I landed at Sydney airport at 6:30am in mid-November 2016, with my little sister and parents. I’d just turned 19. I was so excited when I found out we had been accepted to live Australia – we all were. We had spent the last year living with cousins - nine people in total – in a two bedroom apartment in Lebanon, and before that there were years of war at home in Syria. Years when the bombing made it too dangerous to go to school, without running water or electricity, hearing about friends being killed or maimed.
But once we arrived I was overwhelmed. I was in a very strange country. I didn’t know anyone. I didn’t know how to enrol in university, or how to get around. I’d studied English, but I wasn’t fluent and I couldn’t understand Australian accents. I cried for the first three months.
For those first months in Australia I’d see people going about their business and they all looked like they had such normal lives. I felt so different to everyone. I missed my fiancé back in Damascus. We met when I was 17. Dating was difficult, because sometimes we’d arrange to meet, but if bombs were falling we’d both have to stay home. I worried about him still living through the war. I missed my old life with my family and our house in Damascus. We had a garden on the roof, with a swing and fountain, and lots of flowers. In summer when it was too hot inside, we would sleep there.
I missed my old life with my family and our house in Damascus. We had a garden on the roof, with a swing and fountain, and lots of flowers. In summer when it was too hot inside, we would sleep there.
That was where we lived when the war started – but to start with all the fighting was far away from us so I didn’t think too much about it. I was 13 and I liked spending time with my friends. I sang in a choir and played the piano. A year earlier I had even been selected to travel to Russia to sing with a choir there.
It was only after about three years that the fighting came to our neighbourhood. I was at a friend’s birthday party when the first bombs fell nearby. We were so surprised, we didn’t even realise what was happening.
Everything changed then. When I was in Year 11, one of my teachers was killed, and one of my friends was injured by a bomb and can’t walk anymore. She’s still in Syria. School closed early that year. It was too dangerous to go out, so mostly I stayed home with my family.
The next year I went to school at the church for a while – it was very crowded though, and we didn’t have proper desks.
By then all the services to our neighbourhood had been damaged so there was no electricity or running water. I desperately wanted to graduate high school, but I had to study without proper light, and in winter when it was very cold I’d wrap myself in layers of blankets.
I want to have my own children one day, and I want them to grow up somewhere safe. I don’t want them to see blood in the streets like I did, or to lose limbs in a war.
After I finished school my family and I managed to get to Lebanon. It was safer there, but it was hard for us to find work and we struggled to make ends meet. My parents, my sister, and I all shared the one bedroom.
Now that I’m in Sydney, having finished school meant I could enrol in university, where I’m studying a Diploma in Business. I also work part time with Australia for UNHCR – it’s a partner organisation of the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), so my job helps other refugees.
Having work and study and making friends means it didn’t take long before I came to love Australia. I’m very happy and relieved we came here. I want to have my own children one day, and I want them to grow up somewhere safe. I don’t want them to see blood in the streets like I did, or to lose limbs in a war. I want them to go to proper schools, not crowd into a church or have to study alone without light or heating.
I had to leave my piano in Syria, of course, and I haven’t played since we left. My sister plays guitar though, and she took her guitar to Lebanon and then Sydney. My friends in Syria say the guitar has more luck than them.
I still think about Syria a lot, and I Skype with my fiancé every week. I’ve applied for a visa for him to join me here, but I don’t know how long it will take. He’s at university, and once he finishes he can be forced to join the army and fight; he has one and half years left. Each time we talk we say, ‘I think today we will get the call from the embassy’.
Joel Farayeh works for Australia for UNHCR, the national partner organisation of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), contributing to their work to support refugees and displaced people globally. Find out more, or donate to the Syria appeal, here: www.unrefugees.org.au/syria
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