“Do you know Arabian, I mean I know your family is not from here”
“Um yes.’ I responded shyly.
“I need you to translate, we have a student who just came from Iraq we cannot understand a thing.He is in the ESL room”
At the thought of the word, all I imagined was bloodshed thinking back to the news I had just watched that morning with my father on AlJazeera. Nervous, I walked over to the classroom.
Sitting in a desk all by himself, the teacher pointed to him.
I walk over, with the lowest “Salaamu Alaikum” I have ever said in my life. He was almost in tears, and I was always weak to tears.
“Inti tehchi arabi” he asked me if I spoke Arabic,
“Ah ana behchi arabi”
“areed ahli. “
I need my family, he told me in tears.
“Abchi la ahli” I cry for my family.
The teacher gave me a look but I did not even want to look, or translate what he had said. In that moment both my Arabic and English was weak. I just wanted to hug him. But I just stood there.
“Ma fee sakan. Ma fee ahel. Abchi” No family. No house. I cry.
“Ma fee soora. Ma fee ahel. Gataloolni chi haja” There are no pictures. No family. They killed everything.
When he said they killed, he pointed to a poster of an American soldier on the board reading
“This is what a hero looks like.”
My blood boiled. An innocent child my age, with parents like me, and a life, lost everything. Somebody dressed in a uniform which he labeled himself as a soldier, honorable, and praised, killed a whole family. Then it occurred to me. This boy was alone. Just like Iraq was alone.
“Ena erfeektek itha itreed. Ma ita’ayet. Ena hon”
"I’m your friend if you want. Do not cry. I am here."
From my accent, he could tell I was not Iraqi but that did not matter to him. It was time for me to go and take a test, so the teacher escorted me back to class.
“Did he speak to you?”
“What did he say?”
“He is something we call a refugee.”
Refugee. I only ever heard that word on television or from my mom speaking of how my uncles and her were considered refugees, although she held a Palestinian passport.
I did not answer my teacher only asking her to sit back in my seat and write my test.
For the rest of the year since that day, he would ask to see me. I would even skip gym class to go into his ESL class. When he was not laughing at my inability to speak Arabic like him, I tried teaching him english. He would speak of Iraq. The street markets. The mosques in Baghdad. He would wonder where are his friends were openly to me always bringing me to tears. The year ended, and we promised we would stay friends forever.
Forever did not last long. The new school year started, with Hurricane Katrina. My family and I evacuated to New Jersey and lived there for a while. My thoughts stayed with him. But then we came back to New Orleans, and third grade went on along with every other year with him nowhere in sight. For a while I forgot about him until a few months back. I remember him telling me about the beauty of the mosques and churches of Iraq and the Iraqi people, and as I was scrolling through my Tumblr, I saw these mosques with a picture of a child who had once again become a refugee from Syria. An Iraqi turned to seek refuge in Syria only to become a refugee again in his own country of Iraq. That night I remembered that fateful day ten years ago when I met him.
I never did see him after that, and I cannot even remember his name. But every day I hope that I see him at university orientation, the grocery store, Eid- Salah, just so I can thank him. I wanted to thank him for teaching me what humanity meant at seven/eight years old. I want to thank him, for the first time of me meeting an Iraqi, making it memorable. I want to thank him for showing me the beauty in hope, which he held onto despite having his whole family killed, and being a refugee in the so called land where you can pursue your happiness. I just want to thank him because when I remember him, I remember that the millions of Palestinian, Syrian, and Iraqi refugee children have a story like he does. It did not matter to him that I was not Iraqi or that I did not understand what war meant, all that mattered was I was a human willing to be a friend.
It costs nothing to be human, and still until this day I think of him, and remember Iraq, the forgotten one with beauty that exceeds war and bloodshed. The land and people who still stand strong.
It costs nothing to have an ounce of humanity.
I wish he knew, although I forgot his name, I remember him and what he did to my life." -Anonymous
