A refugee's "dreamland"

                                                        

My journey to freedom

by Stella Polichroni                                               October 23, 2020

 I was forced to leave my home country, Syria, in 2014 when I was eleven years old due to the war. My parents were unable to leave at the time, so I left with some relatives. I saw everything through my little innocent eyes back then. The situation was a hell for me and many others, more than you can imagine.

At first, we managed to travel to Europe making it to the Greek island of Paros, where we met other refugees. We were given accommodation by the locals. They provided us with food, water and other essentials. We thought that we were extremely lucky to find a place to be hosted after all. Little did we know. After a few weeks the authorities made us leave claiming they could not help us anymore as 

they could not afford it. Then we started a long journey trying to find our way to our new home country. To be honest I was not thinking about where I would end up. What I was thinking about was my parents. I had been suffering inside all this time as I did not know how they were, where they were and most importantly if they were even alive. It was clear that I could not handle the situation on my own. I did have support from my relatives, but for me this was not enough. I was going into pieces slowly. I needed my parents so much. We lived in Australia, Turkey and the United States before we settled in. We had problems with our papers, so none of these countries could really provide us with a permanent shelter. We ended up in Greece again.

In the beginning, we thought that the conditions would not be good after our last experience here. Well, we were wrong. We were hosted in Lesbos and after a few days a group of other refugees came. I was shocked. I could not believe my eyes. I saw my parents getting out of a dinghy. My eyes got wet, my whole face got covered in tears of joy and relief.

We still live in Lesbos, an island with many opportunities for asylum seekers like us. We have a normal life, which we could have never imagined after everything we have gone through. They treat us in the same way as everybody else. It has been a hard journey, but it has made us stronger and grateful for having a place to call home, a place where we feel safe.

 @2020, Stella Polichroni, All Rights Reserved