Dear Reader

I was asked to write a letter as a Palestinian refugee living in another country.

Dear Reader,

            This is a humble letter from an individual that’s merely a visitor on your lands and is here to tell her side of the story. Sent to those of you out there who look down on us from your skyscrapers and castles that are built on pillars of sand. While you take a seat on your silk made chairs on that dinner table that’s showered with all kinds of luxury and feast like kings, we’re sighing at that crack in the ceiling that my dad promised to fix last year and settle for crumbs of bread. While you’re frosted with diamonds and the top of brands from head to toe raising your golden glasses that are flooding with the finest wine, my mom tells me that I have to spend another winter with the same rag coat I did last year and we never dare to ask for more. My name is Dana Sobh and this is how my life has been like for the last seventeen years, and this is how it’ll always be like.

                It’s an honor for me to be writing you this letter. It might be another simple message for you, yet to me it’s beyond that. It’s not just some words filling a paper, it’s the chance to be heard, the opportunity to be more than a word and more than a line on a piece of paper and definitely a spark of hope that shows that the world isn’t empty after all and we’re not alone. Every drop of ink will resemble my voice, so here I am shedding a spot of light on a world that you have forgotten. I’m a young girl at the age of seventeen coming from a family of six. I’m a girl that has been living in the Palestinian camps for as long as I remember. I’m a girl that has a lot to say and just waiting to be heard.

                Ever wondered why we always look at all what’s good in life and never consider what the worse might be? How come when a fairytale is told, we think about the “happily ever after”? Is the world really that perfect with not even one stitch or bandage?  Haven’t dreams been demolished and lives been ruined? It’s not easy to be in a portrait where your colors are faint. We live in a world where everything is so hard to reach. What’s a must to you is an option for us. While you go enjoy what life offers and sends towards your way we’re there in our front row seats watching what will never be ours.

                Every morning, we open our eyes, put one foot in front of the other and just get through the day. It’s hard to be that nail in a bunch of hay and it gets even worse when you’re no longer in the second grade and crayons no longer brought people together. The feeling of rejection haunts us on daily bases; running to the end of the world won’t stop it from making us those fragile roses in rain. We’re not the same as you, we’re coal and you’re so well polished and shinning. It’s easier and more comfortable when each one stays on his side of the fence. We don’t attend the schools you do, wear the things you do, and definitely do not share the same backgrounds and experiences as you. We live each day just trying to survive. When you’re thankful of buying that last purse or shoes, we’re thankful for that medicine given to us by help associations, that we managed to get food on the table by dinner, and that we were all there safe and sound. What I’m mostly grateful for and appreciate so much is the ability to gain an education despite everything. The capability and support in the sake of being a sophisticated person and not out there on the streets.

                You see, there’s a reason they call them fairy tales. There’s motives and basis on why they’re described as myths and the talk of legends. Because there’s no such thing as transforming from a thief to a sultan out of rubbing a magic lamp, Cinderella’s carriage will for eternity be a pumpkin, and love won’t turn the clock around.

 Though stepping aside and being invisible can sometimes be a comfort, but we can’t just eliminate ourselves from the society since we’re forever a part of it. We have learned to embrace who we are and the world that we resemble. From where I come from and from what I have acquired throughout the years, I refuse to surrender and accept that fact that you’re all buffed up and we’re rusted and weathered. The earth is not some dead thing you can claim, we’re there sharing this ride with you; we’re spirits, we have names.

 We wish for soothing rain, but that doesn’t happen when we sit back and watch you declare the spoils of the world. They say “The early bird catches the worm”, “A stitch in time saves nine” and “He who hesitates is lost”. It’s a game we’re playing and just because you come from fancier places and were given everything on a silver platter, doesn’t mean we’re admitting defeat; for I love the playing field. Just because I’m a bird with a crooked wing doesn’t mean you can stand in my way of soaring in the sky. I’m here to fight for my presence and work harder so that I’d beat you, but on a level that’s beyond materials. For there’s always this chance of us working hard, and having our name worth being remembered. 

Dear reader wherever you might be, this letter is for all you of out there.  You can never truly understand someone from the place that I call home until you walk the footsteps of a stranger. I have now told you the story of a seventeen year old girl, yet I’m just a speck among my people. I’ll never have the power to mend the boundaries that separates our worlds and we’ll forever be different. “Have you ever heard the wolf cry to the blue corn moon, or asked the grinning bobcat why he grinned?” Some things will never change.

                Sincerely, Dana Sobh