The Eleven Year Old Refugee

The inspiration

“Not your typical teddy bear”, buzzfeed.com (Photo by Sarolta Ban)

My name is Sahar. I am not writer. I’m a nurse (a very overwhelmed one!). I met medium.com a couple weeks back and decided to share the story of the little girl with the biggest impact.

When I first started working at this NGO ,whose mission is to challenge poverty, I did not know that my challenge was to call myself “strong”. We work in a very poor area that lacked security and the presence of any forces of the government ( mainly a jungle). But the angle I was looking from was very narrow. I did not earn the word “strong” because I met her and she was way stronger. She had a condition,at birth, called “spina bifida” which left her with an abnormality in her left foot (not to mention urinary incontinence). Her foot was practically 45 degrees with her leg as opposed to 90 degrees in regular people.

She came in the clinic that day escorted by a few who found her. She is a Syrian kid, a refugee and she was sick. Yeah, what a beautiful combination! No, I’m not sarcastic; I’m struck.

My main “task” was to do a daily dressing on her “bad” foot. Everyday for a year, I did my job with her but I did not realize until recently what she has done to me. She taught me what it is like to be strong.

  1. Strong is to have the will to go on living with one leg and crutches and accept the bitter fact.
  2. Strong is have the power to walk from home to the clinic and then to school faster than the remarks and the looks from the little brats.
  3. Strong is to keep a smile on your face no matter how tough it gets.
  4. Strong is her.

There is this song for the band One Direction : “little things”. It plays in my mind and I think the little things that made her my favourite patient are:

Her sweet way of showing grattitude:

  1. The bracelet she made with the colored rubber bands and that she put in my hand.
  2. The fake tulips she sprayed perfume on and gave to my colleagues and me.
  3. The balloons that she kept on blowing when they grew smaller because they’re from me.
  4. And the little baby in her mom’s belly that if it happens to be a girl, she would call Sahar:)

So thank you, thank YOU for the inspiration and for touching each and every one of us in a way..