Dictatorship, wars, economic embargo, Abdullah Almallsulman grew up in Iraq, “in the galley”. He was 28 years old when he had to flee Mosul because of Daesh. On the road to exile, his two passions, football and cooking, would help him move forward.
Behind a heavy gate, in the city center of Amiens, the Bagdad restaurant has become the first to offer Iraqi cuisine in the Hauts-de-France region. At its head, Hossein, Mohammed and Abdullah, all three Iraqis. It is 3:30 p.m., the lunch service is over and Abdullah is having a quick wash. As he serves a cardamom-flavored coffee, ” at home “, he runs off to put on a suit. ” I don’t often get the chance, so I’m taking advantage of it! “.
The 36-year-old cook, with his impeccable beard and hair tied in a ponytail, is taking his break before the next service. I work 6 days a week, it’s a lot of work, but we are the bosses “, he says proudly. Usually, in the afternoon, he takes a nap, watches football matches on TV and works out in the small room he set up at the back of the restaurant. On Sunday, his day off, he spends three hours talking to his family in Iraq on the phone.
On a piece of table, he tells his story, the many appointments for the asylum application having accustomed him to doing so. Born in Mosul, he grew up in a country where ” it was always a struggle “Under Saddam Hussein, ” You had to be quiet, even at home, because the walls have ears, my mother used to say. “He recalls the economic embargo imposed on Iraq for twelve years after the invasion of Kuwait. We ate meat or fruit only once a month “And in this mess, a window of freedom: football.” That was my only joy, we could play anywhere, all we needed was a ball “In 1998, he watched the World Cup matches” on a small black and white TV, plugged into my parents’ car battery! “. THE Brazil becomes his favorite team, ” players are dancers on the field “.
“ Not a country, but a prison »
After his baccalaureate, he began studying to become a sports teacher. It was a very difficult four years, but I discovered tennis and fencing. “. Of a go-getter nature, “ you should never back down “, he threw himself into it fully, even becoming an official tennis referee, and Mosul champion in fencing two years in a row. After graduating in 2011, he was unable to find work in his field and became a salesman. “I traveled all over the country.”
When Daesh takes control in 2014, “ everything stopped. It was no longer a country, it was a prison, a nightmare “He still continues to play football,” with pants, because shorts were forbidden “Until the day when Daesh men asked him to become a sports coach for the children of their fighters. It was a shock. Because of them, I lost friends, family, my only solution was to flee “.
Syria, Türkiye, Greece, the path to exile begins in 2016. In his bag, ” My diplomas, my medals, and my orange football boots are what I have most precious. “In Greece, Abdullah lives in a camp in Athens, run by the Greek Navy. One day, the commander asks him to set up a football team with the exiles, “ we were 17 different nationalities “His team plays against former glories of the Greek national team, under the eyes of cameras and local politicians. He meets the son of a former manager of the Olympiakos club, one of the big clubs in Athens, who offers him to help his team. We could play on a real pitch, we had a meal after the matches, a doctor, we were a real team and little by little, we moved up “.
But from one day to the next, he has to leave everything behind, ” I received the answer to my asylum request, I had no other choice but to go to Romania “For six months, he endured the cold and racism and decided to leave again, this time for France, to join a friend with whom he had left theIraq. In Lyon, he filed an asylum application, which he obtained a year later. An association helping exiles encouraged him to apply for a training course as a cook offered to the most vulnerable by the starred chef Thierry Marx. Ten candidates were selected out of 100 applications, and Abdullah was one of them.
” I have always loved cooking, ever since I was little, so I gave it my all, I had to learn 85 recipes by heart “. After graduating after four months, he went to Amiens, in the north of France, to meet up with Mohammed, whom he had met in Greece. The same Mohammed who suggested they start their own restaurant. On the menu, only Iraqi and homemade cuisine: Tpasi, Makhlama, Biryani. ” We still had to add frieshe smiled, because the French always want some! For the gumbo or white bean sauce, I follow my grandmother’s recipe “.
The restaurant, which opened last November, is doing well. Abdullah is enjoying being his own boss. He has applied for French nationality and is waiting for the answer. for a year and a month “This summer he is taking a vacation in Greece, Budapest, Ljubljana, Vienna and Prague. I love to travel, initially my goal was to visit 10 countries in my life, today I have extended the list to 100 countries! »