Hi all,

A frosty Copenhagen signing in – winter seems to be announcing imminent arrival. In a nifty attempt to shun this coming coldness, I shall speed up my fingers’ crawl.

Mansour, as noted earlier, trained to become a mechanic. It was in his blood to be good at this, to excel at tinkering with machines and bring motor-death back to life.

He flew through school, unhindered by his good but still broken Danish, and reached last stages of his education: the work placement. A great experience of, literally, getting your hands dirty turned into be a shameful barrier to entry, and a stain of ink on the white-cloth-consciousness of Denmark. Mansour sought hundreds of auto shops for a placement, and everyone came out with a negative answer. Schoolmates with less foreign sounding names all found shops within a short period of time.

In the end, Mansour was unable to find a placement and thus had to give up on his dream of becoming a mechanic. Nobody would give him the opportunity to have 6 months experience to finish his schooling, despite his excellent qualifications.

True to form, Mansour let nothing stop him and enrolled shortly thereafter to become a registered nurse. The health care industry won this one, bringing someone so caring and talented to focus on their field. But it was a blow to Mansour. The fact that skills spoke softer than prejudice, drowned in the stream of ignorant chatter, did not go by unnoticed. 

Mansour, with all his pride and determination never let it be known that it hurt, not even in the most private of moments. David and I, however, weren’t as subtle – still aren’t. To live in a land of such exuberance, with such a wealth of possibilities, and then realize how we who have most afforded nothing to one who goes without, was a shameful blow. We can do better than that. Of course, this goes for many things in life…

Best,

David and Christopher