My Refugee Journey – 7th March 2016

My Refugee Journey – 7^th March 2016

2pm and its back at Kara Tepe Refugee Camp…  serving tea and painting and drawing with the kids.  I enjoy entertaining the kids and making them laugh, I taught them a few things including the Big Fish Little Fish Cardboard Box dance which they find very funny and I often get out my iphone and put the tunes on, singing along to classics such as Don’t Stop Me Now from Queen, which you never know, if you watch National Geographic, you may see me…  I will be the mad English Man singing very loudly and dancing to Queen with loads of the kids from the camp around me dancing to, I didn’t realise that National Geographic were filming me for several minutes, could be quite embarrassing lol.

Later that day I meet a young guy from just north of Aleppo, I help him get a sleeping bag and a few other things and then he starts to tell me his story, this is something that when you spend time with the refugees that just happens, you don’t need to ask them, they just come out with their story.

He told me he had lost his brother, I thought he was going to say from gunfire, artillery or bombing, but no, he told me ISIS had taken his brother and executed him by cutting off his head…  Something maybe naively I thought I’d never hear from someone.  You have to remember that thousands are being killed by war but far less from actual executions.  And now with the ISIS run oil fields being attacked daily, they are losing money and have had to even cut wages to their soldiers and even revert back to using US Dollar currency instead of their much boasted own currency.  So they are taking money where ever they can get it, much like taxes, why kill a Christian when you can tax them for simply breathing?

Finally, during the later part of my shift, I’m sat with a Syrian refugee guy and two of his female friends all no more than 22yrs old, the guy speaks very fluent English and is a qualified civil engineer, the girls speak some English…  I basically get asked if I am married or have a girlfriend and I say Im not married but have a girlfriend and they go on to ask if I would like to marry them as they love England, and I thought it was for my good charm and good looks lol…  So that was my day.  Again it was back to ‘Damas’ to meet up with other volunteers, chat and have a relaxing drink.  Fanta for me.