Marcela P., 47 years old, Nürenberg
I had a beautiful childhood. My parents were modest, loving people who worked a lifetime for me and my brothers. I grew up with six brothers and sisters. We never lacked anything and I always appreciated my parents for that. I set out to do the same thing when I have my family. But things don't always turn out the way we want them to.
When I met my husband, the financial situation in Romania had not yet worsened. We took out a loan and bought a house. Sometime later, our little girl came into the world. It was hard, but we managed.
In 2008, when the crisis hit, my husband lost his job and I lost a quarter of my salary. It was a heavy blow. That was the moment when I started to worry about ourselves and my daughter's future. It was also then that I seriously thought about a job abroad for the first time.
It wasn't easy there either, but I certainly had more chances than in Romania. So I took my heart in my teeth and after long research, I went to Germany.
At home, I worked as a nurse at the Floreasca Emergency Hospital in Bucharest. I didn't expect to do the same thing in Germany, I knew how hard it is for a foreigner, especially when he doesn't know the language. I was lucky and found a free place in a nursing home. I was happy and scared at the same time. I didn't know what to expect.
It was hard, very hard for me. Alone, far from home, without knowing the language. Every night after work I went home and cried. I kept it like that for a few months.
One day I was at work and I asked for the help of a colleague, who was also a foreigner. She was very cold to me and told me that it was not her job to help me and that if I didn't manage it, I should go home. My first instinct was to get angry and cry, of course. Only then did I realize that although I was saddened, she was right. If I didn't help myself, no one would do it for me.
I think that was the moment when I realized where I was and why. I had left Romania with one goal: to help my family and give my daughter the best education.
I signed up for German language courses and slowly, slowly, everything was not so gray anymore. Looking back, I thank my colleague for not helping me that day. Indeed, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
I managed to find my husband a job and next month we will both start. Now I'm going home on vacation. My daughter has finished college and is going to Cabo with her boyfriend. I'm glad I was able to do this for her, she's a good and hardworking child, and she deserves to give her the best.
Why didn't I go? I miss Romania and my home. I have an old armchair, received from my grandmother as a gift for a new house. All I want now is to sit quietly in the armchair and hold my cat in my arms.
Alexandra P., 33 years old, München
Germany, for me, is a beautiful story. I was raised in Germany by a grandmother and a mother who strived to provide me with the best education.
I was an only child with my parents. Alone with the parent. My father chose to leave when I was born, so my mother raised me alone, as she knew best. He gave me all the love he was capable of and made sure that I never lacked anything. She was both a mother and a father.
Ever since I was a child, I could see her struggling to hold two, or even three jobs to give me the best life. I remember that in the evenings we always sat together, talking about the day that had passed and making plans for the future.
My dream was to be able to help my mother so that she wouldn't have to work so hard. She always told me that if I am happy, then she is happy too.
Before I entered high school, she went to work in Spain, so that she could help me with tutoring. That's how I entered a famous high school with teaching in German. It was hard, but I knew that all the effort I put in would pay off one day.
At nineteen, after finishing high school, I went to Germany alone and entered a college with an economic profile. Although I knew the language, it was difficult for me to get used to it.
I think I missed my mother and our evenings together the most. Even though she had left the country a few years ago, I didn't realize how difficult it was for me until I left Romania.
I arrived in Germany, alone among foreigners. I was very lucky to know the language and I think that helped me integrate more easily.
We had a big problem with the low temperatures. I think it took me at least a year to get used to the cold and the weather specific to Germany and to manage not to catch a cold every two or three weeks.
Because German was not a problem for me, during college it was easy for me to find a job to support myself.
I never shied away from work and worked as a waitress, translator, and even PR for musical bands at the beginning of the road.
My biggest passion was traveling, and when the possibility of a job in the field came up, I didn't even think twice.
It was hard at first, but I've been a flight attendant for six years and I don't regret my decision for a second.
I had the opportunity to see places I only dreamed of when I was a child, such as Tibet, India or South America.
That's how I discovered my passion for yoga and the importance of balance in life. After two years of courses and research, I obtained the instructor certification and managed to open my studio.
I know that I owe all this to my mother, not only because she supported me financially, although that was a great help. But if I hadn't seen in her what it means to be a hardworking person, dedicated to your family, willing to sacrifice yourself at any time for your loved ones, I know for sure that I would not have been the person I am today. I am a strong woman and I am successful because of her and the way she raised me.
My great desire now is to succeed in what I set out to do, to bring her to live with me, to be able to sit back and tell stories, like in childhood.
Daniel N., 34 years old, Karlsruhe
Ever since I was little, I loved history. Here's how passion decides your destiny! I am in Germany because I have always wanted to become an archaeologist, but in Romania, you cannot make a living from this profession. I don't even know how many archaeologists Romania has at the moment.
The point is that I wanted to keep my daily activity somehow in close connection with my passion, and so I chose the field of construction. Just like in archaeology, we find buildings, plans, stones, and a lot of dust.
I've been in Germany for nine years, right after graduating from the Faculty of Construction and Installations, and I started first as a site manager (police) then, when I noticed what the responsibilities and work tasks are, I said that I am very good at being a team leader in the various works on the construction sites here.
Now I have about a hundred people under my command, some of my parents' age, others very young. I share with them both joys and sorrows, worries, homesickness, families, and loved ones. I try every day to be close to them, to help them when a problem arises or when they can't handle it, some of them don't know German.
All in all, I like it in Germany, I earn quite well, I have a few good friends, both Romanians and Germans, and I travel wherever I want. It's one of the reasons why I decided to live here: from my city, I can easily get almost anywhere in Europe. Every weekend I like to hike or take my bike and wander the paths of the nearby mountains, enjoy a French croissant with a "chocolat chaud" in the heart of Strasbourg, or set off on the road to Zurich. It is extremely pleasant to wake up on a Saturday morning and think: where would I like to go today? In Switzerland? Belgium? France?
I love the mountains and the feeling unleashing them gives you, I love music, to the point that I travel hundreds of kilometers to be in the atmosphere of the concerts given by my favorite bands, I love independence and the possibility of acting according to one's own will or desire. That is why I am the sum of the landscapes, images, people, events, sounds, and smells that I have gathered in me.
I also love beautiful places wherever they are, mountain towns, perched on French or Swiss mountain peaks, colorful fairs full of impatient tourists, Edenic waterfalls springing from sharp rocks, and parts of nature that amaze your eyes, I think everything beautiful moves me. I could talk for hours about the delights I saw and experienced. The last time I recharged my batteries in the land of geysers I concluded that only if I left Romania could I get to see and experience so much.
I try to capture the good things that abroad gives me, in addition to money, and I can say that you earn well as a construction engineer. At the age of 26, I built my own house in Romania, I had a good car and all the conditions for a decent life. I was thinking about securing my future. To have somewhere to go back. I want to open a Bavarian-style bar over the years, where you can drink good beer and listen to real music.
Therefore, living in another country has brought me a higher income, a lot of freedom, and diverse experiences, both good and bad, from which I have always learned something. On the other hand, I also had unpleasant situations: the fact that I was away from my family and close friends. Probably this aspect is the most acute, the rest are somewhat easier, the fact that you don't know the language well at the beginning, you don't know the rules, the regulations, you live wherever you can, you work harder at the beginning, etc. These are stages that all those who live in a country other than their native one go through and that help them, due to difficulties, to become stronger, more reckless, and more ambitious.
Now I am a happy, fulfilled man, at peace with everything. I experienced all kinds of things, I traveled through different places, I met people and I got to know cultures. From all this, I feel that I have won. I am currently a much more complex person than the one before I left home.
Ioana S., 50 years old, Berlin
My life in Germany began a long time ago, almost twenty years ago. I was a young translator, hopelessly in love with the German language, eager to converse and practice my linguistic knowledge as much as possible.
Sometimes I was also a guide for a group of young people who visited our country and wanted to discover our culture and civilization, accompanying them through Romania and presenting them the most beautiful tourist attractions.
I also traveled to Germany quite often during that period, visiting cities as diverse as Berlin, Munich, Stuttgart, and Cologne.
In all this back and forth between countries, I met my husband, a German beget, twelve years older than me. Shortly after, he asked me to marry him and proposed that we settle in Berlin, his hometown.
He was an engineer, had a nice house on the outskirts, and loved dogs. I loved him very much, but the thought that I should have lived permanently in another country scares me a little.
He was an engineer, had a nice house on the outskirts, and loved dogs. I loved him very much, but the thought that I should have lived permanently in another country scares me a little.
I liked everything very much from the beginning: a new house, located in an oasis of greenery, located a few kilometers from the city center, the new job at the most famous university in Berlin, first as an assistant, then, with time, as a teacher, colleagues, neighbors, even shops.
At the age of one and a half, our first child appeared a little girl Maria, then after another two years, the little boy Andrei. And since then all our attention has gone to them. I was divided between college and children. I loved what I was doing, being surrounded by diligent students and colleagues devoted to their jobs. I was involved in various activities at the university and was involved in many projects.
My children have grown up, now Maria is also a young medical student, and Andrei is in his final year of high school, and he will choose the university he will go to. Maria attends school in another city and I can't say that it's not difficult for me to know her far away, alone and without my help. But, on the other hand, I know that he has grown up and that it is time to fly on his wings. Soon Andrei will follow and then I will be left only with my students.
However, there is no year without returning to Romania, to visit my relatives, parents, and parental home. I took my children to Romania from an early age to get to know the lands where I grew up and was formed, to see their grandparents and cousins, and to form an opinion about their mother's homeland.
They both understand and speak perfect Romanian. I have always kept in touch with the country where I was born, that's how I felt comfortable, not to deny my roots.
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