Melisa
This story is a chapter from the book that I have written for my Personal Project about the lives of Syrian refugees that I interviewed in a refugee camp in Turkey.
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For a long time, they didn’t even turn on the lights to avoid any attention. The dark room was like a place out of time, a place to escape the reality of their sorrowful lives. The room was filled with objects in monochrome, even though a little daylight could have brought out the color that was taken away from them, opening or even gazing through the wood-covered window was forbidden. From time to time they would hear nothing but the baby in the room crying. Servan, her dad, her pregnant mother and her baby brother were planning to leave the house for a while now.
She was dazed by the light that hit her face when she left the two small rooms where she was hiding with 18 people, 8 of them being children. It was hard for Servan to leave although this house brought nothing but miserable memories to her that made her suffer. Servan and her family went to the bus terminal in order to go to Hatay, the closest town in Turkey. She looked around and saw those people who looked like they barely collected a few items for their departure. They looked just like herself, desperate and scared. Everyone slowly got on the bus not knowing that this would be their last time seeing their country. There was a great silence, nobody talked. Probably they all were thinking about their lives that they were leaving behind.
It had been more than three hours since they were on the road. Servan sat with her mother, and brother who was sitting on their father’s lap. She looked at her mom with a worried face while wiping away the sweat from her face. Suddenly the bus stopped. Servan turned her head to the window to see what was going on. Four soldiers were on her sight. One of them standing in front of the bus, one talking to the driver and the other two waiting for the doors to open. As soon as the doors opened they rushed in as if something was wrong. The soldiers, quickly checked all of the ID cards and pulled many men off the bus, including Servan’s father. The soldiers were not responding and hitting those people mercilessly, while Servan’s father was calmly asking the reason he was being dragged outside with the rest of the men. Servan’s mother got up from her seat, trying her best to reach out for her husband. With the command of the soldier who stood in front of the bus, the driver started driving again without those men who got forced to leave and Servan’s father was one of them.
It was more than crying, her mother sank to her knees at where she stood. Her tears mingled with the rain outside and her gasping wails echoed around the bus. Servan was at her mother’s side as her daughter, trying to be strong for her yet she struggled to keep her tears silent. Nobody knew where all the men were being taken to or the reason to it but they still couldn’t do anything to stop it. The bus rocked them from side to side as they traveled these unfamiliar roads, their brains didn't even afford them the time to daydream or rest. They were going through hell on earth. Nobody was chattering, some people were trying to cope with their sadness by sleeping while the others let out their desolated sobs. It was the kind of sob that would come from someone who would be drained of all hope. And so, it goes on that way, everyone all together and separate at the same time, feeling all the same turns and bumps and most importantly, the same destructive emotions.
After two hours which felt like eternity, they finally made it to Hatay. However, because of stress Servan’s mother got affected and her water broke two weeks earlier than expected. It was chaotic people were yelling at each other for someone to call the ambulance. When the ambulance came they rushed her mother into the car while Servan held her brother with one and her mother with the other. The ride to the hospital was more terrifying than the accident itself; with every bump that the ambulance made, Servan's anxiety peaked higher. Seeing her mother strapped into the stretcher while she cried in pain made her scared but she knew that this was just the beginning and she had to be strong not just for the sake of her mother but also for her little brother who stared at her with his sorrowful eyes the paramedics said that she had to give birth right there and then, she didn't have any time left. When the labor began the pain was more intense than anything Servan's mother went through. She never gave birth outside of a hospital before. Nothing could be more brutal that what she was going through. The paramedics melted into the background as if they weren't even there. Is there anything more isolating than intense pain? Doesn't pain lock us in as effectively as any prison? After, when her child was born, she looked into those new eyes while Servan tried her best not to break into tears.
You might have thought about how special this moment is. Normal families would cry because of happiness and welcome the baby but sadly that wasn’t the case with Servan and her mother. A baby was born the same day their father was taken away by soldiers, their only income source was gone, their father was gone. Her mother didn’t know how to read, write or even how to speak Turkish. Therefore, they couldn’t communicate with anyone in the ambulance. After Servan’s mother gave birth the driver started driving to the hospital in rush. All they heard was the newborn baby's cries filling the ambulance. Through exhaustion Servan's mother couldn't even find a way to smile at the baby. At that moment she began to cry because she faced the sad truth. She didn't know what do. They took Servan’s mother and their newborn sister to a hospital room but Servan and her little brother were not allowed to go into the room. They both fell asleep on the chairs outside the corridors.
As she was woken up by one of the nurses in the hospital, Servan’s brother was still on her lap sleeping. The nurse pointed at the door where her mom was in. Servan found the courage in herself to face her mom. Without waking up her brother she got up from the chair and went into the room. The room was darker compared to the blinding lights outside the corridor.
“Mom, are you awake?” Servan asked with a low voice but her mother didn’t respond instead she nodded while keeping eye contact with her daughter.
“What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know” her mother responded without getting into a further conversation. her mother really wanted to pull her daughter to her side and cry to her shoulder because just like her daughter she was also clueless.
Leaving the hospital was going to be the tricky part for them because now they also had a newborn baby to take care of which put more weight on their already collapsing shoulders. Their only plan was their dad and now that they didn’t know where he was or even if he they would be able to see him again. All they knew was that the refugee camp was their only choice.
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