Yasmin Jamali
A story about a girl whose family is torn apart by war. War from a young child's perspective
My family is always being completely torn apart by war - my father is already out there fighting, and my 10 year old brother is sure to one day follow in his footsteps. My mother has no money, and is faced with the challenge of feeding and looking after a family of three in the middle of utmost poverty. She struggles to care for our needs, using the very little money our father left her to buy the absolute necessities. My mother's greatest fear is the children authorities, who she sees banging on doors, and taking children away from their families'. She is scared that one day they will come to the door of our tiny, ransacked tin house; decide that the living standards aren't fit enough for my brother and I to live in and take us away forever.
One day, a bomb came down on our house; luckily, no one was there at the time. I had seen it coming down as I was walking back from my daily begging on the streets. It was quite strange actually. One minute, clear blue skies stretched out for miles to see. Then suddenly, out of nowhere, a big dark shape with a bright red and orange light at the end of it came plummeting towards our house. It was quite pretty actually, and I watched it in awe as it rocketed to the earth, completely oblivious to the screams around me. Then it hit. As I was quite a distance away, I didn't realize that it had hit our house. I rushed over to see what had happened. After deciding that it was no longer as interesting as it had been, when it was still in the sky, I started playing in the rubble. I saw our mother hobbling over in the distance and ran to meet her. "Mummy!" I shouted, "look at our house!" I was quite proud of having seen the damage first and so I was completely unprepared for our Mother's reaction. She rushed over, gazed at the remains of our house and fell to her knees, sobs erupting out of her. My brother Yasin arrived then, and ran over and helped our mother up from the ground. "What will we do mother?" he asked eventually. "We have to find a new place to live" she answered after a few minutes.
We spent the next day sorting through the rubble for any belongings that we could find; there weren't very promising results. We sat down while our mother brought out her old and worn address book and started slowly turning the pages with her worn hands. Finally, she stopped. "We will go and stay with your father's sister, your Aunty" she said. "Her husband works for a housing company and maybe he can get us a new home". I didn't know what this meant but I saw Yasin nodding seriously, so I nodded too.
We decided that the next day, we would set off. Our mother told us to come with her and beg on the streets for some bedding and money. We managed to retrieve some dirty old cushions out of the local tip and some food out of some garbage bins. Mother wanted to save the very little money we had for the journey ahead which was to be a two day walk. As our mother prepared our small uncomfortable beds in an old shed we had come across, and Yasin and I chewed on some old bread, there was a knock at the door. A look of surprised crossed our mother's face, but as the knocking persisted, she got up.
As the ceiling of the shed dipped down in the middle, our mother was hidden from view, but Yasin and I heard loud, gruff voices, and then the pleading voice of their mother's. The next minute two heavyset men came in and gazed over Yasin and I, and our living standards. The look on our mother's face said it all: the children authorities. Our mother tried explaining that we had just been bombed and these living standards were only temporary, but the men would not listen. They started towards us but Mother stood in front of us, blocking their path. She looked over her shoulder at us. "Run" she mouthed.
Then it all happened very quickly, two other men ran in, grabbed mother round her skinny waist and started dragging her off. Where to, I would never find out for Yasin grabbed my arm, kicked down the back wall of the shed and dragged me out. Using my instinct I ran. Yasin ran ahead of me and when we came to a bend in the road he disappeared from view completely. When I finally made it around the bend myself, he was gone. I ran and ran, searching desperately for him. I then ran back in the direction I had come so I could get my mother. Then she and I could find him together. I ran and ran but our house never appeared. I looked around at my unfamiliar surroundings. There were no houses, no one I could ask for help. I looked down at my dirty feet. The ground beneath them was dusty and bare. I looked up into the sky. It was dirty with smoke from the bombs and smog from the factories where the soldiers lived and worked. There was not a cloud in sight.
A tiny brown butterfly, fluttered down and landed on my outstretched arm. "Are you all alone little butterfly? Are you lost?" I asked it. As I gazed at it I realized how small and insignificant it was. Nobody cared about it, anyone who looked at it, looked away and didn't give it a second thought. As she tearfully sat down, Yasmine realized that she was no different to this little brown butterfly. She was lost and alone in a world where no one cared what happened to her, where no one even knew that she existed.
One day, a bomb came down on our house; luckily, no one was there at the time. I had seen it coming down as I was walking back from my daily begging on the streets. It was quite strange actually. One minute, clear blue skies stretched out for miles to see. Then suddenly, out of nowhere, a big dark shape with a bright red and orange light at the end of it came plummeting towards our house. It was quite pretty actually, and I watched it in awe as it rocketed to the earth, completely oblivious to the screams around me. Then it hit. As I was quite a distance away, I didn't realize that it had hit our house. I rushed over to see what had happened. After deciding that it was no longer as interesting as it had been, when it was still in the sky, I started playing in the rubble. I saw our mother hobbling over in the distance and ran to meet her. "Mummy!" I shouted, "look at our house!" I was quite proud of having seen the damage first and so I was completely unprepared for our Mother's reaction. She rushed over, gazed at the remains of our house and fell to her knees, sobs erupting out of her. My brother Yasin arrived then, and ran over and helped our mother up from the ground. "What will we do mother?" he asked eventually. "We have to find a new place to live" she answered after a few minutes.
We spent the next day sorting through the rubble for any belongings that we could find; there weren't very promising results. We sat down while our mother brought out her old and worn address book and started slowly turning the pages with her worn hands. Finally, she stopped. "We will go and stay with your father's sister, your Aunty" she said. "Her husband works for a housing company and maybe he can get us a new home". I didn't know what this meant but I saw Yasin nodding seriously, so I nodded too.
We decided that the next day, we would set off. Our mother told us to come with her and beg on the streets for some bedding and money. We managed to retrieve some dirty old cushions out of the local tip and some food out of some garbage bins. Mother wanted to save the very little money we had for the journey ahead which was to be a two day walk. As our mother prepared our small uncomfortable beds in an old shed we had come across, and Yasin and I chewed on some old bread, there was a knock at the door. A look of surprised crossed our mother's face, but as the knocking persisted, she got up.
As the ceiling of the shed dipped down in the middle, our mother was hidden from view, but Yasin and I heard loud, gruff voices, and then the pleading voice of their mother's. The next minute two heavyset men came in and gazed over Yasin and I, and our living standards. The look on our mother's face said it all: the children authorities. Our mother tried explaining that we had just been bombed and these living standards were only temporary, but the men would not listen. They started towards us but Mother stood in front of us, blocking their path. She looked over her shoulder at us. "Run" she mouthed.
Then it all happened very quickly, two other men ran in, grabbed mother round her skinny waist and started dragging her off. Where to, I would never find out for Yasin grabbed my arm, kicked down the back wall of the shed and dragged me out. Using my instinct I ran. Yasin ran ahead of me and when we came to a bend in the road he disappeared from view completely. When I finally made it around the bend myself, he was gone. I ran and ran, searching desperately for him. I then ran back in the direction I had come so I could get my mother. Then she and I could find him together. I ran and ran but our house never appeared. I looked around at my unfamiliar surroundings. There were no houses, no one I could ask for help. I looked down at my dirty feet. The ground beneath them was dusty and bare. I looked up into the sky. It was dirty with smoke from the bombs and smog from the factories where the soldiers lived and worked. There was not a cloud in sight.
A tiny brown butterfly, fluttered down and landed on my outstretched arm. "Are you all alone little butterfly? Are you lost?" I asked it. As I gazed at it I realized how small and insignificant it was. Nobody cared about it, anyone who looked at it, looked away and didn't give it a second thought. As she tearfully sat down, Yasmine realized that she was no different to this little brown butterfly. She was lost and alone in a world where no one cared what happened to her, where no one even knew that she existed.
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