Two people, two different lives and a stroke of fate that connects them: Nadja Maki and Ahmed Zangello have both lost a child and thus found their friendship.
"Nadja is young, but she is the mother of all of Aying," says Ahmed Zangello (38) with a smile as they listen to Arabic pop songs together. The two sit in Nadja Maki's intercity bus, which has been converted into a mobile youth center, and drink espresso. You know each other from Aying; the mood is familiar, easy and familiar. What welds Ahmed Zangello and Nadja Maki together, however, is a severe blow of fate: the death of one of their children.
“The infant death experience immediately made us feel connected,” recalls Nadja Maki (40). Her son Lennon was killed in a tragic tractor accident in Aying in 2010. Ahmed's daughter Bisam died in a refugee camp in the Turkish city of Kilis. At that time for unexplained reasons. Today we know that Muskrat suffered from a rare genetic defect - as did Ahmed's son, Abdul-Wahab, who was still alive. The family fled the war in the Syrian city of Idlib in 2015. “In 2018 Ahmed drove to Croatia with his wife and three children in my car. They just wanted to get out of the cramped situation in the Ayinger accommodation and drove to the sea, ”reports Nadja Maki. "Then he called crying and said that Abdul-Wahab was in the hospital and couldn't move." His CK (creatine kinase) value was so high thatthat he blew up the Croatian measuring device. Instead of a normal value of around 28 creatine kinases in the body, the value was 88,000 - an indication of damage to the body. Ahmed and his wife Maram were desperate. They did not understand the Croatian doctors, they were at a loss as to what Abdul-Wahab's life-threatening condition meant and the transport back to Germany was priceless.
From vacation by intensive care transport home
This is where Nadja Maki came into play. She had known Ahmed and his family for a long time from Aying. After the death of her son Lennon, she and her father founded the Lennon-Maki Foundation and since then has been committed to helping people for whom, like her, life did not go according to plan. Thanks to the help of the foundation, Abdul-Wahab was brought back to Munich by intensive care transport. The genetic defect was then discovered by the Care for Rare Foundation of the LMU for research into rare children's diseases. Since then, Abdul-Wahab has been treated with the complex immunoglobulin therapy. Ahmed and Maram have to give him infusions once a week for two hours at home, for which they have received intensive training. "At first the doctors said Abdul-Wahab was just tired and sent me back home," says Ahmed.He was terrified of losing another child and is eternally grateful to Nadja for her help and continued commitment. "When I have an appointment, she takes care of my children, if someone needs a car he gets hers." She also doesn't have as many prejudices as other Germans towards Arabs and is always open to concerns from the neighborhood. No matter who comes to her with what concern.
The friendship is by no means one-sided.
"Ahmed gives me so much back, with my bus, which he is now driving here and also in a friendly way," says Nadja Maki.
Fortunately, after fleeing, worrying about the children and uncertainties about his stay, his situation is now quite stable.
Professional basis in the new home
Ahmed is now a bus driver for MVG in the east of Munich. The family just needs an apartment. Also because of Abdul-Wahab's extensive treatment. At the moment the five of them live in a two-room apartment in Aying, which also affects their daughter Sirin (10). “When my brothers are around, I just can't study,” she says, and hopes for a room of my own in the future. Sirin would like to live in the city - there is “everything next door” and the S-Bahn runs much more often. Nadja Maki, on the other hand, found her peace in Aying. "You go quietly into the city - I'll stay here in the country with a great view of the mountains - in my small, ideal world."