The Girl from Aleppo by Nujeen Mustafa

Author:Nujeen Mustafa
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2017-08-29T04:00:00+00:00

12

Freedom like a Normal Person

Lesbos, 2 September–9 September 2015

It felt as if we had taken a salty shower. The dinghy bumped on to the rocky shore and friendly faces and outstretched hands awaited us with towels, bottles of water and biscuits. Some of my relatives were too dazed to get out on their own and volunteers walked into the sea and helped us. They were surprised to see my wheelchair and lifted it out on to the shore. ‘You are the first refugee we have seen in a wheelchair,’ they told me.

My aunt Shereen kissed the shore and started praying. Others hugged each other or the volunteers. Nahda was crying. Some just started walking up the beach. One of my cousins remembered to take a knife to puncture the dinghy because the smuggler had told us that if it was still seaworthy the Greek coastguards might send us back. A fisherman came and took the motor.

The person who had asked if anyone spoke English was a Spanish photo-journalist. He asked me how the trip had been.

‘I enjoyed it because I don’t think I will have the chance again,’ I said.

‘Is it the first time you have seen the sea?’ he asked.

‘Yes, and it looks beautiful for me,’ I smiled.

‘What do you expect from Europe?’ was his last question.

I thought for a moment as this was important. ‘I expect freedom like a normal person,’ I replied.

We had landed in a place called Skala Sikamineas, a little fishing village on the northern shore of Lesbos where many of the boats arrived. We knew Greece was in economic trouble so we were overwhelmed by how kind people were. Among the volunteers on the beach were three old women in black who brought warm milk for Nahda’s baby and reminded me of my grandmother in Kobane. We found out later that like many on Lesbos their own mothers and fathers had come to the island on boats as refugees from İzmir when it was called Smyrna, at the time that it was a mostly Greek city. Turkish soldiers attacked it in 1922 during the Greco-Turkish war, slaughtering Greeks and setting fire to the historic centre. Thousands fled across the Aegean Sea.

The old ladies led us along the shore to a little harbour of brightly painted fishing boats with a tiny white church on a rock called Our Lady of the Mermaid, and people sitting at tables outside bars eating and drinking. The village was so beautiful it looked like a postcard. Across the way was a community centre where there was a room full of dry clothes donated by local people. We pulled off the wet clothes stiff with salt and put on new ones. Nothing quite fitted and we laughed at the kids in adult-sized shirts with arms flapping.

The volunteers explained that there would be a bus next morning to the main town and port of Mitilini where refugees had to get registered in order to travel onwards. In the meantime we would

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