Brandon Stanton's Blog, page 201

(6/7) “I had no problems before the bombing. I think the...

(6/7) “I had no problems before the bombing. I think the cancer came from my sadness and my stress. It’s in my stomach. It’s getting more and more painful. The only reason I can speak to you right now is because I’ve taken a painkiller. I can barely eat. I’m bleeding internally. I’ve gone to five hospitals here. They tell me there’s nothing they can do, especially because I have no insurance and no benefits. My friend in America tells me that it’s an easy surgery, but I’m fighting against time. It’s spreading, and I think that soon it will move beyond my stomach. And then there’s nothing I can do.”

(Istanbul, Turkey)

(5/7) “Everything that wasn’t destroyed in our house was...

(5/7) “Everything that wasn’t destroyed in our house was stolen over the next two days. We left with nothing. I can’t even pay the rent of this apartment. I’ve been in Turkey for two years now. I’m dead here. I have no life, no respect, and my children aren’t going to school. I have a PhD but I’m not allowed to work without a residence permit. There is a university here that is teaching with a book I wrote, but still won’t give me a job. In order to survive, I’m forced to create designs and give them away to Turkish citizens, who take all the credit and pay me barely enough money to cover the costs of my materials. This year I created blueprints for a giant construction project of 270 big houses. I was paid maybe one percent of what a Turkish citizen would have earned. There is no respect for my work here. Only money is respected.”

(Istanbul, Turkey)

(4/7) “I was overseeing a project outside the city when the...

(4/7) “I was overseeing a project outside the city when the missile hit my house. Nobody was around to help, so my son had to carry the pieces of his mother and sister out of the house. He was fourteen at the time. He was so smart. He was the top of his class. He’s not the same. Right after it happened, he’d write ‘mom’ in his notebook over and over. He’d cry all night long. Two years have passed but he’s still suffering very much. It’s very hard for him to focus. He gets tired very easily. My daughter was in the house too. She still has shrapnel in her neck. We survived but we’re dead psychologically. Everything ended for us that day. That was our destiny. That was our share in life.”

(Istanbul, Turkey)

(3/7) “I built this compound for my family. I saved the money...

(3/7) “I built this compound for my family. I saved the money for it, I designed it myself, and I oversaw the construction. The first missile tore through the yellow house and exploded inside the pink house. It was a government anti-personnel missile. They are not supposed to be used in residential areas. Inside were 116 small bombs, and each bomb was filled with needles and shrapnel. The pink house belonged to my brother and his entire family was torn to pieces. The second missile landed in the green house but did not explode. That was my house. If the missile had exploded, I wouldn’t have any children left. But it only destroyed the top floor where my wife and daughter were. Sixteen people died in the attack. Seven were from my family.“

(Istanbul, Turkey)

(2/7) “Our marriage wasn’t arranged. We married out of love. ...

(2/7) “Our marriage wasn’t arranged. We married out of love. We met when we were students at university. She was studying law. We built a family together. We were a very modern family. We had good days and bad days and rich days and poor days but we were always together. We ate every meal together and educated our children well. My daughter was studying to be a doctor. My son was the smartest in his school. We were well known in the community. Nobody had a problem with us. We had no affiliation with any party or regime. Everyone loved us, honestly.”

(Istanbul, Turkey)

(1/7) “My parents were supportive of my education, but they...

(1/7) “My parents were supportive of my education, but they didn’t direct me. My father was a farmer and my mother was a housewife. They did not know much about science. But I was determined to become a scientist through my own personal will. I graduated high school with the third highest scores in all of Syria. I worked construction in the evenings to pay for my school. Even as a teenager, I was being given construction sites to manage. I graduated from university at the top of my class. I was given a scholarship to pursue my PhD. I suffered for my dream. I gave everything. If I had 100 liras, I would spend it on a book. My ultimate goal was to become a great scientist and make a lasting contribution to humanity.”

(Istanbul, Turkey)

(4/4) The whole purpose of my trip to Turkey and Jordan was to...

(4/4) The whole purpose of my trip to Turkey and Jordan was to interview refugees who had been approved for American resettlement. So when this couple showed me the letter saying they’d been ‘deferred,’ I was a bit confused. But I continued the interview anyway. As I learned the rest of the couple’s story, I noticed my UNHCR facilitator typing on her phone. After a few minutes, she came over to me and showed me the screen. It was a text message from the main office. It said: ‘They’ve been approved. Would you care to tell them?’ So it was my great honor to inform this couple that they were going to America. This portrait was taken thirty seconds after they learned the news.

(Gaziantep, Turkey)

(¾) “We’ve been waiting for two years now. We’ve...

(¾) “We’ve been waiting for two years now. We’ve been through all our interviews. Last week this letter came and said that we’ve been ‘deferred.’ I’m not even sure what that means. We were very truthful about everything. We have nothing left in Syria. I want to continue working as a doctor in America. Here my hands are tied. Refugees are not allowed to work. I don’t have papers. I can’t communicate with anyone. I worked my entire life to become a doctor. I did nothing but study for six years. I didn’t even have a hobby. Now I’m doing nothing. I’m losing hope. I’ve started to wonder if it would have been better for us to go the illegal way across the sea.”

(Gaziantep, Turkey)

(2/4) “ISIS needs educated people to support them. None of...

(2/4) “ISIS needs educated people to support them. None of them finished school. They cannot manage the cities they capture because they have no skills. When they took me to prison, at first they were very aggressive. They kept putting a gun to my head and taking it away. But after a few minutes of this, one of the men began speaking to me in a very nice way. He said: ‘You are an Islamic man. Please, be a good Muslim and help us. We want your wife to open a hospital for us. And we want you to manage it.’ I agreed to everything they asked. I told them I would help. Then the moment they let me go home, we packed our bags and left.”

(Gaziantep, Turkey)

(¼) “I was the only doctor in the area, so when ISIS...

(¼) “I was the only doctor in the area, so when ISIS captured our town, I knew that they would ask me to work for them. We should have left right away. One night five men came to our house. They were wearing masks and they refused to take off their shoes. Their Arabic was not with a Syrian accent. They claimed to be searching for weapons and went from room to room. They knew about me already, because they kept calling me ‘Doctor.’ When they finished searching the house, they arrested my husband. It was a night in January, so it was too cold for them to start their car. The engine kept turning over and over. I thought that maybe a miracle would keep them from taking him. But then I heard the engine start and they drove away. I paced in the street all night. At one point I heard a gunshot in the distance, and I thought for sure they had killed him. I thought it was all my fault. We should have left right away.”

(Gaziantep, Turkey)