Chickens pecked at the dust and weathered faces trudged slowly through the makeshift displacement camp on the edges of Erbil, Iraq – their bodies hunched over as if wearing the weight of the world on their shoulders. Wasim, a painfully thin and wounded Iraqi man, crumbled to the floor of his decrepit prefabricated home, having been forced to run with his four children from the lair of terrorists. He pulled out a few crumpled Iraqi dinar notes and loose coins from his threadbare pocket and tossed them angrily onto the floor.
“That is my fortune. That’s what I have to raise my family,” Wasim lamented. “Since I was seven years old, I have worked and slaved every single day of my life. And for what?”
I could not argue with Wasim. I could not reassure him that his efforts mattered. He was wounded serving his country and was then rendered homeless with his family, nothing to his name. But Wasim retained every ounce of honor that he could — every ounce of being an honest and simple man. He may not have been the most educated or articulate, yet he wanted to be heard. Wasim knew it was his God-given right to be heard. His words have clung to my memory long after leaving that depressing wedge of broken bodies and pretend homes. We work tirelessly from tender ages, desperate to support ourselves and those we treasure, and for what? What are we fighting for? What are we willing to fight for? And what will it take for it all to be worthwhile? When did we stop living and start slaving? And does it have to be this way in lands of greater opportunity?
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Words that Never Leave You: “I have worked and slaved every single day of my life. And for what?”