A personal annectode

Shortly after the Syrian war started in 2011 a wave of refugees entered Germany and the small town I was living in of 10,000 inhabitants hosted around 1,000 refugees.
A massive proportion for such a small town. I saw everyone initially very entuthimstiac and helpful, specially while the cameras where there. That enthusiasm faded equally fast.
After some weeks, I meet Abdel on the streets, more or less my age, he barely spoke any English and no German at all. But he looked at me and something in his eyes showed a great heart.
I used google translate, to communicate with him. I told him if he wanted to make the effort to learn German, I would like to learn Arabic from him. I always wanted to and this seemed like a great opportunity.
While he lived in the asylum centre, I walked there every day and spent 2 hours with him, post my normal work hours. We ended up being able to speak in each others language, though broken, after just some weeks and became friends.
I was fascinated by this.
He never asked me for any payment, but I actually did up ending offering him a job. Just to find out, he was not allowed to work with the title 'political refugee'.
The German bureaucracy did not foresee for that that.
While there was an actual lack of labour.
It took me over a year and a lot of persuasion on local authorities to actually get him a working contract.
This made no sense, so I fought against it.
This is how governments often work.
Slow, against their own population.
Setting laws and restrictions that make no sense.
Showing someone you don't know compassion and a bit of hope in their desperation speaks louder than hate ever could.
A way to make someone feel important not by giving them money, but by actually helping them solve a problem.
Abdel was able to remain in Germany and moved to a bigger city with his family and works for a bigger company.
Paying German taxes.
He just sent me a message wishing me 'Frohe Ostern' in German as a believing Muslim. This is the world I want to live in.
I call that a W for all sides.