HOPINE

every cloud has its own grey lines

Every time I close my eyes all I could see is our big house in Damascus, my mother cooking something that smells so delicious, Mohammed and Sara are discussing a book, my father just came home with a bag full of sweets for us and some red roses for mom. Then all the family having lunch together, laughing at dad's jokes.

"Mariam, are you sleeping during the class again?" said the teacher waking me up of my beautiful day dream while the whole class looked at me and laughed. I said defending myself with a poor English accent: "I wasn't sleeping, I just spaced out."

She glared and said with a loud threatening tone: "If you sleep again in my class Mariam, you will not be allowed to attend my classes ever again, understood?"

'Who said that I want to attend these stupid literature classes' I though. She treats me like that since my first day at this school two years ago when I received a scholarship from the UNHCR to complete my studying after it was suspended for two years and I was so excited to go to school again but every cloud has its own grey lines . I remember when she first met me and tried to convince the principle to refuse my registration, and since then she always glare at me with eyes filled with resentment, punish me for no reason and treat me differently from the other students. Even my classmates, they used to call me terrorist, 'towel head' due to my hijab, or ask me things like: "Are you part of the 9/11 or are you ISIS?" "Did you ever kill anyone?" they also used to throw rocks and food at me. I was depressed and tried multiple times to leave school but my mother every time told me: "Be strong, believe in who you are; be strong, believe in what you feel." I believe that my family is the reason that I'm not insane yet.

I understand that sometimes our brains make a vision about things that we don't know to protect us; we hear that someone from a certain group did something bad so our brains make a generalized belief about this certain group(people of this group are bad) which may not be true. We bully, attack and abuse anyone who is from another culture, religion, and race or has a different opinion that doesn't match ours; we ignore the differences between individuals and spread aversion between each other, we judge anyone from his body, religion, race, color and social background. I understand all of these. But, it has been two years now and they still think that I'm a dangerous terrorist that one day will blow up the whole school!

I remember one day two police men came to our home and arrested Sara on charges of buying explosive chemicals. What happened is that she bought some substances for her project and the seller reported the police about some creepy Muslim woman who bought chemicals that can blow up the whole country. She was released after confirming that she is a student in Science faculty, Department of Chemistry. That was CRAZY but we were used to these sorts of racism.

The school day was too long and tiring but ordinary. Of course it was full of bullying and mockery. I accomplished full mark on Math Exam, I was happy. But a girl of my classmate wasn't glad, "how could you 'towel head' get the highest mark?" she said , I just ignored that. I just wanted to go home.