“I was making music during the darkest time of war”

When he started playing music, his mind went somewhere else. The emotion on his face cannot be described. — Lisette Scholtens

His Story

“It was in 2013, when I really started to focus on music. We used to sit all together. My parents played cards, I played music, Oud and Nay. I had learned to play violin before and the Oud and Nay but never before have I played so much music, as I did in that period. It really was a horrible period in Aleppo. But I found hope and escaped with music.

Whenever I make music, this truly comes from within. The sense of time is lost when I’m making music. Right now I am teaching young Syrians about their own culture, through traditional music and songs. Together with a friend I set up this project in January. We try to make the young people more aware of their rich roots. They are adolescents who left Syria at a young age and because of this, they don’t know anything about their own culture. I think we have a great culture and it is a pity if these people don’t learn about it.

I am starting from scratch. I have no idea where I will be in 5 years. I studied mechanical engineering, but all my concerns now are surviving and finding a job. I don’t know if I’ll get a job that I love. I am doing some translation work sometimes, but this is not on a regular basis. I am taking Turkish language courses, which requires four meetings a week during during daytime. This makes it impossible to find a job. Often I feel the dilemma of either working or learning the language. Its is a big problem for many Syrians here. I live here together with my brother but financially we are not in a stable situation. We can’t bring our family here until our own situation is fixed. Plus, I don’t want them to take the same route as I did, it was very difficult.

I left with the co-founder of a project of mine. We smuggled our way into Turkey and went through lands of almost all fighting parties. We started climbing with so many people, from newborns to very old people. It was very hard. We went from one smuggler to another. The most difficult thing about the smuggling is that you never know when you’re going to cross the border. Finally, after we crossed, we were surprised that there was nobody to show us the way. We paid a lot of money for just the crossing: 400 dollars.Though we had not any idea where we were, it was dark, I only knew I had to keep walking. I couldn’t go back. The trip was not yet getting easier. Our trip was full of obstacles and in total it took 2 days.

I would like to ask everyone to just put yourself in our shoes for a while. We didn’t choose this, we had to leave.”