When I was little, I had a dream that does not at all represent [how I am] living, now: to be successful regarding education, and the most important part, to live like I want. Freedom. Personal freedom, that’s really important for me. Because in [my] country [Kurdistan territory of Iraq], you don’t find yourself very free. You see what I’m saying? It’s bothered me all my life, what I’ve seen in my life back there.

If you don’t have freedom, you cannot live. Loving someone, for example. You cannot love whoever. Choosing clothes. Choosing a career. A profession I fancied… When I was little, I dreamt of entering a special school for music. This was around 1997, or 1998, I don’t remember precisely. I wanted to become a student in music, [to] play the violin, the guitar, anything. But I did not have freedom to choose the career I wanted, because my family decided it’s not appropriate. “People will talk about us. They’ll say we’re not good people.” Blah, blah, blah.

So, in the end, I went to school [to study] hotel tourism. I finished my classes, fortunately, but I still wanted to do something like music, because my friends are singers. They are very well-known in my country.

So, it started because of this, [because] we don’t have the freedom to choose whatever we want, to choose something important in our own life. But when I was four, I [already] dreamt of leaving this society, of coming to Europe, of living here and learning a new mentality, a new everything, to change everything.

I found more of a difficult situation: they don’t speak English, there’s no money, no place to live, women are very hard to live with, a lot of things actually. I did not find a way of being like I want to be. In English, we say: “You can be what you want.” If I can be like I want to be, like what I want in my body, I can be successful in life. It’s very bizarre, very bad. This is why I am here today, because of a lot of things.

Spending five minutes here [daydreaming] was very private for me. In these five minutes I found freedom, really, I found freedom. In my body. There’s nobody that forces you to do this, say this… I was free to express an opinion, free in my body. I was fwtt [snaps fingers] like I want. That’s why I am happy