October 10, 2020

“I cannot begin to describe how cold it used to get there. It was an area populated by Christians near Sham (Damascus). I was only fourteen years old and was living away from friends and family. The walk between my home and the place I was learning at was pretty long, but I never cared about the distance, nor the weather because I wanted to be a carpenter so bad. There were times that snow would rise up to my knee. Building tools and creating shapes on wood only motivated me more to keep going.
After 18 years being away, I finally went back to my country. As good as living in a developed country gets, it’s never the same as home. Even though I was running my own business there, I felt like I needed to come back because Rojava needed me.
I started collecting antiques and old items for a while to build a museum, but since I had no one and my house very small, I couldn’t keep everything with me. As a result, I closed down the museum I went back to my old work that I had worked really hard for.”