A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea

by Melissa Fleming

  More and more people began to leave Daraa, although the thought of fleeing home had never entered Doaa’s mind. She was convinced that the uprising would soon end and that they could just start over and resume normal lives. She felt that the people who fled were abandoning a cause more important than staying alive, and she couldn’t imagine ever leaving the home she loved so much.

  However, as every day in Daraa became a lottery of life and death, the stresses of survival began to take their toll on the entire family. The girls suffered from insomnia and panic attacks, and they were always nervous and on edge, constantly bickering over small things. Hamudi would cry every time he heard a loud noise, and the sounds of the bombs outside made him hysterical. He clung to Hanaa’s side, following her around the house, afraid to lose sight of her.

  Doaa, too, was feeling the physical effects of stress. She lost her appetite and grew extremely thin. Hanaa suspected that Doaa was anemic. She also began to get regular sties in her eyes, and one morning she awoke to discover that her entire eyelid was completely swollen.

  “We have to go to the doctor now, hayati,” Hanaa said when she saw her. “Your whole eye is infected.”

  But a trip to the clinic was risky—they had to cross areas of fighting to get there, and it would take at least an hour. Despite the risk, Hanaa called for an appointment that day and found a taxi that would take them. Security forces were on every corner, and only a few civilians were on the streets. When Hanaa and Doaa arrived at the clinic, they hurried inside.

  The doctor, a distant relative, took one look at Doaa’s eye and said he would have to lance the sty immediately. With no money, Hanaa explained that they couldn’t afford the five hundred Syrian pounds for the operation.

  “Don’t worry, my dear, I’ll do it for free. We are family, after all,” the doctor said, smiling at Doaa, “and I don’t want you to lose that pretty eye.” Doaa was too nervous about the procedure to smile back and held tight to her mother’s hand.

  When Doaa saw the long needle the doctor would use to inject anesthetic in her eye and the razor he would use on the sty, she burst into tears. The doctor comforted her, instructing her to close her eyes and pretend she was sleeping. Doaa obeyed and he quickly set to work. He injected the anesthetic in the sty and covered her eye with a bandage. Afterward he gave her a prescription for antibiotics and sent Doaa and her mother on their way with instructions to return in a week.

  The operation hadn’t taken more than an hour, but in that time, fighting had broken out in the streets. No taxis were to be found to take them home, and Doaa was beginning to feel dizzy after her operation. Hanaa’s sister lived a fifteen-minute walk away, so Hanaa phoned to let her know they were coming, and they set off for her house. All Doaa wanted was to sit on the sidewalk and put her head in her arms. She felt weak and helpless and to walk had to lean heavily on her mother’s shoulder while gripping her hand. As they walked, a car full of men who looked like government officials approached them and slowed down.

  “Where are you going, sweetheart?” they called to Doaa, leaning out of the car. “What happened to your beautiful eye?”

  Hanaa squeezed Doaa’s hand tighter and whispered, “Don’t respond, habibti. Keep looking down.”

  Doaa, her mouth dry with fear and still weak from the operation and the anesthetic, did as her mother ordered.

  “Hey, speak to us when we talk to you,” one of the men shouted. “It’s rude not to reply.”

  Hanaa and Doaa remained silent, terrified that any acknowledgment would simply encourage the men. Doaa’s aunt’s house was now across the street as the men began to lose patience with the two women and started to get really angry.

  “Hey, bitch,” one of them shouted, “I told you, answer me when I talk to you.” At this, the rest of the men began to laugh, clearly enjoying what had become a game to them.

  Doaa looked around for help, but no one else was on the street. So they kept walking as the car trailed slowly behind them. They were steps away from Hanaa’s sister’s house when they heard the car door swing open behind them. The men were getting out of the car. Their game was over and they moved in closer to Doaa and her mother.

  Hanaa and Doaa realized that they had to make a break for it. They ran toward the house. “Ukhti [sister]!” Hanaa cried out as she banged on the door, “Open up, someone’s trying to kidnap Doaa!”

  Within seconds, Doaa’s aunt Iman opened the door and pulled them inside. “I was praying to God you would make it,” she told them as she slammed the door behind her.

  Doaa was white with fear, and Hanaa worried that she might faint. Hanaa quickly guided her to the nearest chair as Iman rushed back to the window to check if the car was still there.

  “You’re safe, they’re leaving,” Iman told them.

  “Rest now,” Hanaa reassured Doaa, “the curfew is about to start. We’re safe here.”

  “You don’t know how lucky you are,” Iman said. “Just yesterday I saw them take some girls to that park across the street. They’re torturing people there! Every night I can hear screams coming from that place.” Hearing this, Doaa’s imagination went wild. If they had taken her, she would have used her knife to kill herself. She would never stand for the indignity of whatever those men had planned for her.

  For now, Doaa was safe, although her ordeal wasn’t over.

  At nightfall, Hanaa and Doaa decided to head home. It was risky to be caught out after curfew, and—more urgently—they had to fill the prescription for antibiotics for Doaa’s eye or else it could get reinfected. They decided to take a chance and walk the back roads to their home. Iman packed a small bag of food and gave Hanaa and Doaa five hundred pounds each. Cautiously, Hanaa and Doaa slipped out into the dark.

  On their way back, they saw a small pharmacy with its light still on. Doaa stumbled inside after her mother, catching the pharmacist by surprise. She was shocked to see them at this hour: “It’s dangerous to be on the streets now. What are you doing?”

  “We need medicine. My daughter just had an operation,” Hanaa told her.

  Seeing Doaa’s eye, the pharmacist quickly filled the prescription. Doaa was feeling dizzier by the minute. She wasn’t sure she could keep standing as she fought back tears of anger and frustration.

  The pharmacist handed them the medicine, saying urgently, “Go quickly. They just killed a man outside. I heard the shots, then I heard them throw his body in the Dumpster.”

  Terrified by this story, Hanaa pulled out some money to pay the pharmacist and prepared to leave immediately, but the pharmacist refused it. “Allah ma’aku [God be with you],” she said instead. “Walk with your heads down and don’t look to your side where the Dumpster is.”

  But once outside, they couldn’t help but look. Blood dripped from the bottom slot of the Dumpster onto the street. Doaa was sick with the realization of what had just happened, but they continued on. A little farther up the road, they heard the sound of a car approaching, so she and Hanaa quickly turned to hide in the shadows of the nearest building. There they waited and watched as a group of men got out of the car, opened the trunk, carried another body to the Dumpster, and threw it in. “Shoot him again to make sure he is dead,” they overheard one of them say, then shots rang out through the air. The men piled back into the car and it disappeared up the road.

  Doaa and her mother came out of the shadows to continue their journey home. “Mama,” Doaa cried out suddenly, feeling nauseated, “I can’t walk. I’m really going to faint.”

  Hanaa held on to her daughter. “Hayati, you must. We’ll go slowly, I’ll support you.”

  Summoning all of her strength, Doaa followed her mother. For the next hour, they crept along the walls trying to blend in with the buildings. When they eventually saw the lights of their house, Doaa thought she might faint with relief, while Hanaa said a prayer of thanks. They had never been more afraid than they were that day.

  That night, while the children slept, Hanaa and Shokri decided it wa
s time to leave Syria. It was naïve to believe that their lives would return to normal anytime soon, and they knew how close they had come to losing Doaa that day. Shokri had already lost his livelihood and worried it was only a matter of time before he would lose his girls. Their neighborhood was emptying day by day. All the men of fighting age had disappeared, having either joined the Free Syrian Army, been arrested, or been killed.

  In the morning, Shokri picked up the phone and called the only person he knew who had the financial means and connections to help them—his son-in-law Islam, in Abu Dhabi. When he answered, Shokri told him, “We’re leaving. Help us get to Egypt.”

  FOUR

  Life as a Refugee

  Doaa knelt on the backseat of the car. Through tears she stared out the rear window as her country faded away behind her. Saja, Nawara, and Hamudi were crammed in next to her, making it difficult for her to take a full breath. Her parents shared the front seat with Khaled, her father’s friend who was driving them out of the country, staring steadily ahead. Out the window she could hear the muffled sounds of sporadic shooting, and her despair deepened as she realized that this would not be just a short family trip. Her sobs grew heavier as the reality that this departure might last forever began to sink in.

  She did not want to leave. She’d promised herself that she would never abandon the revolution and had begged her father to let her stay behind. “Leaving Syria would be like taking my soul away from me,” she told him, her voice trembling.

  “I am your father and I need to keep your soul alive,” he replied.

  The night before they left, they had only a few hours’ warning. They had to quickly bid good-bye to friends and had a wrenching farewell with Doaa’s older sister Asma, who was staying behind with her husband and children. They also called Ayat, who had left several weeks before to join her husband in Lebanon. The call from Islam, the husband of Doaa’s other sister Alaa, came at 10:00 p.m. He said that he was transferring money to them for ferry tickets from Jordan to Egypt and advised them to leave for Jordan at once. Doaa, Saja, and Nawara sobbed as they packed and hugged Asma and their cousins again and again. “You will be back,” Asma assured them. But when? Doaa wondered, looking into her sister’s face, trying to memorize it.

  The next morning at nine, they packed their suitcases into Khaled’s car trunk and piled into the car. At the last checkpoint on their way to the border, Doaa muttered aloud, “This feels like they are closing the lid of my coffin.” She looked out the window and began whispering good-bye to everything she saw. “Good-bye, streets. Good-bye, trees. Good-bye, Daraa. Good-bye, weather. Good-bye.” A tear dropped on the car seat as she leaned out the window for air.

  Shokri twisted around in his seat to look at Doaa, his eyes filled with anguish as he took in her sorrow. He knew how distressed his family was, but he’d made the hard decision to leave behind the life they’d built together in order to protect them. He knew that Doaa and her siblings might not understand that now, but he wanted her to see that he was trying to do what was best.

  “Do you think I wanted to leave Daraa?” he asked, fighting to keep his voice steady. He would have done anything to spare his family pain. “I don’t have a choice. I won’t risk you girls being kidnapped.”

  By that time, all three girls were sobbing. Khaled chimed in to offer his support to his friend: “Your father is right to take you away from this madness. He is only thinking of keeping you safe.”

  Doaa trusted Khaled, someone she had known all her life, and part of her knew that he was right. She was grateful to him for helping her father take care of the family and did her best to mask her disappointment. No one in the car could imagine it then, but months later they would learn that back in Daraa Khaled had been killed in the war.

  There were seven checkpoints along the fifteen-kilometer route to the border. At one, security guards opened the trunk, then their suitcases, and tore through the family’s belongings. At another, they were interrogated. The soldiers demanded to know why they were leaving Syria. “My husband is sick,” Hanaa lied. “We have to leave to get medical care for him.” A small part of Doaa secretly hoped they would be turned back so that they could go home again, but at her mother’s response, the guard just shrugged and waved them on. When they finally reached the Jordanian border, Doaa looked over her shoulder at her homeland, taking everything in.

  “I envy the mountains and the trees and the rocks because they will be able to breathe Daraa’s air and I won’t,” she whispered, taking one last, longing look at her home.

  It was November 2012, one year and eight months since the violence in Syria first began. Though figures vary widely depending on who is counting, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which tracks the death toll in the conflict, estimates that over forty-nine thousand people had been killed by that time. It was impossible to know how many had disappeared or were behind bars in government prisons. The war would only become more deadly, and by its fifth year, according to UN estimates, over 250,000 people would be killed and over 1 million injured. Meanwhile, 5 million Syrians, such as Doaa’s family, would be forced to flee across borders, while 6.5 million would be internally displaced, often forced to move several times to other parts of the country where they could find pockets of safety. By 2016, Syrians would become the largest displaced population in the world.

  As Khaled steered his vehicle to the Nasib border crossing, the family saw what must have been two hundred cars lined up for entry into Irbid, the border town in Jordan. They inched forward, watching as some cars ahead moved across the border while others were turned back. As they got closer to the front of the line, Doaa saw the tension growing in her mother’s shoulders and the tightness in her father’s jaw as he stiffened in the front seat. Doaa had been sitting still in the car for so long that she wanted to scream. Finally, when they reached the border control, the official told Shokri that crossing would cost ten thousand pounds per person. Shokri had only seven thousand Syrian pounds and three hundred Egyptian pounds left to his name. He tried to negotiate with the border guards, but to no avail. The officers just folded their arms and shook their heads. Doaa wished she could shout in their indifferent faces. The family was ordered to turn around. Khaled suggested that they park the car off to the side for a moment to think up a new plan, and Shokri and Hanaa wearily agreed. They had left home that morning at nine, and with all the checkpoints and the lines of cars trying to leave, by that time it was almost midnight. They pulled the car over and stepped out, shivering in the cold November air and trying to formulate a new plan.

  Doaa couldn’t sit still another minute crammed in the backseat with her siblings. As soon as they pulled over, she climbed out of the car and stretched her arms over her head, her tight muscles aching after the long ride. As she walked around the parking area, she saw row after row of cars full of people trapped as she was. They were all refused entry to Jordan, but no one wanted to start their engines to turn back. Among the crowd she heard women crying and babies howling. Men and women wandered among the parked cars, asking for help and desperately trying to find some way to get across the border, while children sat on the ground too exhausted from the long journey to play. It looked as if half of Daraa were stuck at the border. Doaa surveyed the scene, wishing she could be anywhere but in this crowded, despair-filled parking area. Then all of a sudden, to her amazement, she spotted her uncle Walid, Hanaa’s brother, sitting at a rickety table displaying a stack of newspapers. He was once an engineer, but had lost his job when the war started and had now resorted to selling newspapers at that very border crossing! For a moment, Doaa just stared at him, not believing that it was really him. Then, she rushed over. Intent on his reading, he didn’t notice Doaa until she was standing right in front of him. Walid looked up from his paper, startled, then a smile of delight and recognition crept across his face at the sight of his niece. Doaa immediately began explaining what had happened, speaking as quickly as she could and pointing to the car. Walid’
s face grew more serious as he listened to her story, then he took both her hands in his and pulled her close to him. “Go back to the car and wait,” he instructed her. “Don’t go anywhere.” Doaa rushed back to the car and told her parents what had happened, and they did as instructed. Within an hour, the Al Zamel family was on a list of people allowed into Jordan. They assumed that Walid had paid a bribe that set them on their way into exile as refugees.

  Doaa and her family were lucky. Crossing the border was known to be fraught with danger and difficulty; it took bribes and several attempts to make it. As the war raged on, crossing would become much more arduous. Refugee numbers swelled in Syria’s neighboring countries Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey, as well as in Egypt and Iraq, and finding refuge would become increasingly difficult. Neighboring countries, concerned about security and wary of the numbers of refugees in their care, began to tightly control their borders, allowing only severe humanitarian cases to cross.

  The Al Zamels were indeed lucky to leave when they did. Crossing into Jordan, they headed to the border city of Irbid, where one of Shokri’s brothers lived. He was there to pick them up as they arrived. They piled out of Khaled’s car and said a grateful farewell to him, as he had to return to Daraa. The family spent the next three days in Irbid, waiting for their ferry to Egypt. Shokri was the most anxious of all of them to leave; after his time in prison, he was leery of spending any time in Jordan.

  At daybreak on November 17, 2012, Doaa and her family boarded a bus for the coast. They traveled down the length of Jordan along the border with Israel, past the Dead Sea, and finally to the port town of Aqaba, where ferries departed for Egypt.