The move to Sweden

I was born in Liège, Belgium, in a family of six children. My father was an engineer in hydro-geology from a university in Holland and my mother was a nurse. Studying was very important while growing up but I was really rebellious as a kid. I hated everything that had to do with studying. I loved make-up instead and other such things.

I met my husband in the Congo and shortly after we got engaged he moved to Sweden as a refugee and then everything changed.

It gradually dawned on me that I was different, that I was not like everybody else.

I moved to Sweden one year after my husband, we got married and settled in a beautiful place near Gothenburg. I still remember greeting my neighbour in the morning and getting no reply. Everything was new – the marriage, the house, the town and the country. I got pregnant and quickly met some friends that also were expecting babies. I did not realise how serious everything was about to be. I wanted to be a journalist, but the door seemed closed to me because I could not speak Swedish. However, I started studying the language and later on was admitted to the University of Gothenburg and loved what I was doing.

Diversity at EP during European Youth Media Day

It gradually dawned on me that I was different, that I was not like everybody else. I soon found out that when somebody looked at me, the only thing they could see at first was that I am a black girl. I noticed this through the questions that always followed any new meeting that I had. The thing is, when I wake up in the morning and look at myself in the mirror, what I see is just a beautiful girl and nothing else. And suddenly I realised that what others saw when they looked at me was the colour of my skin. In other people’s eyes, I was black… I was different, especially since most of the people around me had blond hair. It bothered me that everybody asked me where I came from, why I chose to live in Sweden, etc. I always tried to answer those questions by babbling around, never quite knowing myself what the answers were, because I felt that I did not know where I really came from and why my husband and I had chosen to stay in Sweden.

Coming to the European Parliament in Brussels

This was another experience. I never knew that I was actually a Swede before I was selected as a trainee by the European Parliament.  I was told about this one condition that I had to have a citizenship in a country that is a member of the EU, because it was the only way of having the possibility to be a trainee in the European Parliament. It was really bizarre to find out that I was a Swede with black skin. I have heard that in some countries, such as France for instance, you are a French citizen when you adopt the French ideology, but in some other European countries you will never become a citizen of that particular country, unless you are born as a citizen.

This place was not like university where I could leave after lunchtime, because the afternoon teacher would probably be boring and I was tired.

I moved to Belgium and started my traineeship on the first of September in the European Parliament, at the DG Com-munication and Web Unit. Everything was new, but I quickly realised that suddenly my life as a student was getting really serious. This was actually really the European Parliament; you got a badge for entrance because there is security to the top of your teeth, the lunch room is full of very respectable, impressive and important persons, and the ladies are beautiful in their high heels. I love heels and have often been the only one among my Swedish friends that use them, and suddenly I found myself confused and happy at the same time that I would not have to be alone in wearing them. In this serious environment I realise that I have to be on time, I have to be humble and cannot go home when I feel like doing it. This place was not like university where I could leave after lunchtime, because the afternoon teacher would probably be boring and I was tired.

Suddenly something came to my mind: Wait a minute! I am still just a black girl in the eyes of others? I could not give an answer to that, but I remember that just the thought of it scared me and made me, without any justification, feel really sceptical. The feeling comes back to me of wanting to protect myself from my “oppressors”, despite the fact that others are probably not interested in the fact that I am black. The most horrible battle begins within me – the memories of war in the Congo mixed with the strange idea that I would prefer war to the feeling of being considered as “just a black person”, always having to prove to others that I am more than just that – that behind the black face there is a smart girl, a person with personality, with feelings and a heart that also needs to be appreciated.

The silly thing about this battle is that other people probably do not think about the fact that I am black at all, and also that in a big official organisation like the European Parliament, there is not supposed to be discrimination of any kind: sex, colour, disability etc. Human rights are very important here. So why worry about me being the only black person in the whole unit? Why all this thinking instead of just being me, and feel accepted for what I am? This reminds me of my time as a young girl. While living in Belgium with my parents, I was always considered as a Congolese, but when I went back to the Congo, I was considered too European and not really like everybody else. When moving to Sweden I was once again the “where-are-you-from-girl” and then in Brussels I’m the Swede-Cong-Belgian girl. In the end I have this big revelation that I am welcome to the unit, people are just beautiful and friendly here and it is a happy place, full of wonderful persons.