LOUDER THAN BOMBS

『1』

Normal , a word that once described my life . But before I go into the details of my life let me introduce myself. My name is Harleen but everyone calls me Leena. I am 18 and fresh out of high school and honestly still trying to find myself. I live in New York and I have one younger sister and an older brother. Anyways , enough with the boring stuff.

It all started with me sitting in my room 3 months after graduation watching my all time favorite Korean drama Heirs for the fourth time with a box of tissues and some popcorn. I'm not kidding when I say that that was all I had been doing for like 6 weeks straight.  Don't get me wrong , I had a blast after graduation. I went on road trips with my friends, traveled to Mexico , had countless sleepovers.  A lot of my family members did not agree with the way i lived my life . Fortunately, unlike most Arab parents my mother allowed me to go out and have fun with my friends , well it's not like they had much of a choice. I had always been rebellious, stubborn and to be completely honest i didn't care about anybody anymore . I struggled with finding myself. As much as i was rebellious i constantly found myself on a prayer mat in moments where i sought peace.  Although my mother wore hijab she never once forced me to wear it and i never saw the point of wearing it. My mom's a doctor who is hopelessly in love and devoted to her job and my dad took off when i was 7. I'm pretty sure by now you can picture exactly what kind of a person i was.I'm not proud of who i was.

After all the travelling my friends decided to get serious ,get into college and get their lives together like most high school graduates would do, while I sat my indecisive butt on a couch and watched romance movies all day. Of course my mother was  totally against this but I tried so hard to explain to her that I genuinely did not know what I wanted to do in life. However she  just kept on talking about how the other family members were going talk about me and drag our family's reputation to the dirt. Not being adored by family members was something that didn't faze me.

'' Leena! You have got to get out of your bed and do something!'', my mom said as she barged into my room. This happened everyday . I simply thought that my mother did not understand how hard my life was. My mother usually went on and on about how i should stop overthinking and just get into collage but for once that wasn't the case.This time my mother walked into my room, sat at the edge of my bed and offered me something i never thought i would do. Now because I mentioned that I'm Arab and Muslim I know the first thing that you thought of was an arranged marriage. I don't blame you though i initially thought that was where the conversation was heading . Anyways, my Mom told me that there was a group of teenagers that were going to go to the border of Syria to help take care of the rescued children before they were relocated to a safer place. At first I was going to immediately decline but then I started thinking. How bad could it be. I could end up having a great time at some vintage hotel , get some awesome pictures and it could help decorate my collage application letter ,once I had decided what I wanted to that is, and it could get me away from my pestering family.  So with that in  mind, I looked at my mom and said yes.

Thinking about it now I can't believe how stupid I was. I literally packed my suitcase with cute clothes and make up thinking that I was going to have the time of my life or a luxury vacation of some sort . Away from what I believed  was the loudest place in the world. I was so excited to finally have some me time. I packed electronics  and all the unnecessary crap that I thought I would need.

I left New York a week later. My siblings and mother dropped me off at the the airport. I remember it like it was just yesterday. I remember being so tempted to just get back in the car and go back to my comfortable bed but I made the decision to walk into the airport and check in. It's going to be okay, I just have to play with a few kids for a few hours everyday and go back to the hotel and relax......I told myself as an attempt to calm my racing heart.

I was able to join the other people I was going to travel with using the phone number I was given. I was actually really shocked to find out that they were all of different ethnicities. I mean I'm not racist but I was expecting to see a bunch of Yemeni kids from my community. My mood instantly changed. I was so excited to get to know those people and their culture. Call me crazy but I was really curious about other cultures. I introduced myself to the group of four people. There was one African American girl who was absolutely stunning and frankly she looked like she belonged on the cover of Vogue and let's not forget her unique name, Sheena. There were two French boys, Noel and Rain. I had to remind myself to lower my gaze but ladies can you blame me. They had accents and blue eyes..... enough said. Then there was an Egyptian girl by the name Hayat who looked a little older and once again I looked like a stray cat compared to her. I envied her as she was confidently wearing her head scarf. For some reason I didn't have enough confidence to wear a hijab. I'm not proud to say that I was not the most religious, apart from trying my best to pray five daily pray and reading the Quran once in a while  I didn't understand my religion fully, then again neither did I understand my purpose in life. The only thing i had always been sure of was that praying brought me peace helped me when i was anxious. 

We boarded the flight not long after . As the plane took off I looked out the window and made a small prayer to God. I prayed that the trip would be exactly what i needed in my life. Hopping to return home with a clear mindset and a set goal to achieve. Sheena who was sat next to me informed me that once we landed we were going to be on a bus for quite a few hours before we reached the location. I actually didn't mind. I had brought my laptop and was going to binge watch Friends.

When we landed, we were welcomed by a lovely lady called Julia and a young boy who helped us load the bus with our bags. See this isn't too bad....I thought to myself. In fact I absolutely loved Syria the moment we landed because of it's beautiful summer weather which was completely different from New York, where it rained almost every week. My laptop died while we were on the bus so I made a mental note to charge it when we got to the hotel and decided to sleep the rest of the way to kill time.

I was woken up by Rain who was jabbing a bottle into my side. I'm not the nicest person when woken up to say the least. If looks could kill......
He looked scared but proceeded to tell me the words I had been waiting to hear ever since we got on the god damn bus....''We are here.'' All my anger melted away as I quickly turned my head to look out the window and see where I'll be staying for the next two weeks.

My jaw was basically on the floor. I could not believe my eyes . I turned to look at Rain and the rest to make sure I wasn't the only one seeing what was in front pf me . '' It's crazy isn't it '', Noel said.No it was beyond crazy....... It was insane?.....unbelievable?.......horrifying?.