At first, the camera was distracting [in the booth], but it's the first time I've thought positively. I mean, normally, when I close my eyes and I'm alone, I get... [cries].

When I'm alone, I always think negatively. Because I'm divorced and have a child in Italy, with his mother, in Liguria. I met my ex-wife there when I was little: she's Moroccan, and so am I, but we met and had practically the same lives. After seven years of dating, we decided to get married. And, a year later, a little girl was born. She's already 2 years old now.

Anyway, that's not what I wanted to say. What I wanted to say is that, when I'm alone sometimes, I want to relax because I'm stressed out, and so I try to calm myself in some way. When I'm alone, I go online, like, to forget these stresses, because sometimes I feel a weight on me.

But for the first time, I had positive thoughts, because once you left me in here, I thought about something different than usual. The first thing [that came to mind], I don’t know why, is that I found myself in the exact same spot where I was born in Morocco. I couldn’t think about anything else: a small village in Morocco where I was born, and I used to play with my friends. It’s a very small village, in the middle of the desert, more or less. 50 km far away from Marrakesh. This is the very first thing that came to my mind.

I found myself at that place, seeing my entire village. I've never really thought about that. It just came to mind and stayed with me. I don't know why I thought about that place. Maybe because that's where I played a lot with my friends when I was little.

When I was ten, my father did the paperwork to bring us to Italy. He went there before us, maybe fifteen years before us, and he came to visit us every five or six months. He did the paperwork and brought us to Italy. At that age you have friends you play with. He took me away from that. And maybe I thought about that place because I still have a hunger for that game with my friends. I don’t know.

I always had that [feeling] inside me when I came to Italy and it blocked me in the sense that, I don't know, it blocked me from having friends [cries].

It took me a while [to make new friends in Italy].

This thing makes me feel as if I've wasted years of my life in Italy. I mean, now that I'm here [in Geneva], I have two countries inside me: Italy and Morocco. I left [Italy] this past winter and here I think about two countries: Italy and Morocco. I can’t live without them. When I was in Italy, I did not like it at first, not at

all. Then, over time, it became my home, because I have my thoughts, I have my past. I spent four months away from Switzerland, two in Italy, and two in Morocco. I really wanted to split the time.

When I was 10 years old and I arrived in Italy, I couldn’t make any friends because I was thinking about my friends in Morocco. I used to think that I could have fun only in Morocco, because it was the only fun I knew. I could play with friends in Italy, but I didn’t have fun. They seemed cold, but they are not. I should have understood that right away, but it took me time, I wasn’t mature enough back then.

I spent three years in Italy and then returned to Morocco. I was friends-less, alone when I returned. The other kids refused [to play]. They had their weapons—you know, insults, like, “why aren’t you like us?” You know what I mean? They were right, in a way. When you’re a kid, you’re not mature. When I came back [to Morocco], I wanted the life I had, but it was not possible because the other kids had moved on, they had lives, and I found myself alone.

So, I couldn't make any friends there or here. When I returned to Italy, after months of vacation in Morocco, it came naturally. I realized that there's no need to push, and little by little I began to open up, because before I was closed off, so to speak, racist [prejudiced] towards Italians. And little by little, I made friends, I had girlfriends, and I started living my life. But I don't know, every time I feel anxious or stressed, I feel like talking about this. I don't know.

I'm 30 now, but when I was in my twenties, I had some stress and went to a psychologist automatically through the hospital. When I get stressed, I have the ability to relieve it; I don't need a doctor or medication. I can move away from stress on my own and find happiness. In my twenties, I ended up in the hospital for this thing, and the hospital handed me a piece of paper, "You have to see a psychologist," which is something I've never done. When I found myself in front of the psychologist, this thing came to me, just like now. The same images, the same feelings.

When I'm alone, I get stressed, but I never feel like crying. In fact, this is the second time I've cried in front of someone: in front of the psychologist and in front of you.

I’ve decided to stay here. I want to improve my future. I am still in touch with my ex-wife and maybe, maybe, if I have help, she could find a job here and bring the kid a bit closer.

The first thing that brings me sadness when I'm alone, thinking, is my daughter. Always.

And the second thing I thought when I closed my eyes was looking for the real reasons: Why did I end up here? Why didn't I stay in my country? It seems like a destiny I didn't choose. Sometimes I find myself in conditions I didn't choose. I found myself in Italy, and apart from the fact that my father brought me there, the question is, why? I mean, why move from the country where you were happy? Then you find the answers, then you start talking about economics, but that's not the right answer.

I'm not here for long. For now, I want to live here; I'd like to stay two- or three-years tops, and then I'll go back. But I'm doing this for the language, and while I'm here, I'll take advantage of it by doing some odd jobs and saving up some money to start a business or something, because I have a degree in electronics and eight years of experience.