Learn Turkish: We need to communicate with each other
His story:
At the start of the conflict, I fled from my hometown in Homs to its suburbs. I stayed there for approximately one year, hoping for the situation to de-escalate. In 2012 the situation became really terrible actually and I couldn’t go back. My father told us to come to Saudi Arabia, where he had been living since 20 years. He was able to get us visa to go there as well.
It was my first year in university when we left, I was 20 years old. I am the oldest child in my family and at a very young age I had many responsibilities. My father told me it was my responsibility, to make my family get to Saudi Arabia safely. My dad told us it would be easier to enter Saudi Arabia from Turkey, he knew those procedures. So, we came to Turkey first. It was not my choice, but my father’s. The village where we stayed was isolated from Homs due the incidents and we would not be able to go to Homs or Damascus, so we couldn’t travel from there.
I preferred to stay in Syria back then, because I thought, maybe it will get better. I thought, maybe the conflict will end soon. But when we heard that our house and our neighbourhood in Homs were destroyed by the regime, because it was controlled by rebels, I changed my mind. I realised that it would be better to leave home. We came to Turkey waiting for the visa procedures to be done.When we had just arrived here, I felt comfortable because everybody in southern Turkey was showing solidarity with us because of what was going on in Syria.
However, we didn’t want to wait in Turkey too long, so we went to Cairo, Egypt. After we had been there for three months, our visa for Qatar came. We changed our direction because two of my brothers were already working in Qatar. The family reunited in Qatar eventually and we stayed there for two years. My father suggested me to continue my studies in Turkey. I was hesitant about it, because it had been a while since I left my studies in Homs and I wanted to stay with my family. Eventually I decided to continue my studies in Turkey. Right now I am in my second year of my studies in Civil Engineering.
I would like to tell something to the Syrians who are in Turkey. Media talks about three million Syrians being in Turkey at the moment. It wasn’t my choice to come to Turkey either, but you have to make the best out of it. I would like to say: learn Turkish, we need to communicate and build trust between each other. Because if there is no trust and no communication between us, we cannot live with each other.
