CHEDJOU Marie, 41: The teacher and mother of six stood on her own two feet in Cameroon while her husband pursued his academic career in Europe. She came to Austria to bring the family together again after years of being separated.

For years it never entered my head that I should give up my work in Cameroon to support my husband. For twelve years I taught as a teacher in a teacher training college. My six children were all born in this time too. But that wasn’t a problem. I was at home for three months after giving birth and afterwards I planned a daily routine timetable with my boss which made it possible to balance breast feeding and work. In Cameroon it’s normal for women to have lots of children. And my salary was high enough for me to be able to employ a help. She took care of the housekeeping and the children.

My husband does research for a living and his research scholarships have taken him to Italy, France, Germany and Austria. He only came for visits, maybe twice a year. That’s the way it was and it worked very well for me because I was always busy; I wasn’t bored enough to think up silly things. I was to understand only later that that was a burden for my husband over time, that he longed for a normal family life. So I went. We’ve all now been living together for three years in Klagenfurt. During the week my husband spends a lot of time at the university so we don’t see much of him. It’s different at weekends: then we have breakfast together and go on walks sometimes with the children.

The children adapted quickly, they pick up everything quickly. In Cameroon they got a good foundation for their education. They were always good and I’ve always done a lot for them. Now I can’t speak the language and I can’t help my children. But I’d considered all that before, nothing was a surprise for me here. To start with I never went out of the house without a dictionary; one French word, one English word, one word from the dictionary in German, that’s how I struggled through the first few weeks. In the meantime I took the B1 exam in German and would like to go to a B2 course because for foreigners like me it’s a requirement to be able to work with children or go to university again. But the B2 course is only offered at the university and is really expensive.

In general our whole life here is so expensive! We need a lot of money for the rent, then we had to set up house from scratch – for a family of eight that costs a pretty penny! Above all we have to shoulder the high costs for our residence permits: the initial application for the red-white-red card can only be completed individually in person at the proper Austrian embassies or consulates abroad. In our case that was in Nigeria because there isn’t an agency in Cameroon.

The travel outlay and expenses for the eight of us have to be taken into account are real cost factors - and getting these debts down means that there’s less available for other things too.

Because we’ve been here for less than five years we’re not entitled to any benefits from social welfare, like housing benefit. I just can’t understand that at all.

But I don’t want to vilify everything, some things are better here than in my native country Cameroon: the school system is open to everybody in equal measure, whether they’re rich or poor. It’s exactly the same with the health system. Here there’s insurance and that’s a really good thing because in our country there’s no medical provision without money. Safety is also a big thing here.

As a black woman I’m perceived as “something worth seeing” here. The people are very curious, ask lots of questions, primarily, how I manage on my own with six children. Before I had a help in the home. I have to do everything myself now, mop the floor, wash, iron, cook, everything. I also work when possible because I rely on every cent. Up till now there was nothing but short temporary contracts. In the day care centre (afternoon childcare) I had great staff reports, that’s why the job centre offered me a vocational training period for nursery care a year ago. I had to refuse because at the time I didn’t have anybody who would have looked after the children. Recently I’ve had an au pair from Cameroon, but this training isn’t offered every year. Unfortunately. I’d really like to work with children again though.

You can’t have everything, I knew that. And somehow it’s working. And when I look around, I’ve already achieved quite a lot in these three years. So I always say, it will work. You can’t get everything in one day. You have to fight, Marie! 22.11.2013