We could finally afford to live in the house of our dreams. It was outside the centre of Homs, the family home, big and spacious. After years of hard work as a teacher, my husband had saved enough money to renovate it. I was happy, finally our children would have enough space to grow up happy. I would spend whole days together with my sisters thinking about the furniture and the parties we could organise in that house. The whole family gathered, we were all in it together.
I still remember the marble countertop in the kitchen, it was new, it shone. I could have kneaded bread and cooked all the food I wanted in that beautiful kitchen. Everything was ready, all that was missing were the appliances, the beds and the upholstery. I remember that long discussion with my husband. That month he wanted to spend the surrender money to buy a small car, suddenly ours had broken down. He insisted on spending that money and I angrily wanted the washing machine, beds and carpets. I wanted to move out as soon as possible. After a long discussion he had won. He had bought a car, small and ugly. Every day I looked at it and it made me angry, that damn car had delayed the life I dreamed of in that house. A few weeks later, that damn car became our home and our only way of salvation. In Homs the situation was getting bad the army was entering houses, taking men away. For us, the chances were slim of killing or being killed. But we had a car and on those nights that car became home, consolation and salvation. That small, ugly car took us to Turkey just over the border to Syria, we saved ourselves before things got even more terrible. We were saved now 7 years ago but I remember clearly what my husband said to me on the way “did you see? the washing machine has no wheels love” we burst out laughing, a laughter that had the sound of the countryside after a storm.
We always believed in change and we always fought for it, we never believed that there were only those two terrible ways, we fought for a third way that of freedom. And that is why almost all the men in my family are dead or missing, the lucky ones are abroad like us, broken in soul. The women in my family are tired, sick, some dead of heartbreak, what mother has a heart strong enough to endure the scenes of her children being tortured and killed. The price of freedom.
When I arrived in Turkey, it took me a few years to get back on my feet, we had lost everything. My husband didn’t, he went on and supported every single person who still believed in a better future. We had lost brothers, friends, we had lost our land and the war was not over. It continued to destroy everything, and it continues. A monster hungry for hope, that’s how I describe it to my children. This shit eats hope
After a few years I managed to get back on my feet for my children. I started to take back the documents of the house and contact relatives to find out how we could safeguard what little we had left. Thank God, that area had not been bombed. Every day I prayed for us, for our people and that the only thing left in Syria would not be destroyed. “Please God, at least leave me the house, I swear I will come back with all my courage that we will start again. Our house was never bombed but became a base for several army paratroopers, the marble shelf riddled with bullets, the doors used to warm the freezing nights. Today a man lives in that house with his family, an important man, famous for having collaborated with the army in various massacres. In every way we have tried to take the house back, but that house today is occupied by those who chose to kill their brothers and those who ate the hope of us all.
I am tired, sometimes I cry, here I have no friends and no sisters. But I do not give up, one day, God willing, we will return home. I will also take my little and last daughter with me, I have named her Amal which means hope.
by Samar