Quis autem velum iure reprehe nderit. Lorem ipsum dolor sit nulla or narjusto laoreet onse ctetur adipisci.
Quis autem velum iure reprehe nderit. Lorem ipsum dolor sit nulla or narjusto laoreet onse ctetur adipisci.
A Glimpse of Trust
A Glimpse of Trust
Iraq. I’m sitting in a small room, barefoot, legs folded beneath me on a patterned cushion against a cool, barren wall. A woman sits across from me, tries to smile as she sips her tea. She wears a traditional middle eastern robe and head covering with a look of hopelessness in her eyes.
I’m covered in dust but happy to be out of the jeep where I’ve been wedged in the backseat for the past three hours, an AK47 machine gun on the floor at my feet. We’ve passed through security checkpoints successfully to reach this sprawling refugee camp that houses some fifteen thousand displaced Yazidis, almost entirely women and children.
I don’t go anywhere alone. Freedom Shield has several team members ensuring my safety. Three of them are here in the room with me now, including a six-foot seven Australian Special Ops guy.
“This is what ISIS did to my children,” says the woman.
Her 15-year old son lies in the fetal position facing the wall and sucking his thumb. He rocks himself back and forth constantly but doesn’t make a sound. Her daughter, 13, sits in the middle of the room, moaning and rocking back and forth, rhythmically, robotically, eyes unfocused. She’s beautiful and emaciated and she hugs her arms tightly around her little body as if trying to hold herself together. She’s in another world.
But the one that breaks my heart is the little boy. He’s only 7, with big, dark eyes. There’s dried blood around his mouth and on his sleeve from biting his tongue. And he constantly hits himself in the head and face.
I look around at the horror before me. This is what’s left after ISIS was pushed back. This family endured a three-year nightmare of terror and violence. The woman still has no idea what has happened to her husband.
She and I stir our tea and talk for a bit. I’m lost in her pain and the sadness in her eyes. She’s been through hell and watching her children suffer through it with her has made it exponentially worse. It’s almost impossible to imagine.
As we talk, the little boy slowly inches his way little by little towards me. Finally, he pushes himself into my lap.
The room goes quiet. His mother glances up and covers her mouth in amazement. He folds his hands and snuggles into my chest, closes his eyes and just breathes.
I am stunned and grateful and overwhelmed. I carefully put my arms around him and realize that he’s no longer mumbling, no longer hitting himself. He just is. And suddenly the tears are streaming down my face. I look up and his mother and the men in the room with me, we’re all wiping tears from our eyes.
“He trusts you,” she says. And she smiles.
Trust. It’s a tiny first step. But at least it’s something.
What can we build from that? What can we do right here, with this single devastated family? Or with this camp of 15,000 horrifically brutalized women and children? Or with this community of 150,000 whose homes and cities and lives have been so utterly destroyed?
I don’t know, I’m only one woman. So I hug this child and smile through my tears. I’m in way over my head. But isn’t that how change begins?
– Carrie G., Iraq, July 20, 2018