Actually we didn’t mean to come to the Netherlands. Especially the first year and a half were really difficult. After a lot of practical problems we had to handle the grief that we felt because of the death of Kwame’s father, who died in Togo. Suddenly we were sitting here in a small room, in a foreign country, without any family that could help us with our problems every now and then. Most of the time it’s cold and wet in the Netherlands. Kwame had problems at school because he suffered from nightmares and homesickness.

Luckily it’s going better now. Kwame speaks Dutch well. He likes going to school and has nice friends who accept him as he is. Unfortunately everyone does not behave like that. The Netherlands was known as a nice country but I have grown bitter about this.