Salaam aleikum va rahmatu Llahi, my dear Muslim Sisters. I recently remembered about an event that took place while I was in the refugee camp in Syria. The story I am about to tell you deals with one of my greatest fear throughout my entire time in the camp, namely the danger of fires, that take place with an eerily precise regularity. Some of the fires only affect one tent, while others take huge proportions, and might affect a few or a lot of tents, depending on wind, weather conditions, as well as a multitude of other factors. Moreover, there are multiple reasons for which fires occur. A great deal of fires occur during the cold season, when everyone starts to use the fire stoves for heating. The stoves use kerosene, which is quite hard to light up but is less flammable.
In the camp, the winters are quite often extremely cold. During the day, you can go out wearing only a T-shirt, but as soon as the sun sets, it stars to get really cold. Considering the fact that we, as residents of the camp, are practically forced to live under the open sky, as the tents do not offer almost any protection against the cold weather outside, we are compelled to use stoves in order to keep warm, and that is always a fire hazard. Sometimes, the stoves we received or bought were defective, and that was when the “real fun” began. Other times, some of the Sisters did not know how to properly use them / used them improperly which always led to a fire inside the camp. In conclusion, you are in the situation of either risking to freeze or risking to get burnt.
Another cause of fires inside the camp was the improper use of the stoves or ovens for cooking. In these cases as well, there are times when they are defective to start with.
Last, but not least, a great deal of fires was caused by children, which were literally playing with matches and accidentally setting things on fire through their carelessness or negligence.
I will now begin to tell you about one such event. One of the Sisters in the camp moved her tent and set it up near the road, not very far from my own tent. Luckily, she set up her tent a little further away from the other rows of tents. In short, her tent burned down 3 times, roughly once every 4 or 5 days. Nobody understood the reasons or the causes for these repeated fires. I must tell you that this Sister had 3 children, and as her tent was repeatedly catching fire and burning down, she and her children constantly had to move and stay for a while in the tents of other Muslim Sisters in the camp. One time, her tent caught fire while she was at the market. Of course, most often than not, one does not wish to take one’s children to the market, because usually it is very hot and crowded, and it is quite hard to watch over them while bargaining and doing the shopping. So, after her tent burned down 3 times, it turned out that her children were the ones starting the fire. Of course, the Sister was a responsible mother and she hid all the flammable objects from her children. Nonetheless, they always seemed to find something to start a fire with. As you can imagine, my dear Muslim Sisters, this was a great trial for the mother. Alhamdulillah (Blessed be Allah Almighty!) that in none of these situations her children were harmed.
However, after your tent caught fire, it was extremely difficult to get a new one so, practically, you were left homeless, at the Mercy of Allah Almighty and your fellow Muslim Sisters. Moreover, in most cases, all of your personal belongings were destroyed, so you had to buy new things (clothes, hygiene products, food) all over again. After the second fire, this Muslim Sister did not receive a new tent from the Guards, so she had to search for ways to buy a new one, and endeavor which, most often than not, proves to be nearly impossible.
I have witnessed a great deal of devastating fires during my time inside the camp and many other less serious one. They leave you with feelings of fear, anxieties and worries which are hard to describe in plain words. The events in themselves might fade from your memory as time passes and you start to feel safe and protected in your new life somewhere else, but all those sensations you felt during a fire stay with you forever, as a dark shadow that looms over your, disturbs your sleep and your peace of mind sometimes.
Since I has left the camp I ask Allah daily to ease the pain felt during such trials by Muslim Sisters and myself, to help us heal from our traumas, if we cannot forget them, to alleviate our anxieties and surpass our hardships. We cannot change the past, but with the help and guidance of Allah Almighty we can reshape our future and fill with Faith, Peace and Harmony.
Asira
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