Embracing the Infidel: Stories of Muslim Migrants on the Journey West by Behzad Yaghmaian
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book was a wonderful combination of heart-wrenching stories and straight-forward statistics. Yaghmaian does a great job of combining the lives of the people he meets, with concrete information about the migration of thousands upon thousands of human beings. You cannot believe how these people have taken the journey that they have, how they live the way they do, and how they find strength and hope to keep going.

On my own previous trips to Europe, I have seen many of the people described by Yaghmaian - Africans selling knock off purses, watches, bracelets, etc. Street cart vendors. And I'm ashamed to say that I never gave them, or their stories, much thought. But who knows where these people came from and what caused them to take on this transient and fragile lifestyle?

We are all born into a set of circumstances, some good and some bad - for me, this book helps remind me that I am no better a human just because of where I was born and the circumstances that led me to my life today. And if I can help someone out, I should.

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"We will never be normal...Of course we are different from other people. We live a different life. Normal is the way the majority lives. We are not a part of that. We hope to be normal, have a family and live the life of a normal person, but we cannot. I am young, only twenty-two years old. I see other young people in the rest of the world. I know how they live, how they look at the world. But I cannot be like them. I am not normal. I have been on the road with no return. The return to normal is not possible. See, some migrants die in the sea. Others die crossing the mountains. There are the fortunate ones. They die with no pain. The rest live to see their slow death. Dying takes different forms. Some shoot heroin. Some go with a baba. They are all the same, those who beg in Patras and those who go with a baba in Athens. Look them in the eye. You will see the same pain of not achieving the goal, not reaching the destination. You change when you go with men for money. You become a different person. You die."

"I knew the difficulties of the journey...What I did not know was that the journey changes you. You can never be who you once were even if you return to the same conditions. The journey transforms you. The person you were when you picked up your bag for the road dies. You are a different person when you put your bag on the ground."

This quote^ really opened my eyes. Again, going back to the immigrant sellers I have encountered on my trips to Europe, I did not give a thought to what led them to that place and time. Who knows what they have seen and done in order to get where they are? How many days they had to trek through forests or deserts, or mountains, without proper shelter, clothing, or food? How could such a journey NOT change a person? If we could look out for just one minute from the eyes of such a person, what would we see?

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