© UNHCR/Despoina Anagnwstou
“Four years ago, armed men knocked on our school door and told us that girls were not allowed to attend school while boys had to be recruited.”
14-year-old Ayat had been living for years in violence faced with danger in Syria before her family decided to flee the country.
Life in the reception center of Samos island in Greece, where the family has sought asylum, is not easy. Ayat has been living in a tent for over a year with her seven siblings and parents. “During the winter we suffer from cold and in the summer we cannot even eat due to the heat”, the Syrian girl says.
Despite the difficulties she draws strength from the non-formal education classes she recently started attending as well as from the writing process. Her love for writing was inspired by a story read by her teacher at the non-formal education center run by Praksis NGO on Samos island with the support of UNHCR.
Ayat’s dream is to become an engineer and to give voice to the people of Syria who still struggle.
They told me ‘you are fine’. Who am I?
I am the person who cannot tell sorrow from joy.
I wanted to learn writing, but my pencil was tied up with chains.
I wondered how long I would keep living like this.
And my eyes wept as the clouds weep as they gather.
I wished to live a life in freedom, but I lived a life of war.
And I drew my life on the rocks, and I cried painfully.
My eyes were so full of tears that they lost sight like my trapped soul did.
I wanted my eyes to see it but they disappeared as well.
Ι wrote about what I see, even though I do not know how to write.
And I wrote about those who can see but cannot listen.
Still, they tell me ‘you are fine’.
And I ask myself again ‘who am I?’
I am here, I am here, don’t you see me?
I am just a child and I am screaming, don’t you hear me?
Even though I’m young,
The wound inside me keeps growing.
Trying to fulfil my dream,
Have they forgotten me?
I’m but a child, no other being,
Feeling empty like dead, why do I keep suffering in life?
Dwelling in a hellish tent,
Why do you keep treating me like vermin?
During the summer I’m extremely hot,
During the winter I suffer from cold,
Asking myself: Am I truly this person or somebody else?
Having already experienced the toughness of previous winters,
I ended up being the winter myself,
Facing numerous adversities.
I escaped from being without home,
To end up being a stranger in a strange land.
Trying to find someone to feel me,
even for a few seconds.
And I turned into a helpless child, still suffering.
I don’t ask anything but my childhood’s innocence.
What do you think? Is it worth suffering for all this?
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