This is my home. Here, in the same country as you, in a city as ordinary and unremarkable as yours, a home you can easily overlook. I live here, just like you, but I may have a slightly different style than you, and economically speaking, I may be a little better than you, or a little worse than you. But we are more or less the same.

At least when compared to my “second home.”

My second home is South Africa. In many ways, it is a faraway country. In both figurative and non-figurative ways.

How different that country is. To give just one example, there are people who are generally much poorer, but at the same time much friendlier, people who are not recognizable as our people except for their language, and people who are instantly recognizable as not being our people. Some live like us, others in a style that makes them seem un-Czech.

And when we meet blacks there, some are completely poor, while others are relatively underwater, at least in local conditions. That is, various salesmen, accommodation staff, security guards, laborers, garbage collectors, etc. In general, this is not a big problem, but once you get to know these people a little better, it becomes clear what you expected from them and, in the end, what you did not expect at all.

We often hear from the mouths of such people how they should not be there. This is because their wages are usually about what a citizen who has been unemployed for a long time, but who can at least be persuaded to do community service, can get on welfare, and logically, not enough to live above their means.

Such people generally “know” Europe. However, they know Europe through very logical assumptions. They know that we are much better off than they are. We have jobs, lots of money, and live in paradise. This opinion is really logical. They have never been anywhere and if they see Europeans, it is only those who can afford to spend their sinful money on plane tickets and decent housing. They do not see our poor people.

So they will say again and again. They very much want to go to Europe. To get a job here and have a good time like we do. They don\’t think about social benefits or unemployment benefits.

They want to come to us.

Of course …… It is enough to tell them that they hardly get along with our people, that we are not made to spend much time in large families or large circles of friends, that we do not laugh as much as they do, even though we have far more opportunities to do so.

That is enough. They no longer want to come here. Because our “big money” is not worth it. They want to be poor among their own people. Their home, in the far south.

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