Nadia is 25 years old and lives in the Netherlands. In 2017 she went to the Greek Island of Lesbos to do voluntary work with refugees. There she met her now boyfriend Wahid. She talks about their story and how she deals with homesickness.

Nadia is now living in the Netherlands again after living together with Wahid in Athens. Wahid fled from Afghanistan to Iran first. When it wasn’t safe for him and his family there, they fled to Lesbos. He is now living in the home he and Nadia initially moved into together in the Greek capital. Bach home Nadia is waiting for Wahid’s passport to be arranged and they eventually want to move to Germany together. When she was living in Athens, she did not really miss home, but Wahid did.

Will she not miss the same things again when she will move to Germany? She thinks she will be fine because Germany is more similar to the Netherlands than Greece is.

She and Wahid deal with missing home the same way. They both try to make the new country they live in, their home. Nadia said she misses home sometimes, but she doesn’t call it being homesick. Why is that?

Nadia is now pregnant and expects to give birth without Wahid being there with her. ‘The paperwork takes a lot of time.’ When she has given birth to their first daughter, her and Wahid want to move to Germany, where a part of Wahid’s family already lives. As she is used to being away, she thinks she will not feel homesick when she moves there. She does have advice for people that do feel homesick.

Text: Laura Van Alphen, interviewee: Nadia Bruins, photo: CC0 by Gerd Altmann on Pixabay