A volunteer from Zagreb, Croatia, working with Are You Syrious?, an NGO dedicated to helping refugees. They work to ease the refugees’ difficult journeys.
This volunteer wishes to remain anonymous, and has changed the names and locations of the refugees she writes about for safety reasons. Her piece is called “On Hope” and was first published on the Are You Syrious? facebook site. We republish it here with her permission.
Summer in Tovarnik
It is the 26th December 2015 and my family and I arrive to the city of Ulm, in Germany. As I am getting out of the car, through the window glass I see a familiar face smiling at me. I hug my akhi, my brother Tariq.
More than three months have passed since we met for the first and the last time. It was the beginning of September, the weather was still incredibly hot, Hungary was putting a razor-wire fence on its borders, and Croatia became one of the stops on the Balkan Route for thousands of people who were running away from war, poverty and terror.
My husband Paolo and I were returning from the small town of Tovarnik at the Eastern border of Croatia, where we went with our friends Marko, Luka, and Mislav from the Are You Syrious? initiative, to deliver and distribute food and clean clothes to refugees. As we drove back, we were absorbing our first scenes from the meadow behind the Tovarnik train station– thousands of men, women and children spread on the meadow, in the tents and outside on the grass, sitting in small groups and talking, playing football, taking care of small children. After about 20 kilometers, I got a phone call from my friend Luka. “Hey, did you leave already? There are two guys, refugees, who need a ride to Zagreb. They are really great people.” “Let us just discuss this, I’ll call you in a minute.”
Two unknown men? At our home? Wouldn’t it be so much more convenient if they were a pregnant woman or a family with small children? We knew that we should not think about this too much, so we made a fast decision and turned our car towards Tovarnik. Two people were waiting with our friends. They looked exhausted. Their names were Tariq and Sahib. We went together to the car and as we were entering, Sahib pointed to his leg. He did not speak English but he said „It hurts.“ Later on I will find out that his leg was crushed by the Assad’s army when they were torturing him in the prison where he was taken without a plausible reason (a week after they let him go, they went to his house to say that it was a mistake). As soon as they got in the car, Tariq said: „Thank you so much for this. Now I apologize, but we have to sleep. We are so tired. We have been travelling for 25 days.“ As they fell into deep sleep, I looked at my husband. Both of us knew that it was the only right decision.
When we arrived home, I asked them what they needed. First they needed to call their families via wi-fi. I did not understand why they wouldn’t call them from my cell phone from the car, but they explained that it is safer for their families if they call home using wi-fi. Then they needed to take a shower – after showering, Tariq said that he feels like he was born again. Then they said they would like to have some tea, which they did not have in days, and they missed so much. Then they needed to take a rest that they did not have for twenty-five days.
Morning with Fairouz
The next morning, we had coffee, smoked and had breakfast together. We listened to music of a Lebanese singer called Fairouz (“In Syria, we like to start our mornings easy, with light, slow music, and her voice is perfect for the mornings.”). They were telling us parts of their incredible stories – how they tried to cross the Aegean Sea six times and how they finally managed to do it on a jet-ski. They showed us the content of their backpacks wrapped in nylon, in case they fell into the sea.
My husband went to take our 7-year old son Vito home from his grandmother’s house – we explained to him over the phone that we have guests from Syria, and that they are travelling to Germany looking for a new home for them and their families, because there is a big war in their country. He understood this without need for further explanations. They played together the entire morning. Sahib showed him pictures of his three children that were still in Syria. Tariq showed the photo of his small daughters – the younger daughter was born only a couple of days before, while he was already travelling, and he had no chance to see her.
Desperation, trust, resilience
I wanted to be such a good hostess – I was boring them with questions like “What do you need?”, and “What would you like to eat?” At some point Tariq told me “Wait a minute. I don’t need anything. What do you need? How can I help you?”
I realized that, instead of treating them as my new friends, I was underestimating their strength. Not that there is anything wrong with being a victim, but it would be wrong to accentuate it as the only, or even the main feature of the people coming to Europe. A person who we call a refugee, besides vulnerability, fosters unusual hope and resilience – no one should take this away from them. These people tried to cross a sea six times and now they are laughing with us during breakfast in the kitchen, while we are listening to Fairouz. I wondered if I would laugh again if I walked in their shoes. Anyway, I am much more careful now in equating “refugee” with “victim”.
Of course, mainstream media usually promote the image of refugees as a homogenous flow of poor, vulnerable, both scared and scary people, in order to feed the feeling of both fear and power within us, the spectators. Tariq told me how, at one of the borders, he shouted to one of the journalist cameraman not to film the people while they are taking food – “He wanted to send this image about the refugees. But this is not the only truth. Anybody would be hungry in this situation. I told the Red Cross worker to stop this, but he replied that the guy is only doing his job. But the selection of what you will film is also sending some kind of a message; it portrays us in a certain way.”
Before noon, we started to discuss my friends’ departure. As they were connected with many other refugees on the route thanks to their smartphones, they were getting different information about the conditions and risks in making a choice between Hungary and Slovenia to continue the voyage. One of the information that they got was the regarding a rich Syrian family who tried to cross Hungary in a clandestine way, using the smugglers’ “services”. The information that my friends got was that the family was killed by the mafia as they entered Hungary, with all their belongings stolen. It was difficult to estimate whether this was true or not, but it was scary nevertheless. I could only imagine how intimidating it must be to travel in this way, not knowing whom you can trust and from whom you must run away. As if there was a sign put on you that labeled you as prey.
Finally, my friends decided to go to the Bregana border crossing, where they would wait for hours because Slovenian police let in only groups of fifty people, with long pauses between each group. We drove them to the border, and as we encountered a group of volunteers, Tariq and Sahib approached them and offered their help. We hugged and exchanged the words “Goodbye, good luck, and thank you.”
Casablanca end
My family and me drove back home in silence. Something changed in all three of us. Months will pass until we meet Tariq again, but in the meantime, he and Sahib will write almost daily.
“We managed to cross, there are some good people who are helping us.”
“We are now in Salzburg. Thank you for everything. Now I have my second family.”
“Finally, we reached Germany.”
“How are you, okhti (sister)? How is my angel Vito? What did you do today?”
We decided to meet Tariq during winter vacation. In the meantime, Sahib was accommodated in another part of Germany, and he could not join us. So one Muslim, one agnostic, one semi-religious Christian and one child met in Germany for the second day of Christmas.
The evening we arrived, Tariq made us promise him we will not mention borders or wars, at least for the first few hours. “Let’s talk about nice things, let’s talk about what we will do when my family comes and we go to the Croatian coast in the summer.” So we talked about our lives before we met, about our families and our pasts. But war and borders could not be avoided – they were silently present in the cracks between our words and our worlds. Tariq, who possesses a degree in law, showed us a photo of him before the war, when he was working as a trader and entrepreneur, leading 4 shops and employing 14 persons – in the photo he had 20 kilograms more than at the moment we met. The other photo he showed us was the one of his little daughter Mais, who looked exactly like him. In the photo, Mais is eating cheese and bread, and she is smiling.
“This is a very joyful photo”, says Tariq, “that morning we found food and we were so happy.”
Brothers from the Balkan Route
Tariq always recognizes Arabic in the streets; his ears are always on alert for the language that is placed in his heart. As we are walking besides the streams of the winter Ulm, he approaches groups of people, mostly young men, who speak his language.
He starts with “You speak Arabic? Where are you from? How did you come?”, and the stories begin to flow at the Ulm banks. I am from Palestine, from Hebron, I was a journalist there, but there is no future there for me and my wife. I am an 18-year old boy from Syria, I used to play soccer there, left back, you know, I am very good and I hope that I will continue to play it here. I am a 22 year old car mechanic, my knee was broken in Syria, I am learning the language here and I want to find a job, it doesn’t matter which one, I don’t shy away from work. Yes, I came through Greece, Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia, Hungary, Slovenia, and Austria. When? A month ago, two months, ago three months ago, in the summer. Yes, the police beat us on the way. Yes, this is a place I was looking for. I feel good here.
A place I was looking for?
“This is a good country; I think that most of the people who came feel like that. I go to schule, I learn the language, the German people who help us, my friends, are very nice. We can move, they give us food, and some money for the basic needs. In the other camp I was even working as a translator, I even got some little salary, this was even better, because I worked for it.
But I know that it is not so in every place. Some of my friends in Saxonia had bad experiences in the camp, the guards were harsh, they were provoking the people by telling them that they are cowards, why did they not stay and fight, sometimes they even beat them. And they even met some people who said racist things to them.
We are walking along the Danube river, looking at the beautiful houses with small gardens and joking that each of us will sell a kidney, and we will buy a house side by side, so that we can be neighbors.
“Happy?”,Tariq asks me.
“Happy”, I reply. “And you, happy?”
“Happy.”
25 days
Finally, Tariq promises to tell me the story of his travel. We are sitting in the hotel lobby, drinking instant tea from the machine and smoking. “Now I will tell you my story” he begins. I can see on his face that he is concentrating not to miss anything.”I lived in Aleppo. My wife Naila and me had a good life before the war, and we could see that the things in Syria were getting worse, war was everywhere in Syria. On one side, ISIS was controlling parts of the city and the Government regime pressed from the other side. There was no food, no electricity; we had water only for a few hours and not every day. I made the decision to leave, and then I told her this. She agreed. There was no hope in Syria. All Arabic countries closed their borders. I decided to go to Europe, doesn’t matter where. But to Europe. Naila was pregnant with our other daughter, it was impossible for us to leave together.
Sahib’s and my voyage, which lasted for twenty-five days, started in Lebanon at the beginning of September. I took the bus to Tripoli, it was very hot and the voyage lasted for five or six hours. I felt such fear during the entire trip. I paid USD 400 for this voyage; many people lost all their money in this first part of the journey. We needed to pay the additional USD 200 to the bus driver, he was the one negotiating with the soldiers at the military point crossing to let us go and not to ask too many questions. Surprisingly, we passed the military point without problem this time.
In Tripoli, we waited in the heat under the sun, the soldiers were so rough, they did not want to give us any water, and the people were falling down from the heat and exhaustion. When I traveled on the big boat to Turkey, I felt hope. We departed to Mersin at 4 o’clock in the morning. Finally, I tried to sleep, because I was tired of Lebanon.
When we got to Turkey, our Turkish friends helped us, they were so nice, and when we got to Mersin I felt for the first time after many days that I can sleep without fear. From Mersin we traveled to Izmir by bus. It is in Izmir that the dangerous travel begins.
Sahib and I, like other people, decided to find a smuggler, which we did. It cost EUR 1,200 to cross the Aegean Sea. The smuggler had a nickname, Abu Said. They always have a nickname, Abu Said, Abu Murat, Abu Ahmed… They had a boss, who was Turkish, and the smuggler was Syrian. When we were in the city, the smuggler said that there will be thirty people on the boat. But, when we came to the port, there were fifty people. And it was such a small boat.
Yet, we could not change our mind anymore, the smuggler and his friends had knives and guns. He didn’t shoot, but a friend of mine who also crossed, told me that they refused to go on the small boat with too many people, and the smuggler shot in the air.
On our boat, there were too many people and it almost capsized. Luckily, as we found out later on, a Turkish fisherman alerted the Turkish police about the small boat that is about to sink, so they found us and they took us to the coast. They were nice; they gave us food and cigarettes, and on a travel like this it means a lot.
The second try was terrible. We almost reached the island of Samos, we needed half an hour more to reach the coast. But the Greek military spotted us, came to our boat, took our money and gas, and took us to the No Man’s Sea. Then they pierced our boat and just left us there.
People were crying, there were children on the boat. We were asking the soldiers – “Why are you doing this? Please don’t do this to us. Why do you do it?” They couldn’t have done it to us on the coast. But we were at the No Man’s Sea, and at the No Man’s Sea, the rules are different.
All of us were swimming in the sea for hours, without any water or food, so that the children, who were with us, could stay on what remained of the boat. Finally, the Turkish coast guard found us and took us to the coast.
They took us to prison in an old basketball stadium. We stayed there for two days and got only one bottle of water. There was three hundred of us, three hundred refugees in the stadium. One of the police officers was nice, we gave him money and he went out and brought us some cigarettes. I was in a prison as I was a criminal.
Here I stopped Tariq in telling his story.
“How can you say that? How can you say that you are criminal when you’re not? What all our states did to you was criminal.”
“But I am. I know I am illegal. We knew that we were breaching the law of each of these countries. But I wanted to cross. I wanted to find my freedom. I thought that I could find freedom in Europe. I thought I could find good life in Europe. For me, this was my hope.”
It hurt me to hear that he perceives himself as an illegal human being. Is this the message that was sent to these people on my behalf as well?
“For the third time we talked to the smuggler and he asked for USD 800 from each of us in advance. He disappeared with our money and we couldn’t find him anymore. So, this was already the third time that we tried.
For the fourth time we went on a boat, but we passed too close to the NATO point. They spotted us right away and took us back to the coast. There were two Turkish smugglers on the boat with us. When they were taking us back, one of them asked me to say in front of the police that we were only tourists and that they did not ask us for money. He said that if we do this, he will take us across for free. Me and my friend Sahib did as he asked, but his promise was false, of course.
Next time, this was the fifth time, he asked us for USD 1000. But we went on a jet-ski, two of us sitting behind the smuggler. We almost reached the coast that time, we were so near, but the smuggler thought he spotted the Greek military. So we returned once more.
Finally, the sixth time we crossed. It was so dangerous, the waves were so high, we were on a jet ski, and we spent more time in the sea than above the sea. We were falling into the sea… But we made it.”
Tariq smiles. By now, each of us drank at least 4 cups of instant tea and smoked about a dozen cigarettes in front of the hotel.
“You know, before my first attempt at crossing the sea, when I was still in Izmir, I wrote a letter. I wrote a letter and put it in a bottle, like in a real story, and threw it into the sea. In the letter I wrote that I will cross for my wife and children. That I will cross for my mother and my sisters. I wrote that I want to cross to find a good life for all of us. I was afraid, but I knew that this is my only way, the only choice that I have. I prayed for God to let me cross the sea, and to save my family. I wrote to my wife and my daughters that I love them, and that I will love them even if I die in the sea. Who knows, maybe someone found this letter, who knows. And maybe this person who found it also said “Maybe he crossed, who knows.”
I am hearing the way Tariq uses the verb ‘to cross’, as if it was an intransitive verb, as if it was not only the sea to be crossed, but also something even more essential to his existence, something that will change him profoundly. To cross means to reclaim your right to live, and to live well.
In that moment we are finishing our fifth cup of instant tea, and there are two people, a man and a woman, knocking on the glass door of the lobby. Because it is a low budget hotel, the reception is closed after ten o’clock in the evening. The couple is drunk and they are trying to tell us something that we cannot hear well. Tariq stands up and places his body under the door opening sensor. The door opens, and the couple enters.
“We could not remember the entering code…sorry!”, the guy says in German.
“Don’t worry, you can enter freely”, Tariq replies, “There are no borders here.”
As the couple goes upstairs to the rooms, we resume the journey.
“After the sixth time we finally reached the island of Samos. I felt free. But the Greek military took us and grouped us with other refugees. It was hot and the sun was high. I put on my sunglasses. Greek commander saw me and kicked me in the head. He yelled: “Who do you think you are, a fucking tourist?! You are only an illegal migrant here!”
We paid for all the transport at the island. We reached Athens by ferry boat. In the ferry, they separated the refugees from the tourists. It reminded me of what fascists did, the way they separated the people. We wanted to eat something, but it was impossible to get some food because the row of refugees waiting to order something was so long, while the row of tourists consisted of three or four people. Finally, we met a nice lady who helped us to get some food from the “tourist canteen.”
Then we continued to Macedonia, it took us about seven hours by bus from Athens to Idomeni.
It was very bad in Macedonia. We waited for hours for the train to Serbia in the train station, with no food and no water. And everything was triple the price for us, bottles of water, cigarettes, food. We needed to pay EUR 25 per person to go on the train. In the train there were so many people, about five hundred people in only three wagons and it was so hot… People were lying on the floor, you could not walk. So many children cried, and they cried because they couldn’t move, they could not go to bathroom and they needed to go to the bathroom. But they did not allow us to move. And the police there, it was, how do you call the opposite of angels – yes the devil’s police.
When we reached Serbia, it was better, there were Serbian and Albanian people who were so nice, giving us food and water. But when we reached Belgrade, the taxi driver charged us EUR 10 to reach the bus station from the church.
We reached the Croatian border by bus. And this is where we met.
There was the police, and the Red Cross, and so many people, thousands of people. And they said that it will rain that night. We wanted to go on the train to Hungary, but only one thousand people could go on the train. And there were four thousand people there… They were letting only women and families with children. And everybody wanted to go. So the police yelled, “Crouch on the ground! Don’t move!”
My friend Sahib had iron in his leg, because they crushed it when they tortured him in prison in Syria, and he could neither crouch nor sit on the ground. I only wanted to go and find some wi-fi to call my family. I didn’t speak to them for days, they were worried. And I only wanted to hear their voices, I missed them so much. My little daughter Leila was born about ten days before I reached Croatia, when I was away, and I still haven’t seen her. I was so tired; I haven’t slept for three days by then. I was fed up with everything. I started to cry.
Then I saw a guy, a volunteer who approached me. It was our friend Marko. He spoke kindly to me; he asked me what I needed. I said that my friend cannot sit on the ground because of the iron in his knee, and that I need to take some rest and to find some wi-fi to call my family. He touched my face and dried my tears with a handkerchief. He offered me his phone. I said that it was too dangerous for my family in Syria to call them from a foreign SIM card, I needed wi-fi. Then he said that he will call his friends who will take Sahib and me to Zagreb to rest. And these friends were you and Paolo.
Now I can tell you, I wasn’t too sure if we should go with you. By that time, we heard a lots of stories about Syrian people gone missing in the Balkans, especially in Hungary.”
I did not tell Tariq that I had one such moment of hesitation, too. I was so glad that I had not overthought my decision at that moment and I hoped that, if I had, I would have made the same decision.
“You know everything about the rest of our journey in Kroatien. I am so happy that I met you, you are my second family, I tell this to everyone. You gave me hope, even now when you came to visit me here in Germany. For me, it mean that I have somebody who cares about my life.”
It was pleasant to hear his words, yet I knew that he and Sahib gave us the possibility to act in such way that in ten year from now we can look ourselves in the mirror without shame. I was grateful to them for this present.
“We waited for a long time at the Slovenian border, for so many hours. They were letting such small numbers of people to cross the border, something like fifty, and then no one for hours. At one point, we blocked the highway and start to yell ‘Let us go!’ We were apologizing for this to the people waiting in their cars, and many people said bad things to us, like “Why don’t you go to your own countries and block the highway there?” At some point there was a TV helicopter flying above us. We started to joke “Save us from here!”
It is such hypocrisy, you know? I used to see people on TV, politicians from Europe, who talked about humanity and human rights and I thought that it was true, at least in part. I wanted a bit of that humanity. But when I arrived, the borders were closed, and there was a razor-wire fence. I thought, was this the humanity I saw, the one that they talk about? I just wanted to be a part of that humanity from TV.
We arrived first to Salzburg, where we met many good people that helped us, and then finally went to Germany. I am happy here. I have friends, even German friends, I am learning the language. I want to find work and to connect with more German people. I want to forget everything bad that happened to us, and start from beginning. It is not easy; in Syria, I had many things, I was rich, I was somebody. Naila and me, we had a good life. I want a better life for my family, and I want my family to join me. This is what keeps me going. Naila and me, we have hope. You know, living a life without hope is the worst fate, not wanting to go on, not wanting to learn the language, not wanting to continue living, only to sleep, in hopelessness. I want to go on. I want to live a good life.”
Jesus was Italian
At breakfast next morning, all four of us sit at the table in the hotel dining room, Paolo, Vito, Tariq and me. Paolo brings honey to the table.
He says, “You see, Tariq, this is Italian honey.”
“I wonder if Jesus Christ was also Italian”,Tariq replies.
“No, but his grandmother might have been. Anna is Italian name.”
“So you think that she was preparing pasta for him when he was little?”
“No. Little Jesus loved Caprese salad. You must know this if you want to live in Europe.”
We laugh, while war is watching us through the cracks. We see it clearly, as it is sitting on the empty chairs at our table. Its presence is strong, but so is our growing determination to save these places for our sister, our wife, and our nieces, our daughters, who share the same hope somewhere far away, and at the same time so close, in Syria.