That thought is still haunting me day after day, with no persuasive answers. Is it conceivable that I began to adapt to the fact that I do not belong in that faraway land? Or am I truly starting to grasp the concept of being a forcibly displaced soul on the outskirts of my homeland? I made every effort to explain those wars and revolutions, those paragraphs and pages, those bombs and bullets, those tears and groans. I looked at the tales of history and the papers of geography. But I did not discover anything that convinced me. I only found a wounded child screaming out for the birth of another injured child, I only found a mother searching for her sons, I only found a daughter fleeing the enemy, followed by the voice of a father asking God to return home. I couldn't discover anything that explained why this thing called war is happening. I couldn't come up with a convincing explanation for this poison known as politics, whose effect appears to circulate, by some means, in our innocent unwitting bodies, our grandparents and children, our safe homes and roads.
Is this the same land in which I was born and from which I also escaped on a dark night for the fear of living there ? Yes, today we are heading east, west, south and north. Our bags are on our shoulders, but our gaze is fixed behind us, on a homeland whose letters spell out my name and the names of all refugees. But we will not head only to seek living; we will also keep heading the journey of finding answers, demonstrating our existence, changing our reality, assisting our society, and establishing a future in which no one will live as we have.
By: Walaa Abdelmagid
From: Sudan 🇸🇩