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Dear refugee child leaving your country,
Many years ago, I was just like you. When I was six years old, my mother held my left hand firmly on the right. My father brought a white bag with paperwork and a plastic basket with rice balls and a bottle of water to his family. My eight-year-old sister is standing, stiff, still standing behind our father, in front of our mother and me. We lined up and were one of the many refugee families who boarded the plane. This is the first time I have embarked on such a journey, I have abandoned everything I know.
I was born in a refugee camp. This is what I know. My grandmother told me the story of life before the war. The mountain was high enough to grow into the sky. My father talked about a dream that one day my sister and I might be educated. My mother yearns for a life where a person can work hard for the future, not just waiting for someone. I live a life like this: the adults who love me hold me in their arms, and the cousins ​​run around from sunrise to sunset.
Suddenly, the adults said that our life could not continue. The camp is closing. All the refugees had to leave. “Where are we going?”-all the children want to know. The adults tried their best to answer us, “A better place,” they said. “A place away from here, where you will be safe.”
For my family, the place we are going is called the United States of America. That is a place called Minnesota. I asked: “How? How do we live there?” My parents can only say: “We don’t know. This is new to all of us. They speak different languages ​​and eat different foods. You will go to school. Let’s find out together.”
When it’s time to say goodbye, I don’t have anything to offer-even to the person who loves me the most-no toys to leave for my cousins ​​who used to be my playmates and friends, for those aunts and uncles who told me to come Say, “We love you. We will see you one day.” I only have big ears and big eyes. Big ears will hold their words tightly at all moments in the future. With big eyes, when I feel lonely for our common life, I can remember their faces.
“We become the same with the world around us”
On the plane, I was scared. The higher we go, the more uncomfortable my body is. All our refugees are sitting in a row at the back of the plane. I sat with my mother. A stranger was sitting next to us. A man with freckles on his arms has thick and curly hair underneath. He looked straight ahead. My father and my sister are sitting on the other side of the aisle. They said we could change seats if we wanted to-no one could tell the difference between me and my sister.
We don’t look like it. Of course we don’t look like the other kids on the plane. But when we left the refugee camp, it seemed that everyone couldn’t tell us apart. At the hospital where we were given the injection, the nurses looked confused, pointed at me or my sister, and told us to nod before they knew who we were. On the plane, the stewardess pointed at different children and different parents, always shrugging. This or that? Do they belong to this parent or another? More shoulders are raised for a second, hands are raised in the air, then shoulders are lowered. We have become the same as the world around us.
My stomach is full of air. My heart is heavy with tears. I can’t cry. I don’t want to be a reason to embarrass mom and dad. I miss my grandmother. The thought of her wrinkled face and tears sliding down the wet lines into the crevices of the wrinkles made my lips tighten, for fear that they would open and everything would slip off. I kept swallowing the emptiness in my heart.
When the plane landed, I saw lights and shiny metal everywhere. The tulou I knew was gone forever. Replaced by carpets, hard cement and other things. Glass is everywhere: we can see through many walls. Refugees huddled together to make room for walkers who seemed to know where they were going. The adult held the child very close. The older child hugs the younger child. There is an invisible smell in the air. The smell of earth, wind, water and trees disappeared. The plane took us to a place where people talk quietly in different languages, and there are only a few people smiling, so we know they don’t hate us.
Feeling unsafe on the road to safety
When we reached where we were going: a place full of buildings, people, and streets, I felt smaller than ever. I watched my parents go around, trying to understand this new place and how they keep us safe here.
Refugee child, I know what it feels like to feel insecure even on the road to safety. I know how it feels when you know that adults are worried and scared and busy keeping everyone going, so there is no room to stop. There is no room available. There is no room for storytelling. There is no place to play. When it feels like the world may not have room for you at all.
Refugee children leave your country to go to a new country. I want you to know that maybe no one on that plane knows what you see, hear or feel. Not your sister, maybe not even your mother or father. But these things are already teaching you what kind of person you will be. You already know that there will be a lonely place deep in your heart, forever. One day, when you grow up, when you know that the world is bigger than anyone, and home is a place you carry inside and build outside, you will be fine.
After so many years, I am here, seeing you in the news, hearing you in the radio, and reading you in the book. I feel my throat tighten again, and everything is pounding in my heart. No one knows you. I carry.
Far away teaser,
Adults as refugee children (perhaps always)
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