A few days ago, I had the pleasure of listening to a presentation given by Josquin Ngoua Tchumno in my Rotary Club. His project 5 instead of 3 had sparked my curiosity.

His own story of immigration to Germany had led him to create an initiative supporting young men and women seeking a job in Germany and the possibility of immigrating. He called it 5 instead of 3, as every candidate is invited to start their journey with a 2-year apprenticeship of German and the German culture in Cameroon. It is, once these two years are completed successfully, that the actual immigration process and a 3-year apprenticeship in Germany can be started.

This project sounds very straightforward. The origin is less so.

Josquin Ngoua started his journey with a payment of a few thousand Euros to someone promising to bring them to Germany, but disappeared once he had collected enough funds. A second try led to a similar result. He didn’t pay for everything at once and hoped to follow the process based on his different payments. What he learned in this process was that he quickly knew more about Germany than the person who suggested that he would handle the immigration.

Looking into the third option, he found himself in a group of around 60 people who desired to immigrate. However, after discussing with his family, he gave up on that journey and searched for a way he could organize for himself. With the support of family members living in Germany, he finally found himself at the airport of Douala and started his journey to Germany.

He continued to follow the progress of his group. Until the news disappeared.

Of the 60, some 57 disappeared or died on the journey. They had chosen to follow someone promising to bring them to Germany. Someone who led them on an illegal route.

They died because they had not been aware of existing possibilities to immigrate legally.

During his presentation, Josquin Ngoua mentioned several details he had grown up with that we couldn’t imagine. Consider, for example, that in Cameroon, the electricity bill would have been brought into their village to be discussed together. In Germany, such a bill comes by mail. No one imagines the need to discuss it personally.

Another detail was how he had not been aware of how tickets are bought to travel by train. One day, when passengers were controlled, he did like everyone else, he showed his phone. However, he hadn’t uploaded any tickets to it.

Nowadays, the same could happen to me. Luxembourg opted to provide its public transport for free. When will I forget that other countries handle this differently? Will I imagine that I need to ask if public transport costs anything?

How can we imagine asking others about things we take for granted?