Romina

28.07.2024

Schülerblog: The Refugees Resilience – Romina Salarian

Lesezeit: 3 Minuten

In the midst of gun­fire, smoke clouds the air, sting­ing the eyes, while the nose clogs from the dusk set­tling around, one can see the birds leav­ing the hazy sky.

Their wings beat against the thick air, a strong con­trast to the tur­moil below. They want­ed to leave this mis­ery behind them and find a new home.

And that’s exact­ly what they did, with no bor­ders or visas stop­ping them. Each step for­ward was a defi­ance against the chaos that threat­ened to con­sume them.

As a mat­ter of fact, Mah­sa finds her­self laugh­ing while think­ing about the bird’s ease. She envies them, their effort­less flight sym­bol­iz­ing the free­dom she longs for. But amidst her envy, there’s a flick­er of deter­mi­na­tion in her eyes, a resolve to forge her own path to safe­ty and secu­ri­ty.

Mahsa’s heart pounds as she nav­i­gates the war-torn streets, her sens­es alert to every sound and move­ment. With fel­low refugees by her side, she maneu­vers through the chaos, seek­ing any route that leads away from the vio­lence. They dart from cov­er to cov­er, always on edge, know­ing that each step brings them clos­er to safe­ty but also clos­er to dan­ger. Despite the fear grip­ping her, she doesn’t lose hope for find­ing a bet­ter life behind the burn­ing hori­zon. Mah­sa sees the birds as her men­tor, wants to learn from them. She wants to be able to fly away into safe­ty.

Mahsa’s heart races as she approach­es the bor­der, full of uncer­tain­ty and fear. The sight of guards patrolling the barbed wire fences sends a chill down her spine. The guards look like drool­ing watch­dogs to her. With each step clos­er to the bor­der, the fear of exploita­tion and vio­lence grows. She knows that cross­ing ille­gal­ly means risk­ing every­thing, includ­ing sep­a­ra­tion from her friends and fam­i­ly. Yet she has no oth­er option.

War is like a hun­gry dis­ease that con­sumes every­thing that comes near it.

Mah­sa begins to iden­ti­fy with Sylvia Plath fig tree anal­o­gy. Her life is sud­den­ly branch­ing out in front of her like one big fig tree. Each fig rep­re­sent­ing a poten­tial life of hers. She sees her­self in a good sanc­tu­ary in the heart of France, in a new home in Geor­gia, and after depor­ta­tion back in Afghanistan. She can’t decide on which fig to focus on and to take, so she finds her­self starv­ing to death under the tree that is car­ry­ing figs, that have rot­ten because too much time passed.

In the mid­dle of the night, with the stars shin­ing above them, Mah­sa and some oth­er trav­el­ers are map­ping out their plan to leap upon a car­go train that will car­ry them to safe­ty. As they approach the train tracks, Mah­sa starts to feel a weird sen­sa­tion. Her smile fades away, and the real­i­ty, her tired, drained body is back. She can feel the gray in her stom­ach com­ing back, as she search­es for the rea­son for her chron­ic weari­ness in the fog­gy sky.

As the train approach­es them, they hop into a wood­en com­part­ment. Mah­sa can see the stars through the lit­tle holes in the wood­en walls.

As time pass­es and the sun begins to stretch her warm, orange arms over the hori­zon, swal­low­ing the night, Mah­sa begins to feel hope grow­ing in her. Mah­sa is ready to embrace what­ev­er the future may behold. For she knows that, despite the hard­ships she has endured, she has emerged stronger, braver, and more resilient than ever before. And with each step for­ward, she moves clos­er to real­iz­ing her dreams of peace, sta­bil­i­ty, and a brighter tomor­row.

Text von Romi­na Salari­an, 3. Sek Häne