Just Like Us.

In the 2016 Rio Olympics, athletes from all over the world perched on starting blocks for the women’s 100m butterfly. Even though all were wearing similar suits, swim caps, and goggles, one woman stood out from the rest. Instead of representing her country’s emblem, she swam under a plain white olympic flag. Yursa Mardini is a Syrian refugee that was allowed to compete in the summer games despite the fact she did not have a country. In that moment, the world’s were eyes on her, but for years, this Olympian, this sister, this daughter, this amazing woman who actually swam out of Damascus to keep her life had been reduced to one word: refugee. When asked about the message she would like to share with the world, Yursa said this: “A refugee is a human being like any other.”

No surprise, but there are many cultural differences between us and our camp refugees. We eat different foods, we dance different dances, and we speak different languages. But over the past month, I’ve been more impressed by our cultural similarities than our differences. A refugee is a human being like any other. 

After teaching an English lesson, I was tiding up the classroom. A little Yazidi girl came along and grabbed the other end of the blanket I was folding. When we finished with that blanket, we started another, then another. Even though this little girl was probably only five or six, she was very particular about having straight corners and edges with her folds. She made me fix my folds so they were neat and clean too. I couldn’t help but smile because her momma taught her to fold blankets in exactly the same way as my momma taught me when I was her age. As trivial as it seems, I felt this unusual kinship with this girl because of the similarity. 

Later the same day, I walked into our make-shift library. The computers were turned off, but a few little boys still were typing away on key boards connected to blank screens and talking on imaginary phones. They were pretending to be big, just like I’ve watched my nieces and nephews pretend a thousand times before. These little boys have hopes and dreams to grow up and be successful futbol players, doctors, and pilots. Maybe one day, we'll even see them in the olympics. And why not? Yes, they are refugees, but they are just like us. 

So if there is anything I’ve learned in the past month it is this: Refugees are just like us. They have big hearts, they cry when they’re sad, they sing when they’re happy, they love their families, they deeply feel pain, and they bleed just as red as anyone else. The media paints refugees as uneducated, dirty, and sometimes even criminal. That picture is so far from the truth. I hope we can abandon these false notions and see refugees' humanity. They are intelligent, luminous people with the infinite capacity to change the world for good - just like us.