Her Name Was Yasmine

Sometimes, all it takes is a balloon to make a kid smile again.

By Anonymous

It was at the beginning of September and I was going to an old bank office in Amsterdam.

The Red Cross had given me an evening shift at the refugee centre they had set up in the 15 storey building for families, women and children travelling alone. It was the first time I had seen an actual refugee camp from the inside, except from the AZC some of my classmates lived in when I was in primary school. I remember being around 12 years old and seeing how many children were living in the same place. I loved the AZC when I was young; all the people were so friendly and there was always music and a lot of children to play with. It took me while before I found out that living there was not good at all.

When I was inside and wearing a Red Cross vest, two little children came running towards me with a balloon. The girl pointed at herself and said, “Yasmine!” Then she ran to the other side of the hallway and hit the balloon. For almost half an hour Yasmine, her brother and I were playing together with some guys from security and the Red Cross. Both the children and the Dutch staff were laughing; more and more people joined in the competition to see who could hit the balloon the hardest.

The children smiled and laughed, but it never quite reached their eyes. The loss of friends and family members, the bombs falling on houses and schools and the constant fear could be seen in their eyes. I thought about my own youth and carelessness; I had nothing to be worried about.

Everyone was tired from playing so hard, and we took the children upstairs to their room. They were sharing with 25 people; babies, children, parents and grandparents. It was small — there was no privacy. But Yasmine didn’t seem to care about it. She invited us to the corner where her family slept. With her phone she took a selfie of us and told me something in Arabic. Her father could speak English and told me that the girl wanted to send the photo to her cousin who was still in Syria. Their family was not able to travel outside of the country, but they could still keep in touch through Viber.

Exhausted from the travel and the games the children fell asleep and we drank some tea with their parents. They told me they came from Damascus and had travelled for almost two months to get here. The father was a university lecturer and the mother owned and ran a shop. You could see from their faces they were homesick: they had nostalgia in their eyes as they spoke.

They told me they were very happy in Syria. Then the war started. A bomb fell on their house and they lost everything. With three small children they knew they couldn’t stay, but a lot of their family and friends stayed behind. With tears in her eyes, the mother told me about the parks in Damascus where they would have picnics in summer. I could imagine happy children playing in the sun and rolling in the grass. I thought about the picnics I had when I was young and wished that I could take this family out for a picnic one day.

After the shift I said goodbye to the family, not knowing if I would ever see them again. If I am tired from work or studying I just look for a second at Yasmine’s selfie and the tiredness disappears in a second. I am sure Yasmine, her brother, sister and parents will make a good life for themselves in Europe, and I hope one day we will meet again.