Instead of exploring Geneva as planned the next day, I was rushed to hospital.
It all started when blisters aggressively covered soles of my feet. When I arrived at the hospital, the doctor was shocked at the sight of my feet. He
admitted to my mum he had never seen anything like it. He pressed my mum for an explanation.
My mum explained that I lived in Guinea-Bissau for a couple of years. The doctor confirmed my initial feeling about the unbearable scorching heat. My
body wasn’t used to it. Strange right? since I used to live in Portugal. However, the heat from Guinea-Bissau was much worse and unforgiving. After my
hospital treatment, I finally left and returned home. For a moment, looking at my feet, the painful memories of my time in Guinea-Bissau were marked for me to reminisce. As time went by, the scars vanished without a trace. The nightmares of my time in Guinea-Bissau also disappeared.

Finally, my new life and experiences in Switzerland can begin. Ah, Switzerland.

Even the name sounds so exquisite and appealing. Looking around, I was enchanted by the charming sights. My eyes were savouring so much beauty
and were hungry for more. The beautiful ever present mountains were constantly
following us everywhere I look. Even the sky couldn’t resist its charm. I enjoyed the view of the majestic mountains kissing the sky. The fresh air was so pure which filled my lungs. I was literally taking it all in.
My parents were always working, that’s the one thing I remembered about my parents’ lives in Switzerland. They both worked so hard and we didn’t spend that much time together as a family.
At the time, and still today, Switzerland is not an easy country to live let alone settle. The only way you can make it easier to live in Switzerland ironically, is by working constantly. Also, you need to have the right papers (permits ) to
live in Switzerland, even as an European. Switzerland is not part of the European union which makes it harder coming from Europe and work there at the time. Not sure if it has become easier now, but what I do know is before
even considering a life in Switzerland, you need to meet many requirements and apply for the right permits. To make matters worse, my mum didn’t have permits when she went to live there and was doing many cleaning jobs. My dad went from instructing builders what to do as an architect, to being a builder himself in Switzerland. He sure didn’t like it. His architect position simply wasn’t recognised in Switzerland. He had to start from scratch.

As children, we had to be looked after since our parents had to work so hard in order to build up our new life in Switzerland. My mum signed us up for a daily holiday camp where we’d go from morning to late afternoon. The camp was
slightly outside Geneva. So each day, our mum would drop us off at the coach station. Once inside the coach, we enjoyed the journey simply because we enjoyed looking at the forever reliable mountains smiling at us. Once we arrived at the camp, we enjoyed the activities despite the fact me and my sister didn’t speak French at the time (the official language in Geneva).  Nevertheless, each day we had so much fun whether it was exploring the nature, the mountains or fun games. We made friends along the way despite the fact we didn’t understand them and they didn’t understand us either. We were always looking forward to the next day for more fun. As you might predict, the fun I had wouldn’t last long.