Ali: I was here last night and some guys started speaking to me in English...

Dan: Why English?

Ali: Well, look at me. I get it a lot - people see a black guy and just immediately assume that I’m a foreigner. So they start speaking English to me without even thinking about it.

Dan: Does it bother you?

Ali: Well, it annoys me a bit. It seems kinda unfair. I was born here, I live here, Czech is my only mother tongue, and I really don’t know how much more Czech I can be. But still, I’m not a Czech because I don’t look like one.

Dan: Well what are you then?

Ali: I wasn’t being serious - I am Czech, but it bugs me that other people don’t see me as Czech.

Dan: Well, at least they speak to you in English - that’s almost a compliment! With me, they just shout “Hey, Gypsy!” But it’s the same thing - I was born here, I’ve spoken Czech as well as Romany since I was little, but it doesn’t matter. On the street, I’m just a Gypsy.

Jami: It sounds tougher for you two. When all that’s going on, you still think of yourselves as Czech, right? For me it’s clear: I’m Iranian and I live in the Czech Republic. When I tell people I’m an asylum seeker, at least sometimes they feel sorry for me.

Ali: You think that’s better? That sucks too. Why have people always got to make some sort of fuss about us? They haven’t a clue how much it messes with a person’s head.

Magda and Tim arrive

Magda: Hi guys! Why so serious? Aren’t you going swimming?

Ali: We're just shooting the breeze about how nice people are to us, even though we're not white enough to be here.

Magda: What? Now I don’t know if I should be offended or ask what’s going on.

Ali: Try the second, even though you might not have the right colour of skin to give advice.

Tim: What are you going on about? What’s the problem?

Ali: We were all complaining about how people on the street hassle us in different ways, talk English with us, ask us where we’re from and stuff. And just because we’re brown or black, depending on how the light’s shining and what mood people are in.