Painful memories

Like a lot of boys his age, Abdurrahman, 9, from Syria imitates sounds. Today, he is imitating the sound of rockets.

He started with a BOOM. Then, he made a whistling, whispering sound, followed by a childish replication of an explosion. He carefully left a few seconds between the two distinct sounds to be accurate. His rocket sounds were so realistic. He reminded me of the sound of rockets I heard when I was his age, during the civil war in Lebanon.

As a Lebanese citizen who was born during the war and lived all of my childhood in a country torn apart by conflicts and violence, I could not but hold Abdurrahman's hand and tell him to stay strong, for his sisters and brother. "They need you," I told him.

All it took was few seconds and a few sounds from a child's mouth to bring back all the memories of destruction and fear I still have, piled up from my childhood.

Abdurrahman also explained to me the different sounds of a rocket launcher, a helicopter and a Meg plane.
"If you hear the sound of helicopter, you have to run for your life,” he says. “But, if you hear a Meg plane, that means you are still alive, because it is very fast and you only hear it after it hits; but that also means that other people have died," he says.

I wouldn't have imagined a child mastering his lexicon of war. The scenes and situations he has survived seem to be imprinted on his mind.

Will he still remember them when he grows up? Will he remember running for his life many times? I don't know. I know I do.

I remember, the smell of my mother's fear as she gathered us under her wing inside an underground shelter during heavy bombing in the mid-1980s. This memory will never leave me. Nor will I ever forget the horrifying moment when our four-story building was shaking over our heads after being hit twice by rockets. This memory haunted me at night for years.

Many Lebanese, brag about how resilient we are; how we are able to absorb the uninterrupted waves of violence that have been striking our country for decades now. At times we rebel. Other times we become jaded, turning a blind eye on the misery surrounding us in our own country—such is the case for many regarding the Syrian refugees.

Syrian Refugees are in every corner of Lebanon. There is not a single area of Lebanon that has not been touched. The number of refugees has skyrocketed with government estimating that they now exceed one million in Lebanon alone, a big load to carry for country with a population of only four million.

I am a Lebanese and I am a humanitarian worker as well; being a humanitarian worker is a privilege and a curse. You definitely have the rewarding sensation of making a difference, but to get there, it is simply painful. My job is physically, mentally and emotionally challenging. I am constantly reminded by my friends not get too attached. But that is impossible.

In some cases, while in the field, humanitarian workers become the beacon of hope for people in need. I put my personal needs and my personal troubles –the load of work I carry from hundreds of emails—behind me.

Sometimes, I even stray away from carrying out the task I was in the field to accomplish, like taking photos and writing stories, and I focus on helping people get the information they need; information that is often lifesaving.

It’s easy to convince ourselves that there is little we can do to make a difference in the midst of such desperate and enormous need. But I am a believer that even small acts of kindness can make a difference to those in need.

Some days even a smile can give comfort to a suffering refugee who feels no one is listening to them. That is why when I visit families I always take time to sit with them and to listen carefully to their stories, never forcing them to talk, but instead allowing them to share their experiences with me at their own pace.

No one should ever feel that the crisis is so big they can’t help. In the Syrian crisis (and other crises around the world) any aid can and does make a difference. Even if we can’t provide everything people need, when refugees know that other people in the world are thinking about them, praying for them and supporting them, it helps them mentally, because they know they are not alone.