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‘More freedom’: Why a Cameroonian man returned to Ukraine
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Al Jazeera: Nelly Nelson, a Cameroonian entrepreneur and English teacher, had not wanted to leave his adopted hometown of Lviv in western Ukraine when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of the country in February last year.m “I was not that scared,” the 29-year-old recalls. “Where I am from, there is an expression: don’t run from what you don’t know.”
Nelson, who was born and raised in the city of Buea, in southwest Cameroon, first came to Ukraine in late 2018 to visit his older sister who was studying at a medical university in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city in the northeast of the country. He initially found it “cold and bleak”, but a second visit the following year during the warmer months to Lviv, where his sister had moved for further studies, drastically changed his view of the country. It appeared much friendlier and warmer than on his first visit, and he decided to stay and look for work. “Lviv is the best city in Ukraine,” he says as he sips on a juice in one of the city’s trendy cafés. His warm, welcoming nature is immediately apparent as he politely places an order from the waitress in Ukrainian. “You can start a conversation with anyone. If you are lost, people will walk you to where you need to go.” He recalls once asking a middle-aged man for directions in Kharkiv. “He just avoided me, so I had to call a taxi.”
In Lviv, Nelson began working as an online English tutor, earning roughly $700 a month, enough to lead a comfortable life. He also rented an apartment – near to his sister, her husband, and his three-year-old niece – from a friendly landlord, Roman, who would become a “father figure” to Nelson.
In January 2022, he met his current girlfriend, a Ukrainian who had grown up near Lviv, on a dating app. Surrounded by people he cared about and with a regular income, he felt settled. He had found his new home.
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