Abdul Razak Fakhouri arrived in Austria in 2015 after fleeing Syria, and now lives with his family in a suburb of Vienna. He has spent this summer giving back to the community that took him in. 

It’s been a year since I finished school, and my life has been very hectic ever since. Between juggling an internship with the emergency services, playing water polo with a local team and working as a lifeguard, I had very little downtime until the pandemic hit. Water is my element. I feel very comfortable in it, I’d even say I’m friends with it. I grew up in the pool, and worked out eight times a week as a teenager. Being without water is hard for me. It’s almost like a culture shock.  

I set nine goals at the start of 2020, such as finishing my training with the emergency services and taking an advanced lifeguard qualification. But most courses were cancelled so now there are only two or three left which I can realistically accomplish.

But I am an optimist so I’ve decided to look for alternatives, such as finding an English course I can do over the summer while working to save money. My main goal is to study medicine, and I hope all these extra activities will improve my chances of being accepted onto the programme. I’m taking the entrance exam in Innsbruck, a city in the west of Austria, next week.

I am originally from Damascus in Syria. My family and I decided to leave. It was a good decision.  I’ve already “lost” a few years from having to flee. That is one reason why I work so hard now. 

I have always been very determined. I live by the motto “Don’t change your goal, just your plan.” I think this is because of my old life in Syria. Life there is limited. For example, you can’t advance if you belong to a certain faith. We arrived in Turkey when I was 13 and then came to Austria in 2015. It was here that I realised you can move forward in life if you try hard enough. 

In Damascus, moving forward means knowing the right people. But in Austria, 1+1 equals 2. In Syria it could equal minus 2, or plus 10 – you never know what you’re going to get. I don’t think I would be where I am right now if I’d stayed in Syria. Maybe I could have become a water polo player in Syria’s national team like my father was, but I would have had to join the army as well – which I would have hated. 

This summer has changed a lot of things for me. Normally, I structure my calendar in colours, and I use grey to indicate when I have “no appointments.” All of a sudden, this was the only shade I could see. I couldn’t go to a wedding of a good friend in Bosnia, and I’d also planned to go back to Turkey to see some friends I made during my time there. Not being able to go was really hard, because they have been waiting for three years for me to visit. 

Yet somehow, this period was also relaxing. I realised for the first time that it is okay to slow down. I had been living such a fast paced lifestyle since I was 15. During the two months of lockdown, I realised there’s nothing wrong with staying at home, reading a book and spending time with my family. In short: taking a break. However, I did also manage to do some shifts with the emergency services.

These shifts were harder than the ones I was used to. You are always in danger when you are on duty, and we already knew how to protect ourselves as we’d had to transport people with MRSA [an infection that is resistant to some antibiotics] in the past. However, Covid-19 meant we had to do it all the time: put on a protective suit, disinfect the whole car, always wear masks, gloves, glasses. It became routine to go inside and see patients while dressed like this.

Requirements kept changing constantly. I didn’t want people to think I was ungrateful after so many had helped me when I first arrived here. I am very proud that I didn’t just watch Netflix the whole time, but tried to give back to the community too. I think it’s something I will tell my children and grandchildren about, if they ever ask me how I spent my time during the lockdown. 

I’ve had many people around me in the past who have helped and motivated me. First there was my grandfather, who’s very sporty and enthusiastic. In Austria I met a doctor who showed me how to get involved with the emergency services. That’s why I feel I need to give back. It’s important for me. I live here and am part of the community. I don’t want people to think: “We supported Abdul, but when there were gaps in the roster, he kept cancelling.”

Most people were very grateful for our help and even gave us little presents. We could also sense a hesitation in the patients we took care of, and in society in general. But I was already familiar with this uncertainty because of my experience of Damascus. During the war, people left their home and you couldn’t be sure they’d come back. That was everyday life. There was never any certainty. 

It takes a lot to unsettle me. I felt I could handle the Covid situation because of what I experienced in Syria. I respect and somehow even value my past, because it taught me that I can handle being on the frontlines, I can deal with confrontation. Life is better with that attitude. When I go to bed, I don’t lie awake pondering things. I fall asleep immediately.  

Discrimination exists everywhere. It has become easier now in Austria, but maybe that’s just because I’ve grown older. But I do feel I have to work harder to prove myself. When I did my first internship in the medical field, I needed to prove myself first as Abdul and then again as someone who was not born here. Obviously that’s not the nicest feeling, but I’m someone who lets their actions do the talking. 

The head of Austria’s far-right party, the FPÖ, recently said that the Quran is more dangerous than Corona. How can somebody say that? How can you make such a sweeping statement and insult so many Muslims? Anyone who says something like that is a nobody to me. I think I can also have a positive influence on those around me in times like these, with so much right-wing populism and racism around us. I even managed to change someone’s mind. This person used to say horrible things about refugees and we argued a lot, but now he recognises that I’m not his enemy and he mentions me as a positive example when others say racist things. 

I am optimistic when I think about the future, although I wouldn’t be happy just studying through e-learning. That would destroy my imagination and my dreams. I want a student life, to be in the lab and be around people, to sit in the auditorium and to go to parties on the weekend. I have prepared mentally for this new life, because I already know how to build something new. It is a skill that can be learned.