Nights inside the camp

I always loved the night. I loved the stars shining in the blue sky, during the dark nights. But since I have become a refugee and a resident of a refugee camp, I have realized that not all nights are beautiful. The beauty of the days and nights depends on each one’s situation. I used to love the night, when I was at home feeling secured and being at peace and when  I could lie down on my warm bed and watch the sky through a small window. But now, I’m looking at the sky through a net covering a small window, with the fear and the anxiety, the horror that overtakes me when it gets dark. I don’t find any beauty in the nights anymore. The stars are not shining and they don’t twinkle to me. They look sad and quiet. When the night falls, I feel deeply alone like someone lost in an endless desert. I’m calling for help and nobody hears my voice. Last summer my nights were the longest, warmest and hardest I have ever experienced, and now I am experiencing the coldest and the most fearful winter ones. 

As it gets darker, a thick silence covers the camp and scares me to death. The hoot of the owls adds more fear to my heart. In our culture the owl is a portend. Then the wind blows and I feel it’s going to take our last shelter away. Everything is so dark during the nights. The nights in the camp are like a graveyard full of graves. I feel as if I was buried alive in a place so small that I cannot even breathe. 

I used to like rainy nights. I also used to like walking under the rain, but I don’t like it anymore. I knew that after walking under the rain on a cold night, there would be a warm home, a glass of tasty tea waiting for me. Now my nights pass with nothing but the hope of the next morning. 

I hope I can enjoy the beautiful summer nights again, I hope that one day I will have a  roof to protect me, a roof made of stone and not of cloth that is shaking all the time and scares me. I hope that someday I will be looking to the flames of our fireplace, and I will remember all these dreadful nights, and I will wipe off the bitterness of these memories with a portion of sweet hot tea.