürich, Switzerland
07.10.2015
Schlosstalstrasse 1 8406 Winterthur, Switzerland
25.9.2015
